Launching...

...there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. (Ratty in Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows).

When I was writing Head of the Harbour: A history of Governors Bay, Ōhinetahi, Allandale and Teddington, I found the section on jetties particularly intriguing. Today there is one 'intact' jetty at the head of Whakaraupo/Lyttelton Harbour. Once there were at least seven. Before reasonable road transport - or any roads at all - the sea was a highway on which Māori and early European settlers depended. A jetty marked the point of transition between sea and land. It also denoted settlement, a degree of permanence. Yet jetties themselves were, and are, anything but permanent. All around the harbour there are the visible remnants of abandoned, decaying jetties. Many more have long been swallowed by the sea. This blog is a place where I can share further explore Lyttelton Harbour jetties past and present and where I hope others might add their own knowledge/experiences/images...

Steam pinnace Canterbury at Governors Bay c. 1905, FC Bishop collection, Canterbury Museum