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Queen Charlotte Sound
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At the head of Queen Charlotte
Sound lies the South Island rail terminal and the port of Picton, whence
launches run to most parts of the Sound. The well-known holiday hotel at The
Portage is on Kenepuru Sound and is accessible by road, but is most easily
reached by launch from Picton. The Portage is so named as it was here that
canoes were carried across a narrow neck of land to save a longer journey by
sea. The inter-island car-rail ferries from Wellington enter the Sound by
way of Tory Channel. |
Tory Channel
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John Guard's schooner Waterloo
was trading with the Maori in 1827 when a violent storm drove it into Te
Awaiti Bay. From a hill there Guard saw whales passing close to shore and
within months was back to establish the country's first bay-whaling station.
Success was spectacular (in 1830 alone he made a profit of over £20,000),
but triple disaster struck the transported Londoner when the Waterloo was
wrecked, his second whaling station at Port Underwood plundered, and then
his second vessel, the Harriet, wrecked on the Taranaki coast. After a
bloody encounter in which his wife was rescued from Maori who had killed and
eaten other crew members, Guard established himself on land bought from Te
Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata at Kakapo Bay, where his descendants still
live.
When the Tory arrived in 1839 with the advance party from the New Zealand
Company, the settlement at Te Awaiti, probably the oldest European
settlement in the South Island, was also the largest. It was Guard who
piloted the Tory through the Sounds while Colonel Wakefield inspected
possible sites for settlement.
Whaling continued from the area until 1964. Buildings and tanks associated
with the enterprise still stand in neighbouring Whekenui, the bay where in
legend Kupe finally slew the octopus. |
Ship Cove
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Ship Cove: There are few spots as
historic as the bay to which Cook came on no fewer than five occasions; the
hills were then heavily bushed, the stream sparkling clear and at dawn the
bellbirds, wrote Joseph Banks, "seemed to strain their throats with
emulation, and made, perhaps, the most melodious wild music I have ever
heard". So glowing were Cook's accounts of this, his favourite place, that
for half a century Europeans thought of New Zealand in terms of Queen
Charlotte Sound. It was across on Motuara Island that Cook hoisted the Union
Jack, the first potatoes to be planted in New Zealand were planted here, and
liberations were made of pigs and goats "so that we have reason to hope this
country will, in time, be stocked with these animals". In 1820 a Russian
expedition with the Vostock and the Mirnyi stayed here for nine days,
exploring and studying the customs of the Maori for Emperor Alexander I. A
memorial to Cook at Ship Cove is flanked by cannon presented by the British
Admiralty. There are picnic facilities on the reserve here. Sea or walkway
access only. Visited by passenger launches from Picton.
At neighbouring Cannibal Cove, Cook's suspicions of the practice of
cannibalism among the Maori were confirmed: "There was not one of us but had
the least doubt but what this people were Canabals but the finding this Bone
with part of the sinews fresh upon it was a stronger proof than any we had
yet met with, and in order to be fully satisfied of the truth of what they
had told us, we told one of them that it was not the bone of a man but that
of a Dog but he with great fervency took hold of his fore-arm and told us
again that it was that bone and to convence us that they had ate the flesh
he took hold of the flesh of his own arm with his teeth and made shew of
eating." |
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