Wellington - Mt. Victoria

This day our first stop was Mt Victoria.  In Māori it has to different names, Tangi Te Keo and Matairangi. This photo shows the area where it is located. Our hotel was actually at the foot of Mt Victoria on the harbor side.  This photo will help you see in which direction the following photos were taken.

Mount Victoria is a 643' high hill directly to the east of Wellington city center.  There is a road almost to the top so there wasn't much climbing to do.  This photo taken to the southeast as you can see some of the airport and Lyall Bay. 

Looking out over Wellington Harbor to the northwest.

Looking east. 

 

There were a lot of information panels but many of them were either faded out or defaced.  These first few are of the Māori and their legends of the area.  You might have to click on them to enlarge for reading. 

This is the story of one of the Maori legends about the creation of the area. Some of the following photos are close ups of this panel. 

Photo of isthmus. 

European history of the area. 

The photographs on the panel are hard to see so I am putting this diagram here so you can see the changes, by year, of the shoreline. 

1878.  Te Aro foreshore, to the left, is too shallow for shipping and is a natural target for reclamation. 

1912. Land has already been reclaimed each end of Te Aro foreshore for wharves.  Now the shallow area alongside the gasworks is being filled in.

1940s.  The Herd Street Post Office towers over the reclamation of 1912.

2005. The bay behind the old Herd Street Post Office now accommodates the National Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa, and an extensive container terminal dominates the northern fringe of the port. 

Before the days of radio or telephone news of a ship approaching Wellington Harbour was relayed to the city by signals rise on masts.  Wellington's first signal station (1845) was on Mt. Albert, above Newtown with distant views of both the harbour entrance and the town.  In bad weather communications were difficult, however, after 20 years this was replaced by two new signal stations: Beacon Hill and Mt Victoria.
Beacon Hill signal station, first staffed in 1866, was a primitive affair for a while.  The fire was lit as a signal and, in wet weather, the signalman used nothing or than a barrel to shelter in. Before long he had a proper house and a mast for raising the black metal symbols that described what kind of vessel was approaching. 
The signalman at Mt Victoria would hoist the same symbols which could be read by the watchman down on the wharves and also by the watchman at Old Government House in Thorndon, where there was another mast, the final link in the chain.