Notes:

Taihape: a farming town in the Rangitikei District in the North Island of New Zealand (pop. 2000 as of 2006), “the Gumboot Capital of the World!”

“Trespassing Tapus”: in Maori culture, tapu denotes a state of sacredness, which is protected by a complex system of restrictions and prohibitions. Rose is using the word here incorrectly, as was common among European New Zealanders of his era, effectively treating it as synonymous with the English word “Taboo” (which dates back to Captain James Cook’s encounter with the Polynesian concept of tapu in the late eighteenth century).

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