Next Stop... Historic Cable Bay

Cable Bay... Not far south of Nelson, turn off SH 6 at Hira, along

8km of windy road to this lovely little camping site at the

historic Cable Station site. Very friendly helpful camp hosts

but no Internet reception... Except at the top of the hill...

 The drive in was windy but easy, as usual when travelling round

the sounds, beautiful views when I had time to look... Here the

tide's out and looking over the bay to the open sea in the distance.

 I squeezed past some road works that were building up and

reinforcing the side of the road that had fallen away...

 And I'm nearly there...

 It's a very tiny camping ground so it pays to book. Can you

see me squeezed in here...

 A nice little play area and very good clean toilets and showers.

 Just past the camp and over this ford which is quite a dip for low 

vehicles is the beach, all very stony... Quite good for swimming...

 The north/west end...

 The boulder bank which you can drive along and connects

to Pepin Island where there is a good hill walk.

 The name Cable Bay commemorates the time when this area

was the New Zealand terminal of the cable that first linked the

colony with the outside world. It was here on Thursday 17th

February, 1876, that the end of the cable which had taken

eleven days to lay across the Tasman Sea was pulled ashore.

Four days later, New Zealand had, for the first time, a direct

link with La Perouse, Sydney, and through Australia with

the United Kingdom.

Becauce a man named Schroder once sailed into this bay

in error, the locality was originnally known as Schroder's

Mistake, but the cable station itself was called Whakapuaka

which was the name given to the area by the Maoris.

The name was changed to Cable Bay in 1926

 The history and what Cable Bay looked like in its hey day.

 It was a large and active settlement comprising Post Office

telegraph staff, the Resident Agent of the Press
Association, and Eastern Extension Cable Company staff, 

and their families. Few visible signs now remain of 

the former Wakapuaka cable station.

In 1909 the Cable Company took over the operation of the 

internal telegraph  link and the Post Office staff and 

Press Association Agent were transferred away from the area. 

The cable station building was destroyed by fire in 1914 then 

the station was moved to the nearby Government mess building. 

The cable station continued to function at Wakapuaka until the

23rd August 1917 when it was closed and the cable 

was lifted and landed on the other side of Cook Strait 

at Titahi Bay, near Wellington