HISTORY OF MYSTERY CREEK

THE HISTORY OF THE MYSTERY

As one of the biggest event centres in the country, the Waikato’s Mystery Creek Event Centre has seen its share of expos, field days, concerts, and conferences.

With 114 hectares and the picturesque Waikato River running alongside, it makes for an ideal venue for the annual NZMCA Motorhome, Caravan & Leisure Show. What better place to park up for a few days, catch up with old friends, and soak up an atmosphere of all things RV related?

But with a name like Mystery Creek, the question has to be asked… what is the mystery that led to the naming of the venue?

There are a few stories floating about behind the what actually happened, but it seems the most likely theory – and best documented – is that which surrounds Waikato war veteran Christian Hansen. The story was recounted in the 1975 book, Plough of the Pakeha: A Cambridge Regional History by Eric Beer and Alwyn Gascoigne. Fieldays in the early 80s

Hansen owned a farm section on the main route from Hamilton to Te Rore via Ohaupo. It was not unusual for strangers to knock on Hansen’s door asking for directions, and it was under this pretext that two men managed to enter his house on 18 December 1867, threaten him with a knife and take his savings of 21 gold sovereigns.

In an attempt to defend his wealth, Hansen grabbed for his loaded rifle – but not quite quickly enough. As he reached for his gun one of the men fired a shot, which hit Hansen in the wrist, before making off with the stash.

With his wrist bleeding profusely and in agonising pain, Hansen made his way to the nearest hotel, two miles away. A doctor from the Cambridge Military Hospital was sent for, but the news was grim. Hansen would need amputation – but worse still – with insufficient chloroform available, it would need to be done without anaesthesia.

Hansen had apparently kept his gold a well-guarded secret, so the first mystery of this story was how the two men knew of Christian’s hidden ⊲ A festival at Mystery Creek in the 2000s

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The centre during Fieldays

wealth. But an even greater mystery unfolded months later when a body was discovered in a nearby gully. Although the body was never identified, local investigators concluded that one of the thieves who took Hansen’s gold had strangled the other and taken off with the prized sovereigns.

Thankfully, the mysterious and somewhat grim past of the Mystery Creek location has been resigned to the history books. Today, the Mystery Creek Event Centre is home to some of New Zealand’s most popular annual and one-off events, each attracting thousands of eventgoers from across the country. 

One of the many concerts held at the centre OTHER MYSTERIOUS THEORIES

There are a few other theories surrounding the origin of how Mystery Creek was so named:

One such theory is that a beautiful white racehorse named Mystery vanished from the site after taking part in a race on the old course which was located at the top of the gully.

Another legend in the mix is that, while a troop of soldiers were crossing the gully during the early Waikato land wars, one of their members suddenly disappeared without trace, never to be seen again.

But it’s this recount that seems to hold most credit as an alternative theory: In mid-February of 1910, the Te Aroha Mail tells the story of a Cambridge resident who recalls seeing a commissariat wagon suddenly disappear over the bank of the creek. Two Irish soldiers then saw it reappear quickly afterwards climbing up the opposite bank. “How the bleezes did they do that?” asked one soldier of his mate. The other responded, “Divil the wan of me knows, ‘tis a mystery sure enough!”