Pilot/Signal Station established on Cave Rock

You can really hear the ocean from up here. From the 1860s until the early 1900s, this spot, Tuawera -Cave Rock, was home to a pilot and signal station. It helped ships navigate across the Sumner bar, which was a pretty dangerous crossing into the Avon and Heathcote Rivers.

The Canterbury Provincial Government appointed a pilot in 1864 and put up a signal mast right here to tell ships about the tides. Then, in 1867, a man named Joseph Day became the second pilot, and he stayed for over two decades. In 1898, they built this stone pilot/signal station building. It held the signal equipment and also a foghorn, which was used to call the crew of the Sumner lifeboat, which was kept in a shed nearby. There's even a plaque on the building that commemorates Joseph Day.

The Lyttleton Harbour Board stopped running the station in 1914, and after that, the Sumner Lifeboat provided the services. The Sumner Lifeboat Brigade has actually continued to help with the upkeep of the mast and station until recently, and radio-telephone equipment has been kept in the building.

The rock itself is a large, isolated feature, the remains of an old lava flow, and it’s named for the clefts that cut through it. Māori know it as Tuawera, which means ‘cut down as if by fire,’ referring to a story about people who died from eating a stranded whale. Captain Thomas of the Canterbury Association called it Cass Rock, but it quickly became known as Cave Rock.

This spot has been a focal point for the community and for tourism in Sumner for a long time. The commercial area of Sumner is just to the south, and a lot of the infrastructure and beautification efforts for tourism, like lamp standards and drinking fountains, were concentrated right around here. The rock’s surroundings have hosted many galas and fireworks displays.

The rock was damaged by the Canterbury earthquakes between 2010 and 2012, and since then, they’ve done maintenance work to remove any loose or dangerous areas. That work was done with Ngāi Tahu and the Christchurch City Council.