Karitane by the Sea - Whalers, Traders and Fishermen

John H. Brock’s delightful painting of the old wharf and store at Karitane Beach in 1923 touches on the history, commerce and seaside holidays that are all part of the Karitane story. (Hocken Library, 24.052.)

Karitane is a little township and fishing port at the mouth of the Waikouaiti River on the coast north of Dunedin. Outside the area the name Karitane probably conjures up images of babies and association with Sir Truby King, the founder of the Plunket movement. While Karitane By the Sea does bring out the role of Sir Truby King in the development of fishing at Karitane, and of the township itself, this story is focused on the more than 170 years of shipping through the Port of Waikouaiti.

The First World War has entered its fourth horrendous year, and ships are mysteriously disappearing off the coasts of Australia and New Zealand. A young Australian woman named Mary Cameron is sailing with her husband and daughter from San Francisco  to Sydney when, less than a thousand miles from their destination, a black-hulled freighter appears out of the vast blue emptiness. It is the first ship they have seen in nearly two months, and Mary and her daughter rush to the deck to greet her. Suddenly, two hinged iron sections of the freighter’s bulwarks drop down to reveal she is bristling with guns. She is in fact the German warship the Wolf, and the Camerons are about to find themselves captive on one of the century’s most extraordinary wartime sea voyages.

A new book by Lynton Diggle, released in October 2009, features the most recent research on N.Z. shipwrecks. 130 pages lavishly illustrated in colour and includes many wrecks and images previously unpublished.

This book builds on years of research that produced the 8th edition of New Zealand Shipwrecks which, due to the inclusion of some 175 new shipwrecks and word restrictions, much additional information on known shipwrecks was not included. This Companion edition addresses that and adds yet another 86 new wrecks, most previously not recorded. Side-scan and magnetometer images of the Boyd provide the first ‘look’ at this infamous 1809 wreck and a recently discovered letter, written in 1842 by a survivor, describes in graphic detail the wreck of the Falcon at Maketu in 1840.

While the book is essentially maritime history, it also gives an insight into our early social history, such as the entry for the Volunteer wrecked in 1865 at the Fox River, where ‘A sailor, dead for seven summer days was placed on the bar room floor of Kelly’s hotel awaiting the coroner. The patrons continued drinking, one even astride the body. ….’

"We’ve shared some of the best moments of our lives with the river, and some of the worst. The river has been our home for the last 82 days, just as the muddy trickle we’re contemplating is home and livelihood to millions of people between Rwanda and the Mediterranean, and as it has been the sustainer of countless generations stretching back to remote antiquity.

We’ve shared the passion of the early explorers — Burton, Speke, Grant, Livingstone, Stanley and the Bakers — and like them, we’ve endured desperate hardships, and passed through fire, water and fear to ‘settle the Source’. None of them can have felt more exhilarated upon glimpsing the object of their heart’s desire.