Dominating the district now known as Portland, is Tikorangi Mountain. Now denuded of all vegetation, it exposes its bald, grey, lime head for all to see. Until about 1912, when it was purchased by Wilsons Portland Cement Company, this hill was green and beautiful, and gave its name Tikorangi to the surrounding district.
According to the local Maori authorities, Tikorangi was so named because of white, jelly-like balls about six inches in diameter, that used to be found on the mountain. They did not last very long but melted away. Mr Harry Pitman says that in the early 1900's when he was a boy he had kicked these balls and watched them disintegrate.
The Maoris claimed that these jelly-like balls, which sometimes were marked with stripes, fell from the skies, and so they called the mountain Tikorangi, (tiko = I settle upon, as frost does, and rangi = sky.
Reference: Florence Keene, Tai Tokerau, Northland Room, Whangarei Library