In the Crater of a Volcano

Last week we spent three days in and around Lyttelton Harbour because some friends from the US were visiting friends of theirs in Lyttelton. The harbor (I'm going to spell it the American way intermittently) is the crater of a very old volcano which collapsed in the direction of the sea. The old volcano is remarkable not just for the beautiful harbor, but because it is the only hilly part of the Canterbury Plains. Christchurch, by far the largest city on the South Island, is located in the middle of the Canterbury Plains, which stretch 110 miles along the east side of the middle of the South Island. The plains average 25 miles wide. They are prime agricultural land and they are really flat. Christchurch (which we abbreviate Chch here in NZ) is not the most scenic city because it's so flat, and it looks so different than Dunedin, which is five hours away and extremely hilly. The old volcano that created Lyttelton Harbour was an offshore island not that long ago, but the silt carried downstream by rivers in the Canterbury Plains eventually connected the volcano with the plains, so now the volcano sits like a lump attached to the east side of the Plains. The town of Lyttelton is the port for Chch and is connected to Chch by a tunnel through the side of the volcano's hill. Here are two photos of the town of Lyttelton. The first one is taken from a good distance away, but you can see the cranes for container shipping and the mouth of the harbor leading to open ocean.



Dave was most fascinated by the castle-like building in Lyttelton, which is called the Lyttleton Timeball Station. You can see it in the distance at the top of the hill in the next photo.

Below is a closer view. Note the red and black ball at the bottom of the metal post on the roof. The building was built in 1875 and was used to help ships navigate. The ball drops every day from the top of the metal post to the bottom at 1 p.m. to the second. Before ships started using radio for navigation in 1934, sailors needed to know the exact time in order to determine longitude. From the time this building was built, it was linked by telegraph to an observatory in Wellington, which would send a signal at exactly 1 p.m. every day so the ball could drop on time. Sailors could then check the accuracy of their clocks. Dave spent a couple happy hours in the Timeball Station Museum learning how the system worked. (Those of you who are observant of details will notice that the photo below was taken after 1 p.m. and the photo above was taken before 1 p.m. In the photo above, the ball is at the top of the post.)

We drove all around Lyttleton Harbour, which takes almost an hour one way, and we took a ride on a tugboat out to the mouth of the harbor. Here are a few views of the harbor from different angles. In addition to Lyttleton, there are several small towns around the harbor, as you'll see. We were there three days, and one of them was clear and sunny. All these pictures were taken on the sunny day. The other two days were misty and cloudy, which made the hills pretty to look at in a different way, but harder to get good photos.

I've written before that I love the trees here. I've got two tree pictures to show you from our trip to Lyttleton Harbour. The first one is a Pohutukawa. These trees are native to the North Island but are planted here and there on the South Island. They are related to the Southern Rata (same genus, different species), which I photographed in early January and which also blooms with red flowers. Pohutukawa blossoms are brighter and concentrated in tighter clusters than the Southern Ratas. These trees are so dramatic.

We couldn't figure out what these silver trees are, but we thought they were so pretty against the golden hills.

And, last but not least, here's a photo of Dave and me on the Lyttelton tugboat. Still happy to be in New Zealand.