NEW ZEALAND LIGHTHOUSES

Cape Maria van Diemen (1879-1941)

Located on Motuopao Island 

Cape Maria van Diemen and Motuopao Island 

View from Cape Reinga, Cape Maria van Diemen and Motuopao Island 

 Automatic light, now located on Cape Maria van Diemen                   View from Te Werahi Beach  

Photo courtesy of MSA.

Landing stores for the Cape Maria Van Diemen lighthouse, 1930s

Reference Number: 1/4-018400-G

Landing stores from the ship "Matai" for the Cape Maria Van Diemen lighthouse. Shows a group on a circular platform with ladders (below the lighthouse?) on the edge of a rocky outcrop. Stores are being winched from a row boat in the water below. The "Matai" is a short distance offshore.

http://mp.natlib.govt.nz/detail/?id=37461

Google has a satellite view.  

Cape Maria van Diemen, facing the Tasman Sea, is the westernmost of the three points of land at the northern end of New Zealand, the other two being Cape Reinga and North Cape. 

The cape was named by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1642 ³  January, 1643 ^{10  15}  after the wife of Anthony van Diemen, then Governor General of Batavia, Dutch East Indies, now known as Jakarta, Indonesia. ^{3  15}

Motuopoa Island lies 1/2 mile (200m) off the cape, and consists of 84 acres of mostly sand dudes. ³

Tasman also named the Three Kings group of islands on January 6, 1643. Tasman anchored at the islands when searching for water and as it was the twelfth night feast of the Epiphany, the day the three wise men visited baby Jesus, he named the islands the Three Kings. ¹⁵  These are the only two geographic features in New Zealand to retain the names given to them by Abel Tasman. ¹⁵

Over 120 wrecks have occurred in the waters of Northland with a fair number of those in the waters surrounding Cape Reinga and Cape Maria van Diemen. In 1854 the Beacons and Lighthouse Committee recommended a lighthouse for either Cape Maria van Diemen or Cape Reinga and again by the Marine Department in 1863-5. An alternative suggestion was made in 1873 that the lighthouse should be erected at North Cape. ¹⁰

In 1874, Nautical Advisor, Captain Johnson, surveyed the North Island for possible lighthouse sites aboard the government ship Luna. He reported back to the commissioner of customs in Auckland the following  "owing to a report that Cape Reinga would offer a good site for a light, the Luna after leaving Cape Maria, proceeded thither; on arrival we found a landing difficult, although the weather was fine. The height of the cape proved to be 456 ft, far too great a height in my opinion for a light ... I therefore came to the conclusion that Cape Reinga was not so suitable a position for a light as the island laying off Cape Maria van Diemen."  ⁴  

So a lighthouse was proposed on Motuopao Island off of Cape Maria van Diemen in preference to Cape Reinga or North Cape, since it had a wider arc of visibility and easier access by water. ¹⁰

By July, 1875, a sight had been selected and the lighting apparatus had been ordered from the England. ^a  The Government acquired the land for the lighthouse reserve by extinguishing the title of its Maori owners ¹⁰  In 1876,  the apparatus, including an eight-panel Fresnel lens system, made in France, was shipped to New Zealand on board the Arari. ¹⁰

A work party began construction in August 1877.  The Government steamer Stella shipped materials that were landed on the beach. Soon a derrick was built for hoisting equipment ashore and a tramway was laid up to the lighthouse work site. ¹⁰

The wooden lighthouse was built on a concrete base at the northern end of the island at an elevation of 300 ft  (91m). The lantern room was fitted with a revolving light that flashed every minute with a range of 40 km. A small separate fixed light displayed a red sector over Columbia Reef, a rocky outcrop from the island. The total cost for the lighthouse and three keepers houses was £7028 14s. 8d. ³

