Taputeranga Marine Reserve and Wright’s Hill
Combined SWTC / MTC trip, Sunday 2 February 2025.
With a forecast for 20 knots from the south and little swell, Tim Walshe of Island Bay Divers emailed that we should be fine to go, and so it proved.
Tim has been running his business on The Parade, a mecca for the diving fraternity, since the 1980s. He kitted us out with flippers, snorkels, and masks and for two, wet suits (John struggled into his own, bought in 1984). Tim then directed us to a sheltered lagoon a few hundred metres down the road, explaining that we were about to go tramping in a sample of what covers 70% of Earth’s surface.
Taking to the water, we were pleased to cool off to a comfortable temperature. John had a worrying moment when he lost a flipper, but struggled to a rock where Ross came to his rescue.
Josh and Ross saw crayfish. The highlight for John was to explore the undersea forest of brown Cystophora, Carpophyllum and Landsburgia with a carpet of green Ulva, with many more fish life than on his two dives here in the 1980s, before this became a marine reserve.
After returning the gear to Tim, we lunched in Shorland Park and visited the Island Bay Marine Education Centre Bait House Aquarium, which was full of excited children supervised by a watchful octopus.
We topped off the day with a short walk on Wrights Hill, Karori, where one of the gun pits has been excavated.
The Heritage New Zealand / Pouhere Taonga website
details/7543/Wrights%20Hill%20Fortress) says:
First conceived of in 1934, the enormous costs involved in its construction caused the continuous delay of the project until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 made defence a top priority … . Designed to combat the threat posed by hostile cruisers carrying 8 and 11-inch armaments, the 9.2-inch battery … provided cover for the Cook Strait and the Wellington harbour entrance.
The battery was conceived of as a three-gun emplacement, complete with magazines, pump chambers, war shelters, engine and plotting rooms and a miniature range building. … Intensive construction was carried out from 1942 but slowed as the balance of power shifted to favour the Allies from late 1943. The site was completed in a modified form in 1944, and its two guns were first tested in 1946, a year after the
end of the war.
… All work on the complex ceased by 1949, and it was officially abandoned in 1957. Much of the equipment was removed in the early 1960s … The Karori Lions Club began a cleanup of the area and in 1989 it was made a recreation reserve. In 1992 a society was formed to protect and restore the site and it remains an important and recognised part of New Zealand's military history.
Many thanks to Ross for providing transport.
Ross A, Josh O and John R.
