Tuesday January 7th, 2014. Opoutere, The Coromandel Peninsula, North Island, New Zealand Opoutere is a locality and beach on the eastern side of the Coromandel Peninsula. It lies to the east of State Highway 25, south of Pauanui and north of Whangamata. The Wharekawa Harbour lies to the south east at the southern end of Opoutere Beach. The name "Opoutere" means "place of floating posts" in Maori. The first known settlers of the area were the Ngati Hei tribe. They were supplanted by the Ngati Hako tribe in the mid 17th century, but Nga Puhi raids during the Musket Wars of the early 19th century left the area without a permanent population. In the 1870s and 1880s, gold prospectors staked claims on quartz outcrops around the Wharekewa Harbour, resulting in half a dozen major gold strikes,
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