Ship Creek weblog Travel Story

Ship Creek

Posted by Roy Sinclair in Central South Island Travel Stories
Tuesday, 21 March 2006

Wisely, my companion is someone who will seldom pass up an opportunity to fossick along a lonely ocean beach.

Driving through South Westland late one winter afternoon it was the time of day to anticipate those really nice things of life – a pint of Monteith’s in the Haast Tavern less than 20 km away, and the bottle of Chardonnay already cooled in the chilly bin.    

We agreed to delay those simple pleasures and instead turned off  Route 6 at Ship Creek as the sun slid towards the wild Tasman Sea. Ship Creek carpark is a short distance from the highway.

A beautiful soft light spread across the inky waters of the rain-fed river. We could hear the crashing, swirling, sea grating beach stones. We could glimpse breaking waves, back-lit in flashing gold against the retiring sun.

We walked the beach, not meeting another human being, although the odd seal or sea lion can be found basking here. We picked over pebbles of many colours, keeping some as souvenirs in our pockets. Driftwood, too, attracted our attention. 

The beach was so wild, lonely, and stunningly beautiful.

It was also the location of a curious shipwreck story.

Ship Creek is also known by its Maori name Tauperikaka. The creek gets its dark inky colour from the tannin and humus acid of swamp forests along it’s 11 km course.

The name `Ship Creek’ has its origins in 1871 when a large fragment of a ship (of unusual wood construction never seen before in New Zealand) was discovered at the mouth of  Tauperikaka Creek. Those days South Westland represented one of the world’s truly isolated places – and still does. Fragments of a ship were again found four years later. When pieced together, the wreckage suggested the bows of a stylish sailing ship.

Additional hull pieces were seen in 1920. Then, in 1973, the remaining wreckage of the ship was found by divers – off  the south-western coast of Victoria, Australia.

The ship was identified (and confirmed by shipbuilders in Aberdeen Scotland) as  Schomberg of the Black Ball line, wrecked on December 26, 1855 near the end of its maiden voyage from Liverpool to Melbourne. It was an unspectacular wreck, on the southern tip of Australia,  from which  over 300 passengers stepped safely ashore.

More remarkable was that fragments of the ship were able to drift 2000 kilometres and wash up on a desolate New Zealand beach.

As with Titanic many years later, the Scottish-built clipper Schomberg was hailed in 1855 as the finest and fastest ship in the world. Its unlucky captain, the daredevil  James `Bully’ Forbes, boasted he would reach Melbourne in 60 days `with or without the help of God’ and set a new record for the voyage from England.

Schomberg was frequently becalmed, lengthening the voyage to more than 80 days. Maritime historians have suggested a disgruntled Forbs had purposely let Schomberg founder under the Australian high cliffs where many other migrant sailing ships were also wrecked.

Fittingly, that part of the Australia is named Shipwreck Coast.

On the South Westland coast, across in New Zealand, the event is recorded on a Department of Conservation Information Board at Ship Creek. Nearby is a tower (difficult but fun to climb on two internal ladders) for a wonderful view of  the creek and ocean). Pieces of  Schomberg are displayed in Haast Visitor Centre.

All that is history. Having watched the sun vanish into the Tasman Sea, and feeling the chill of the darkening evening, we scurried to our awaiting car, shut out sounds of a thundering ocean sounds and turned the heater full blast. A short drive down the modern highway, warm lodgings at the Haast Wilderness Backpackers, and a friendly tavern awaited – and, of course, the bottle of Chardonnay would soon be uncorked.

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