Talk:Whangamata

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1 Shibboleth
2 A "Very Safe" Region
3 Donut Island
4 Marina

[edit] Shibboleth

It's a bit ironic that the paragraph which is included presumably to clarify pronunciation uses rhymes to explain pronunciation. I imagine these descriptions come from a New Zealander, but that won't necessarily help an American, etc. English speaker to pronounce the word. --Theodore Kloba 15:39, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

You're right in that I can see how it's confusing. I don't know how you'd go about making it clearer though, unless you wanted to trudge through phonetic alphabets. The comparison between 'mata'/'MAT-er' and 'mata'/'mahTAH' seems to be fairly well described. --Dom 05:30, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A "Very Safe" Region

Have you noticed the many times that the word "safe" appears, along with "extremely" or "very" preceding it?...about 3 times in the same paragraph. I assume that it was definitely written by either a sarcastic person or a person depending on tourism or residence in Whangamata. The word "safe" can be used once to describe the character of Whangamata, especially when readers may think that there have been disputes about the safety there.Cosmicwaterfall 23:00, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Donut Island

I am a frequent visitor of Whangamata myself, and I have never heard Whenuakura Is. referred to as "Donut" Island, but I have often heard of it referred to as "Middle" Island. I have also heard that there are still tuatara on the island.

"Donut" sounds - and looks - rather un-Kiwi. However, Hamilton Maps gives this alternative name to Whenuakura. There is a downloadable map in pdf format at http://www.hamiltonmaps.co.nz/othermaps/whangamata.pdf

As a point of interest, the island used to be known locally as Rabbit Island - perhaps because of the many burrows were shared by shearwater and tuatara that are there. I have not attempted to locate all the Rabbit Islands that exist around the NZ coast, along with the multitude of Bird Islands and Goat Islands!

Kawhai (talk) 02:34, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Marina

Could someone with a little knowledge on the Whangamata marina issue add a little to the article? I've also added a photo request, hopefully someone living nearby can upload something appropriate, like a view of the beach and nearby islands for example. Richard001 05:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)