Tīnui

Tinui is a small village aproximately 40 kilometres from Masterton, in the Wairarapa, New Zealand. The name Tinui comes from the Maori words ti, meaning Cabbage Tree and nui, meaning many. While the actual village of Tinui is small, consisting of only two streets, Charles Street and Blackhill Road, the village serves as the centre of the wider Tinui farming area, with:

The Cabbage Tree, Tinui School's logo.

• Tinui War Memorial Hall
• Tinui Primary School
• Craft Shop
• Tinui General Store
• Tinui Hotel
• Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd
• Volunteer Rural fire station

School

Tinui Primary School is a small country school serving the entire Mangapakeha, Tinui, Annedale, Tinui Valley, Whakataki, Castlepoint and Mataikona areas. It is a decile 9 state school and has approximately 60 pupils.

History

Tinui was the first place in New Zealand to have an ANZAC Day service, when the then vicar led an expedition to place a large wooden cross on the Tinui Taipos (a 1200ft high large hill/mountain, behind the village) in April 1916 to commemorate the dead. A service was held on the 25th of April of that year. In 2006 the 90th Anniversary of the event was celebrated with a full twenty-one gun salute fired at the service by soldiers from the army base in Waiouru.

Tinui, being on the river flats next to a junction of the Whareama River and the Tinui Stream, has been flooded often; the first being recorded in 1858 when water covered the river flats. In 1936 floods caused thousands of sheep to drown and floodwaters reached a depth of 450mm inside the Tinui Hotel. The 1991 floods devastated the town when 200mm of rain fell over a 24 hour period, and just a year later, in July 1992 the river flooded again.

• 
  The Tinui Hotel
• 
  A view of The Church of the Good Shepherd
• 
  Annedale Road under water during the July 1992 flood

References

• List of schools in Wellington, New Zealand
• Wairarapa
• The Reed Dictionary of New Zealand Place Names A.W. Reed 2002 ISBN 0-7900-0761-4
• After the rains came : The Tinui Flood of April 1991Compiled by Cathy Casey. Masterton District Library, 1996. ISBN 0-473-03793-9
• nzhistory.net
• Wairarapa Times Age