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Romantic Port Pegasus
A Perfect Natural Harbour

By Rosaline Redwood

Tucked away on the wild, rugged, bush-lined coast of Stewart Island, and over forty rough watery miles south-west of the populated area around the township of Oban, is one of the most perfect natural harbours in New Zealand. It is so remote that few people other than fishermen ever see its glories, and yet its arms of placid waters, shut off from the rougher seas by bushy walls of protection, are capable of holding the whole of the British fleet with ease, while the great Queen Mary herself could steam through the natural waterway from the ocean, without the slightest difficulty. To add to the almost uncanny perfection of the harbour, there are four separate entrances. But alas, so far out of the way!

Port Pegasus has, too, that romantic distinction of being linked with the early sealing and whaling industries. It has witnessed the lustful fever of a gold rush. At one time there were several hundred men searching its creeks for gold, and there still remains a tumble-down place on the hillside which was once part of the hotel erected there.

Tin-mining has also been carried on with more or less success, and to-day there are still one or two optimists who continue to wash for this dull-looking metal, which resembles small, heavy grey stones.

It was here that the rather irresponsible Captain Stewart (after whom Stewart Island is named), left a party of shipwrights to commence the work of building a vessel. He promised to come back with material for the work from Sydney for which port he sailed with a full cargo of seal skins and oil, but on arrival he was arrested and imprisoned. The wretched men waited in vain for his return, and at last, in desperation, they built a small boat which succeeded in carrying them to the mainland. A number of years later Captain Stewart did return as pilot of the H.M.S. Herald, but the men were gone.

As I glided up the harbour on the small vessel that carries the stores and mails, I forgot my so recent sea sickness. Green walls of untouched bush and ferns banked the mirror-like surface of the water. Looking down, I saw a perfect reflection of those same green walls and blue sky. A tiny blob of bush and rock dotted on the surface of the mirror, and known as Rosa Island, enhanced the cool loveliness of it all. Ahead lay the wharf and the new freezer, seemingly strangely out of place against Nature's background.

Actually this is the third freezer to be built on the shores of Pegasus. The first was built years ago by a Dunedin resident and was later sold, but when the new owner went to inspect it shortly after the sale, the building and plant had completely disappeared. A slip had carried it all to the bottom of the sea. Part of the works, however, was salvaged, and the freezer was rebuilt in 1914, a short distance from the old site. It was driven by a water turbine. Recently a new company, known as the Stewart Island Packing and Storing Company, was formed, and now, in 1939, yet another modern building and plant has replaced the old. This one is driven by a diesel engine which supplies electricity to all the inhabitants at Pegasus—they number nine, usually, apart from the fishermen who mostly live on their boats. The season's output is between 2,000 and 3,000 cases of blue cod, besides groper and trumpeter. Altogether, approximately twenty-six fishing boats keep the freezer supplied with fish—the water in these parts is literally teeming with fish, but the rough condition of the sea only allows about twelve days or so a month, out fishing. However, providing they do get twelve days’ work a month, they earn a reasonable living, as on a good day one man may catch anything in the vicinity of 200 lbs. of fish.

There are five houses—well, with one exception, hardly houses. The exception came as one of the real surprises of Pegasus. Nestled back against a hill of virgin bush, I espied it—a real bungalow with a lovely garden. Bulb flowers of all kinds and colours growing from rock-bordered gardens, clinging surprisingly from crevices and corner plots, beside the winding steps that led upwards. I climbed that rock path to make sure it was real—a garden here seemed fantastic. Lady visitors were rare, and I drank tea and talked in a room whose peaceful air of refinement was reflected in the rows of books that looked down on the silver tea-pot in mine hostess's hand.

As evening fell I was rowed across the calm arm of water to where the waterfalls tumbled with a roar over green slippery rocks, but even as I clicked the knob on my camera, I knew it could never be reproduced on paper as I saw it there. Truly a place of colour and loveliness and deep reflections.

Next morning, before the purple-grey mist that heralds daylight had cleared away from the sky, the boat was gliding down the harbour again towards the open sea. As I watched the green walls grow into a blurred outline against the sky, I wondered vaguely why such a place had to be so far away—so far removed from the gaze of people who would revel in its tranquil beauty.

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