The Arrival of Steamships at Tauranga and the Challenges of the Mount Maunganui Channel

 Before the 1860s, visits by steamers seeking commercial cargoes at Tauranga were rare events. Between the 1840s and 1860s, the Tauranga-to-Auckland provisions trade had been dominated by local Māori waka fleets and Māori and Pākehā-Māori owned sailing ships. In March 1857, the little Auckland-based steamer Wonga Wonga made an exploratory visit to Tauranga with ‘sundries’ [1]. In February 1860, the SS White Swan visited while en route to Wellington [2]. However, steamers were not seen in Tauranga Harbour in numbers until the arrival of British and colonial troops in January 1864.

From the 1860s, the Bay of Plenty became an increasingly busy shipping zone, and despite the advent of steam-powered ships, it remained a hazardous maritime region. During Anglo-Māori tensions and fighting at Tauranga between 1864 and 1872, Imperial and colonial troops, stores, artillery and horses were landed from auxiliary-powered Royal Navy battleships and colonial government gunboat-steamers.

HMS Esk on guard duty in the Waitemata beside a prison hulk for Māori prisoners of war. Despite its auxiliary steam engine, the Esk ran aground on Stony Point Reef in April 1864.

The remarkable number of commercial steamers who accompanied them provided logistical support for the troops and, later, provisions, livestock and general necessities for the military settlers. They included the SS Storm Bird, Huntress, Lord Ashley, Clyde, Tauranga, Wellington, Taranaki, Go Ahead, Enterprise, Katikati, Egmont, Midge, Beautiful Star, Royal Alfred, Southern Cross, Rowena, and Glenelg [3]. 

Tauranga Harbour and the estuary ports, reefs, rocks and islands of the wider Bay of Plenty wrecked several of these steamers in later years. In the Bay, fog, sudden gales and longshore drift combined with narrow, shifting entrances, powerful tidal flows, limited navigational aids, and skippers anxious to ‘make the bar’, were to sink or wreck thousands of tons of shipping, both sail- and steam-powered.

Marked today by the statue of the sea god Tangaroa, Stony Point
Reef at the south end of the Maunganui Channel stranded and wrecked a variety
of sailing and steamships during the 1800s.

The first major step in providing regular steam-powered coastal transport to Tauranga came with the Bay of Plenty Steam Navigation Company. Formed locally in 1866, it deployed the newly built SS Tauranga. The New Zealand Steam Navigation Company placed the SS Storm Bird on the same Auckland – Tauranga – Ōpōtiki run soon after [4]. Critical maritime lifelines, they supported settler and Māori communities, and the expanding agricultural economies of the Bay of Plenty. A Tauranga Argus article in December 1866 emphasised the need for improved harbour facilities to support the regular steam services [5].

The long, open Coromandel and Bay of Plenty coastlines followed by steamers engaged in transporting troops and, later, commercial cargo between Auckland and Tauranga were beautiful, but deceptively dangerous. On calm days they could be struck suddenly by fierce easterly gales or heavy swells arising from storms occurring far out to sea. Meanwhile, beneath the surface, lay reefs, rocks and shoals. Steaming ahead during dense fog, the 443-ton SS Taranaki was wrecked on Karewā Island in 1878. Low-lying islands, like the Rurimas off Matatā, sank the SS Tasman during moderate weather in 1921. A hidden reef sank the 1,159-ton SS Manaia off Whakahau-Slipper Island during rain and mist one night in 1926.

On the 18 February 1879, the SS Taupō ran aground and was wrecked on Stony Point Reef.

Closer to Tauranga, the Mount Maunganui harbour entrance itself was a notorious trap, with the margin for error almost nonexistent. The outer bar shifted constantly, reshaped by tides, storms, and longshore drift. Steamers entering or exiting the channel were able to cross this bar without risk only when wind, tide and swell were suitable. Before dredging began, the channel twisted unpredictably, requiring steamer captains to align their approach with precision, despite poor visibility or while fighting powerful cross‑currents and winds, when approaching the channel entrance. 

Fierce, outgoing tides near Stony Point Reef, located near the base of Mount Maunganui at the southern end of the channel, temporarily trapped HMS Esk in April 1864 and wrecked the 464-ton SS Taupō in 1879. Attempting to negotiate the Maunganui Channel during a fierce gale in 1880, the 749 reg. ton SS Penguin was temporarily driven ashore on Matakana Island’s Panepane Beach.

The SS Penguin

Unlike sailing vessels, New Zealand’s coastal steamers were expected to maintain regular schedules, which helps explain why so many captains attempted the entrance when conditions were marginal. In fact, many post-wreck inquiries in this era reveal a common theme - pressure to maintain schedules. In 1921 for instance, the SS Tasman was ‘jammed for time to catch the bar at Whakatane,’ when it was wrecked at the Rurima Islands, a detail the subsequent Marine Inquiry highlighted as a contributing factor [6]. 

Similarly, the SS Taupō inquiry in 1879 censured veteran skipper Captain Hannibal Marks for decisions made under pressure, indicating how, strained by deadlines and fatigue, captains’ decisions could fail in a channel that allowed no mistakes [7].

