Lyttelton – Ōhinehou

• Lyttelton is a port town located on the west side of Banks Peninsula, approximately 20 minutes’ drive from Christchurch’s city centre, with an operating ferry transporting people from Lyttelton to Diamond Harbour daily.
• A home for Māori for about 700 years, Lyttelton Harbour was discovered by European voyagers passing by on 16 February 1770 during the Endeavour’s first voyage to New Zealand.
• In August 1849 it was officially proclaimed a port. Pilgrim’s Rock shows the place where European settlers first set foot in the harbour. The present location of the rock is well inland from the sea, as much of Lyttelton’s dockside has been reclaimed from the harbour waters in recent years.
• Lyttelton was formerly called Port Cooper (after Daniel Cooper) the name Lyttelton was given to it in honour of George William Lyttelton of the Canterbury Association, which had led the colonisation of the area.
• On 1 July 1862, the first telegraph transmission in New Zealand was made from Lyttelton Post Office.
• The rail tunnel providing rail access between Christchurch and Lyttelton opened in 1867, with the road tunnel for easier vehicle access opening nearly a century later in 1964.
• The Lyttelton Timeball Station was erected in 1876 and started signalling Greenwich Mean Time to ships in the harbour that year. It was one of the world’s five working timeball stations until it was destroyed by the June 2011 Christchurch earthquake.
• The Discovery (1901) and Terra Nova (1910) Antarctic expeditions led by Robert Falcon Scott and Nimrod (1908) Antarctic expedition headed by Ernest Shackleton left from the harbour here on their way south.