New Zealand - Ohakune - Ruapehu College - KIWI DT - 1991 Do you have more information about the school or the people in this photo? Please use the comment section below to share. To search for other photos from this school, please type the schools name in to our search engine. Ohakune - 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 Māori language name Ōhakune is "the place of" (Ō) "the careful ones" (hakune). 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 Maungarongo and established a pā on the present site of the town of Ohakune. - In 1883, the first engineering reconnaissance commenced for the Marton—Te Awamutu section of the North Island Main Trunk Railway and a base was established upon the present site of Ohakune, and soon became a permanent camp for railway and road construction workers. Settlement of the town is considered to have commenced in the early 1890s and by March 1908 the railway line had reached Ohakune. The period of railway construction activities was followed quickly by intensive timber milling; as the forest was cleared, cattle and sheep were introduced and farming progressed. Ohakune was constituted a town district in August 1908 and in November 1911 attained borough status. - In 2015, the town received national publicity after schools were placed in lockdown due to the police being shot at and rammed. - Ohakune has two marae. Maungārongo Marae and Tikaraina Ringapoto or Ko Te Kingi o Te Maungārongo meeting house is a meeting place of the Ngāti Rangi hapū of Ngāti Tui-o-Nuku. Ngā Mōkai Marae and Whakarongo meeting house are a meeting place of the Ngāti Rangi hapū of Ngāti Tongaiti. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohakune)