New Zealand - Ohakune - A view of Ohakune East, showing the snow-capped Mount Ruapehu in the distance. - 7/6/1923 - Unknown Photographer - Originally published in "The Weekly News" #336819 Ohakune - Ohakune is located at the southern end of the Tongariro National Park, close to the southwestern slopes of the active volcano Mount Ruapehu. - Historically, the lands to the south and west of Mount Ruapehu were inhabited by the Māori of the Ngāti Rangi iwi. The meaning of the name Ōhākune in the Māori language is "the place of" (Ō) "the careful ones" (hākune). - Around the middle of the seventeenth century a marae at Rangataua, a small town about 3 miles south-east of Ohakune, was attacked and the inhabitants were driven from their homes by raiders from the Ngāti Raukawa, an iwi from farther east in Manawatu. Around 75 of the village's population were slain and the dozen or so survivors fled to Mangaorongo and established a pā on the present site of the town of Ohakune. - On the eastern edge of the town there is a large replica of a carrot, known as "The Big Carrot". This is reputedly the world's largest model carrot, and was originally constructed as a prop for a television advertisement for the ANZ Bank in the early 1980s. After filming was complete, the carrot was donated to the town in recognition of the area's reputation as the source of a high proportion of New Zealand's carrots, and installed in its current position in 1984.