New Zealand newspapers repeatedly criticised the lack of proper wharfs, lights, and harbour facilities from the 1860s and claimed during the 1870s, that the port was expanding faster than its infrastructure. Before the 20th century, Tauranga had no lighthouse at the entrance, minimal buoys, no dredging and no updated charts of the ever-changing bar [8].

When attempting the channel in marginal conditions, sail and steam powered vessels also grounded or were wrecked on the 3km stretch of beach to the north of Matakana Island’s Panepane Point - a notorious wrecking zone.

While the port was established in 1873, dredging the harbour to accommodate larger ships did not begin in earnest until 1965, with the main entrance channel dredged in 1968. Further major capital dredging projects, such as deepening and widening the channel, were undertaken in 1992 and 2015 [9].

Despite the challenges of negotiating the exposed Coromandel and Bay of Plenty coasts and accessing a harbour with limited facilities, steamships transformed old Tauranga. A significant improvement over its old pre-1860s Māori and Pākehā-Māori commercial sailing fleets, they reduced voyaging times for passengers, stabilised schedules and made the delivery of exported products and local mail faster and more reliable. In short, steamships were a catalyst for Tauranga’s transition from an isolated coastal settlement to an important, interconnected regional port.

The dominance of steamships waned as roads and railways improved. The decisive moment came with the opening of the Tauranga–Hamilton rail link in 1928, which rendered the long‑standing steamer passenger service to Auckland obsolete. It was formally abandoned in 1929 [10].

References

[1] Van der Wouden, A; The Introduction of Steamships to the Bay of Plenty’, Historical Review, Journal of the Whakatane District and Historical Society Vol. 38, May 1990: 21.

[2] Hawkes Bay Herald, 18 February 1860: 2.

[3] New Zealand Herald, 3 November 1865: 4. Nelson Examiner, 9 April 1970: 2. Hawkes Bay Herald, 1 February 1861: 2.  Daily Southern Cross, 15 May 1868: 2.  Ibid: 14 November 1864: 2. Ibid: 22 March 18.

[4] Ibid: 24 November 1866: 2.

[5] Tauranga Argus, 1 December 1866: 2.

[6] Auckland Star, 6 June 1921: 7.

[7] New Zealand Mail, 8 March 1879: 21.

[8] Bay of Plenty Times, 27 May 1879: 3. 15 March 1872: 7.

[9] Mariana C. Cussiolil, Karin R. Bryan, Conrad A. Pilditch and Willem P. De Lange, ‘Dispersal of Dredging Plumes in Tauranga Harbour, New Zealand: Field Study.’ Australasian Coasts & Ports Conference, 15-18 September 2015, Auckland, mc204@students.waikato.ac

[10] Port of Tauranga. Port History to Modern Day, https://www.port-tauranga.co.nz›uploads›

 Illustration Credits

Hamley, Joseph Osbertus, 1820-1911; Williams, Edward Arthur, 1824-1898, ‘HMS Esk; stuck with the Maoris taken prisoner at Rangiriri, 1863-1865’, E-047-q-031, National Library of New Zealand, Wellington.

 Szirmay, Frank, ‘Tangaroa’ (1976), Port of Tauranga, Bronwyn Holloway Smith, Public Art Heritage, Aotearoa New Zealand, Tauranga City Council Art Collection.

 ‘S.S. “Taupo” as she lies on the rocks at Stoney Point, Tauranga Harbour. Photographed at low water on the afternoon of April 9th [1879], by Charles Spencer’. Tauranga City Libraries, Te Ao Marama. Ref. 05-445

 De Maus, David Alexander, 1847-1925: ‘Steamship Penguin at Port Chalmers’. Ref: 1/1-003381-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22384677.

 Panepane Point, Matakana Island, photo/file. Kiri Gillespie, ‘Matakana Island proposal: Panepane Point plan prompts encouraging level of interest’. Bay of Plenty Times, 27 August 2020.

The Mōtiti Road Rail Ferry

 

Two maps of Mōtiti.  Neither is contemporaneous with Brain’s work on the island, but the coloured image shows the settlement pattern of the island’s residents in 1929; the black and white sketch map shows the route (dashed line) of the tramline that once led to Orangatea Bay.  Images: (left) Western Bay of Plenty District Libraries, SAK 34A, digital only; and (right) Te Ara, An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, ed. A. H. McLintock, 1966

I first began researching the people who lived in the Brain Watkins House back in the early 2000s  when I was working for NZ Historic Places Trust (now Heritage New Zealand).  Among the listed achievements of Joseph Brain was “a tramway on Mōtiti Island to transfer cattle to a ship waiting off shore”.

George Alexander Douglas, An Irishman, originally from Derry, moved down from Auckland to Tauranga and received a Crown Grant of a piece of land in 1867. He became a successful storekeeper when he arrived in Tauranga.

