Centenary Of Cook Strait Telegraph

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31139, 16 August 1966, Page 6

Centenary Of Cook Strait Telegraph

(New Zealand Press Association)

BLENHEIM.

A temporary post office and a telegraph station will be set up on Saturday week at Whites Bay, an inlet at the northern end of Cloudy Bay, as part of the celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the opening of the first telegraph cable between the North and South Islands.

Communication between the islands was opened at 5 p.m. on August 26, 1866, and the celebrations of the 100th anniversary will include a re enactment of the transmission of the first message.

Whites Bay remained an important link in the telegraphic system for about seven years until the trans-

mitting and receiving station was removed to Blenheim. The buildings remained at Whites Bay and one is still in use as a seaside residence. The original cable between Whites Bay and Lyall Bay has long been superseded. A small museum has been set up at the bay. The glassfronted shed will house displays of sections of the cables which have been run ashore there, plus a sample of the first transoceanic cable (1876) and sections, for comparison, of the power cable which now links the two islands. There will also be an original working layout of telegraphic sending and receiving instruments.