NZ History

[trish]

napier was one of the first porrts opened in the 1700's. By port ahuriri they used smaller land boats to get them of the ships to land. is this true.

[Neill Atkinson]

Not in the 1700s. New Zealand's earliest 'port' in the European sense of the word was Kororareka in the Bay of Islands, which many whaling ships visited from around 1800. Some shore whalers based themselves in the Napier area in the early 1800s but the first permanent European settlers didn't arrive there until the mid-late 1840s. In 1855 the government declared Port Ahuriri (then called 'The Spit') an official 'Port of Entry' for customs purposes.

But yes it is correct that for many years when larger ships visited Napier they anchored offshore in the roadstead and their passengers and cargo were transferred to and from Port Ahuriri in surf boats or lighters. Only small vessels were able to cross the Ahuriri bar and tie up in the inner harbour, the Iron Pot. Because of this limitation, work began on an artificial harbour at the base of Bluff Hill in 1887. This became especially important after the earthquake ruined the old port and raised the Ahuriri lagoon in 1931. The present-day artificial harbour was completed in 1941.

[trish]

about the port of ahuririr in napier, I'm pretty sure that there was people there and the first ship was about 1790. one of the first ships was a twin masted, rounder bottom ship that was very small and only brought in about ten new families to the port. the boat that retrieved the passangers was a opened boats, that where rowed. and that most of the town was settled back in to the hills about onekawa area. there where only about two dozen houses and most of them where make shift dwelling. the maori's where well back in the hills and didn't come to the town at all, at the time as they saw the white people as tabo.

[christine liava'a]

No permanent European settlers were in NZ in the 1700s. The first ones arrived in the Bay of Islands in 1814. Neill's dates are correct.