He had begun working in Auckland as a commissariat contractor supplying the military forces in the country and was elected a member of the Auckland Provincial Council from 1869 to 1873. G A Douglas leased a portion of Mōtiti Island from a local chief Tupaea, probably commencing in 1867 but he did not move there to live until 1870. He improved the breeding of cattle and Clydesdale horses on Mōtiti. He was also responsible for the introduction of the Bumble Bees that were essential for the fertilization of the Red Clover flowers. The clover had been introduced to boost the quality of the stock food but could not flourish without the bees. The soil on Mōtiti was fertile, water was abundant from numerous springs, but it lacked a natural harbour. 

S.S.Staffa   Image: Te Ao Māramā – Tauranga City Libraries Photo 04-593

To ensure transporting stock and goods, Douglas bought a small coastal steamer S.S. Tauranga in 1870. From 1876 to 1881 he had the S.S.Rowena and S.S.Staffa. The difficulty created by the lack of a harbour was loading the stock onto his ship before he could send the cargo to Tauranga.

In Orangatea Bay Douglas built a system of stock yards, and tramline. The late local historian Alister Matheson, in his book Motiti[1], tongue in cheek, named the project “The Motiti Road Rail Ferry”. The stock yards held the stock until they were loaded on a punt that could hold twenty cattle. The punt sat on a cradle or bogie that ran down the tramline, gaining speed, and was attached by a rope on a winch on land. When the punt reached the steamer it was secured and the rope wound back by the winch. The cattle were individually lifted by slings on to the steamer, which then sailed to Tauranga.  Douglas was helped in the construction of the tramline system by Joseph Brain, the experienced ship and bridge builder of Tauranga.

Hoisting fat cattle from the wharf to a steamer for shipping from Auckland to Sydney, Australia, 1902. 

Image: Supplement to the Auckland Weekly News, 14 August 1902, p. 10

In an interview with Mrs Elva Brain Watkins, the youngest daughter of Joseph, Matheson learned that Brain’s practice was to row across the harbour to Mount Maunganui then walk along the ocean beach until he was opposite Mōtiti Island where he would signal his arrival.  A boat from Mōtiti would then pick him up from the beach. In his boatyard on The Strand Brain employed Māori men from Mōtiti who would stay at the Mōtiti Hostel across the street.

J. D. Brain, Brain Watkins House Collection.  Image: Shirley Arabin

At the time that Matheson wrote the book the only remnants of the Mōtiti Road Rail Ferry were decaying puriri posts at the site, so it is unlikely that there will be any evidence left of this project today.

When George Douglas visited Napier in 1892 to purchase sheep he fell ill and died there.  He had not married and in his will the beneficiaries of his estate were his nieces and nephews.

 [1] Matheson A.H.,Motiti,pub. Whakatane & District Historical Society P O Box 203, Whakatane 1979.

 

Editorial note: Readers may be interested in finding an extended photo-essay on Mōtiti Island life in the 1960’s by Tony Ahern, editor of Tauranga Photo News, Issue No. 34, April 3 1965:

https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/101354 

The Construction and Opening of the Maungatapu Bridge, 1959

 
‘Dawn Awakening’ — Pile driving for Maungatapu Bridge construction, 1958
Mounted silver gelatin print, photographed by Mrs Joan Hamilton, L.R.P.S.
Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 21-1340

Pile driving by the Ministry of Works began in Rangataua Bay, Tauranga Moana in 1958 for the 316 metre long beam bridge between the Maungatapu and Matapihi peninsulas. This exciting and vital new link shortened the trip between Tauranga and ‘The Mount’ by many miles. Prior to this, vehicular traffic had to travel right around through Welcome Bay and Papamoa and back past Te Maunga and along the sandspit to Mauao. No wonder the Faulkner’s ferry services of the day proved so convenient and popular for townsfolk for a pedestrian trip to the beach.

Aerial photo of Tauranga Harbour with Maungatapu Bridge at centre
Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Map 21-032

Opening day in 1959 was obviously a gala occasion with many residents out in their cars, new and old, and commercial enterprises sending their trucks to participate in the parade. It looks almost like an advertisement for many of the English makes of car and trucks available.

Opening of Maungatapu Bridge, 1959
Photograph by Rendells Photo Service, Ref. 9504-8
Courtesy of John Green

Two Bedfords, a truck (C F Washer and Sons) and a Shell fuel tanker, a Leyland Beaver (Heatons No. 12), Morris Minors, Austin A40s, Humbers, Hillmans, Standards, Volkswagens, Vanguards – affectionately known as ‘mudguards’ – Vauxhalls, Zephyrs, etc.

A closer look at those lovely old vehicles

Local logging and roading contractor Alf Walling leads the truck parade in his 1953 Ford Thorton followed by an Andersen’s Transport Bedford or Commer stock truck. Maungatapu Marae is clearly seen in the background. Just as an aside, I did not know until a few years back that to purchase a new car in New Zealand one had to have overseas funds right up until 1972.

Parade of cars on Maungatapu Bridge, 1959
Colour positive transparency photographed by David Allan Murdoch
Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 06-468

Acknowledgments and Sources

Leslie Goodliffe — Information Access Specialist, Tauranga City Libraries
John Green — Transport buff
Pae Korokī — Tauranga Archives online
Rendells Photos Service image 9504-8 purchased on TradeMe June 2025