LONG ASSOCIATION ENDS

Taranaki Daily News, 2 May 1930, Page 14

LONG ASSOCIATION ENDS

FAMILIAR SHIPS AND CAPTAINS

NO PASSENGERS FOE FIRST TIME For the port of New Plymouth, no less than for the whole province it serves, to-day will be tinged with a particular sadness, for it marks the final severance of an association that extends far back inj;o the misty days of Taranaki’s youth. This morning, if particularly stormy weather did not prevent her from crossing the Manakau bar last night, the s.s. Ngapuhi will bring her last complement of passengers to New Plymouth. To-night she leaves for Onehunga never to return, and when her twinkling lights have dwindled to nothingness in the darkness of the vast ocean the One-hunga-New Plymouth ferry service will have died. The passing of an old friend is always a pathetic loss. By sea people came to New Plymouth to found the province in 1841, and over the sea they have been coming and going ever since. Gradually, £ rom the itinerant calling of sailing ships a regular passenger service was evolved embracing Onehunga, New Plymouth, Wellington and Nelson, and in the heyday of this service the ocean roadways grew almost dusty with the great flow of passenger traffic. Then came the railway and with it a diminishing ferry service, until only the Plymouth run remained. The opening of the main north road to Auckland and the development of motor services sounded the death knell of this last sea service, and now even It is to go by the board. z

There is a peculiar softness in the hearts of landsmen for those who go down to the sea in ships. Taranaki can never forget that for many years it owed its very existence to the ships that called at New Plymouth. It may not be quite the same sentiment that from time immemorial has made “seeing the boat off” a regular social enjoyment at the breakwater for youth and beauty, chivalry - and even age. Nevertheless one may with certainty predict that there will be a record attendance at the port at 7 o’clock to-night •*' to bid a last good-bye to Captain Bark and the Ngapuhi.