page_title: Lyttelton Harbour
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Lyttelton Harbour / History
caption_attribution_description: Lyttelton Harbour (Otamahua / Quail Island right of center).
context_page_description: Lyttelton Harbour / Whakaraupō is one of two major inlets in Banks Peninsula, on the coast of Canterbury, New Zealand; the other is Akaroa Harbour on the southern coast.
  It enters from the northern coast of the peninsula, heading in a predominantly westerly direction.
  Approximately 15 kilometres in length from its mouth to Teddington, the harbour sits in the erosion caldera of the ancient Lyttelton Volcano, the steep sides of which form the Port Hills on its northern shore.
  The harbour's main population centre is Lyttelton, which serves the city of Christchurch, linked with Christchurch by the single-track Lyttelton rail tunnel, a two lane road tunnel and two roads over the Port Hills. Diamond Harbour lies to the south and the Māori village of Rāpaki to the west. At the head of the harbour is the settlement of Governors Bay. The reserve of Quail Island is near the harbour head and Ripapa Island is just off its south shore at the entrance to Purau Bay.
  The harbour provides access to a busy commercial port at Lyttelton which today includes a petroleum storage facility and a modern container and cargo terminal.
context_section_description: King Billy Island was a source of sandstone for Māori that was used for grinding stone including pounamu (greenstone). Early European settlers used the adjacent Quail Island as a leper colony in 1918–25. Quail Island is now a nature reserve.
  Fort Jervois was built on the island of Rīpapa in 1885–95. Rīpapa was used in World War I to intern German nationals as enemy aliens, the most notable being Count Felix von Luckner.
  In 1877 the Lyttelton Harbour Board (now Lyttelton Port Company) started building an inner harbour, and in 1895 the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand started a steamship service on the 200-nautical-mile (370 km) route between here and Wellington. From 1907 it was worked with turbine steamships and from 1933 it was named the "Steamer Express".
  However, in 1962 New Zealand Railways started the Interislander ferry service on the 55-nautical-mile (102 km) route between Picton and Wellington. This competing service not only offered a shorter crossing but also used diesel ships that had lower running costs than the Union Company's turbine steamers. The wreck of the Steamer Express TEV Wahine in 1968 was a setback for the Lyttelton service but the Union Company introduced a new ship, TEV Rangatira, in 1972. She lost money, survived on a Ministry of Transport subsidy from 1974 and was withdrawn in 1976, leaving the Interislander's Picton route to continue the ferry link between the two islands.
caption: View towards entrance of Lyttelton Harbour
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