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Waiouru is a small town in the centre of the North Island of New Zealand. It is on the North Island Volcanic Plateau, 25 kilometres south-east of Mount Ruapehu, and in the Ruapehu District. The main attraction of Waiouru is the Queen Elizabeth II Army Memorial Museum, opened in 1978, which features static displays of New Zealand's military heritage. The rest of the township consists of a small cluster of a police station, two garages, a petrol station/postal agency, a panel beater, two motels, a tavern and half a dozen cafe/restaurants spread along the highway. There are three unmanned diesel refueling sites for the 700+ big freight trucks that pass through Waiouru each day. Nearby are the yards of a roading contractor and a maintenance contractor. A grocery store, hairdresser and beautician are in the Army housing area two kilometres away, and a medical centre, public library, cafe and department store are inside the army camp. North of Waiouru is the section of State Highway 1 called the ''Desert Road''. This runs for 35 km through the Rangipo Desert to Turangi, at the southern end of Lake Taupo. Waiouru is a military town that has grown up in conjunction with the New Zealand Army Camp and the Training Group (ATG), which is responsible for the training of recruits and other soldiers. The Desert Road immediately north of Waiouru runs through the 870 km² army training area, which lies mainly to the east of the road. The Royal NZ Navy's Irirangi communications station with its huge antennae is 2 km north of Waiouru. Waiouru is on the North Island Main Trunk Railway, which came through in 1907. Waiouru Railway Station is the highest station (814 m) on the New Zealand rail system. The Overlander no longer (from April 2005) stops at Waiouru. Seven kilometres to the west of Waiouru is the small settlement of Tangiwai, the site of New Zealand's worst railway disaster. On 24 December 1953 the overnight express from Wellington to Auckland passed over Tangiwai railway bridge just after it had been weakened by a lahar from Mount Ruapehu. The bridge collapsed, sending the train into the Whangaehu River, killing 151 people. Many army and naval personnel were involved in the rescue of survivors and the recovery of bodies. Sister Mortimer of the Waiouru Camp Hospital, "The Angel of Tangiwai", worked non-stop for three days tending the survivors and laying out the bodies.〔Gregory 2003〕 ==History== Merino sheep were brought from Taupo in 1855 by missionary Tom Grace, to graze on the tussock lands in the Waiouru area. The flock was eaten by Te Kooti's warriors in 1869, and 4000 more merinos were brought over the mountains from Hawke's Bay. In England, the development of steam-powered machinery for making woolen cloth caused the price paid for raw wool to rise to £150 per ton, (about NZ$60 a kilo at today’s values). And Waiouru sat in the middle of the Murimotu plains, 60,000 hectares of tussock grassland, enough to graze 60,000 sheep, annually producing about 240 tons of wool worth £36,000 (with the buying power of NZ$14 million today) In 1871 the government sought to lease these tussock plains. It offered the Maori land-owners an annual rent of £3500, worth NZ $1.4 million today. But first, all the land-owning groups had to agree, and this caused great delays, as parts of the Murimotu plains had been used to gather wild-fowl by all the surrounding land-owners, Ngati Rangi (Karioi/Whanganui river) Te Ati Hau/Tuwharetoa (Taumarunui/Lake Taupo) and Ngati Whiti (Moawhango). The boundaries had already been sorted out back in 1850 at a huge hui chaired by Wanganui missionary Richard Taylor, with most of the Murimotu land being allotted to various hapu of Ngati Rangi, but no money was at stake back then, and in the intervening 20 years the Hauhau/Titokowaru/Te Kooti wars had been fought, creating new power groups and enmities, especially between the coastal Whanganui guerilla leader Major Kemp/Te Keepa and his upper river rival, Major Topia Turoa, and consequently numerous conflicting claims were put forward. In 1876, after five years of Land Court hearings at Wanganui, there was still no agreement. By 1877, one hundred and six claimant owners had signed the lease agreement, but the land had not been surveyed, so others still refused to sign.〔Archer 2009〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Waiouru」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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