Back in September 2020 Professor Joanna Kidman and I set out on a journey, in between Covid lockdowns and scares, to visit a number of sites associated with the Taranaki Wars – that endless series of brutal Crown invasions and attacks that began in March 1860 and continued for most of the decade. 

In the Nukumaru district, about a 25-minute drive north of Whanganui, we arrived at a place then called Maxwell. Not far past the small settlement we took a left turn up Nukumaru Station Road until we saw a small lake in the district, known as Lake Waikato, located on private land. We stopped and shot a short video of what we could see from the closest farm gate on the gravel road. We were travelling as part of field research for our ‘Difficult Histories’ project and had arrived at the unmarked location of a deadly and brutal attack on a group of Māori children.¹