The Victoria Channel

Lockdown loop #11

The harbour track on a misty drizzly morning by Ravensbourne. In December 1881 the dredged between Port Chalmers and Dunedin was officially opened. The Union Steam Ship Company offered their steamer, the ‘Penguin’, for the ceremony, making her way up the channel. Apparently all ‘went smoothly until abreast of Ravensbourne, when the Penguin took the edge of the channel and grounded’. About twenty minutes later she was off again and brought to the Rattray Street Wharf to be met by large crowds and a salute was fired. Over the years the channel was deepened and widened for larger ships, and ‘Dunedinites celebrated whenever a new record-breaker berthed at their wharves’. It was quite hard to see anything at all today….

Papers Past: The New Channel. Evening Star 30th December 1881. Page 2.

https://teara.govt.nz/en/otago-places/page-4

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/victoria-channel