The lighthouse was designed by John Blackett and was identical to the Centre Island Lighthouse in Foveaux Strait that was built and lit in September, 1878. ¹⁰  It was a two storied octagonal wooden tower, with an internal staircase connecting the two levels. The upper room housed the clockwork machinery necessary to rotate the lamp, the machinery was connected to weights attached to ropes dropping down through the lower level to a well in the ground floor foundation. The lower level would have been used for storage. The main framing is believed to be Australian ironwood, the exterior was kauri weatherboards. An external iron ladder gave access to a platform around the perimeter of the structure, which would have been used to clean and maintain the glass and the lantern. ¹⁰

Three houses were built on the Island for the Principal Keeper and two Assistant Keepers and their families. The houses were set on terraces on the northern face of the hill with the Principal Keepers house near the lighthouse at the top. ¹⁰

The light was lit on March 24, 1879 ^{10  16}  1878. ^{2  3}    The first principal keeper was John Wheeler, with assistants Robert Wilson and Charles Gibbons. ¹⁰

The three keepers and their families struggled to live on the island. The 200m stretch of water between the mainland and the island was extremely dangerous with very strong currents and unexpected wave surges. Two people drowned while crossing this passage. ¹³  Drinking water was scarce, dependant only on rainfall.  For food, fish was plentiful and goats supplied milk and occasionally meat. As the island was mainly sand, westerly winds were dreaded as it would blow the sand against the houses, sometimes as high as the windows. After the storm the keepers had to shovel this away. ³

The island was serviced every three months by the Government steamers, Stella and Tutanekei and later by the Hinemoa. Supplies were landed on the sheltered side of the island and winched off the ships to a landing area. ³  In 1880, heavy sea damaged the landing area and tramway. ¹⁰

Samuel Yates from Parengarenga provided a somewhat erratic mail service dependant on fine weather for the keepers to cross the channel in their whaleboat to meet him. ¹⁰  Later to aid in the landing of supplies and personnel an aerial cable was installed in 1886 ¹  between the cape and the island. ²  

Supplies were also hauled by dray overland from Kaitaia then winched across on the cable. ²  One of the early lighthouse keepers was Tom Smith, he and his family arrived in 1918.  On the day they arrived the sea was too rough to land on the island so they were put ashore on the mainland. They then hauled their belongings over the sand hills to the aerial cable. While Mrs. Smith, a daughter and their six week old baby were being winched across on the cable, the wind intensified and the cage they sat in started to swing uncontrollably until it jammed in the middle of the cable.  There they remained suspended in the storm until it subsided two hours later and they could once gain operate the winch. ³

In November of 1894, the Government approved expenditure of £3300 for a fog signal to be installed at the lighthouse. They also asked the Post Master General to investigate the feasibility of a telephone line linking the island to the mainland. ^b

In 1895 the Post and Telegraph Department ran a wire connecting the lighthouse to Awanui. The telephone exchange was attached to the principal keeper's house and included a small post office, one of the smallest in the country. ¹⁰

In 1903 due the constant sand drifts, one of the houses was replaced. After storm damage in 1908, a new landing terminal was blasted out of the rock face and the tramway re-routed along a higher cliffside cutting. Also in 1908 the l¹⁰ 

The Assistants Keeper's houses at the lower end of the hill were subjected to the worst sand drifts so in 1921-22 two new houses were built across the valley, on the southern hill. ¹⁰

DIRECTIONS:

From the Cape Reinga car park, take the track down to Te Werahi beach, walk along the beach to the Cape Maria van Diemen turnoff (1 hr 45 min). The walk out to the cape is another 1 hr 30 min return trip.

Motuopao Island is a scientific reserve and only open to DOC staff.

See DOC walking tracks.

* Present tower.

Sources

Additional Sources:

^b. Star, November 26th, 1894

^c. Otago Witness, February 17th, 1909

^d. Hawera & Normanby Star, August 1, 1910

^e. 

^f. 

Text and photographs. Copyright © 1999-2009  Mark Phillips. All rights reserved.

If anyone has any information on this light please contact me. thekiwimark@msn.com

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