Port Hutt is a small settlement and beach on

Chatham Island Chatham Island ( ) ( Moriori: , 'Misty Sun'; ) is the largest island of the Chatham Islands group, in the south Pacific Ocean off the eastern coast of New Zealand's South Island. It is said to be "halfway between the equator and the pole, a ...

, in

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

Chatham Islands The Chatham Islands ( ; Moriori language, Moriori: , 'Misty Sun'; ) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about east of New Zealand's South Island, administered as part of New Zealand, and consisting of about 10 islands within an approxima ...

chain. It is located in the northwest of the island, near the northern end of the large indentation of

Petre Bay Petre Bay is a large bay which comprises about half of the west coast of Chatham Island, the largest island in New Zealand's Chatham Islands archipelago. It is some in extent, and contains the far smaller Waitangi Bay, where the island group ...

, some 24 km from the island's largest settlement Waitangi (which lies near the southern end of Petre Bay).Dowling, P. (ed.) (2004). ’’Reed New Zealand atlas’’. Auckland: Reed Publishing. Map 118.

History

The beach is where

Ngāti Tama Ngāti Tama is a Māori people, Māori iwi, tribe of New Zealand. Their origins, according to oral tradition, date back to Tama Ariki, the chief navigator on the Tokomaru (canoe), Tokomaru waka (canoe), waka. Their historic region is in north Tar ...

and

Ngāti Mutunga Ngāti Mutunga is a Māori iwi (tribe) of New Zealand, whose original tribal lands were in north Taranaki. They migrated, first to Wellington (with Ngāti Toa and other Taranaki hapū), and then to the Chatham Islands (along with Ngāti Tama) ...

invaders landed in November 1835. The port was one of the Chathams' main harbours during the early years of European settlement. Several vessels were wrecked on the reef, among them the

whaling Whaling is the hunting of whales for their products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that was important in the Industrial Revolution. Whaling was practiced as an organized industry as early as 875 AD. By the 16t ...

brig A brig is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: two masts which are both square rig, square-rigged. Brigs originated in the second half of the 18th century and were a common type of smaller merchant vessel or warship from then until the l ...

''Ann and Mary'' in 1839 and the

brigantine A brigantine is a two-masted sailing vessel with a fully square-rigged foremast and at least two sails on the main mast: a square topsail and a gaff sail mainsail (behind the mast). The main mast is the second and taller of the two masts. Ol ...

''Lowestoff'' in 1847.

Geography

The settlement sits at the edge of a small, deep inlet known as either Port Hutt or Whangaroa Harbour. The inlet is guarded by reefs with surround Point Dawson, the 70-metre high headland at the western edge of the harbour mouth.

References

Chatham Island Populated places in the Chatham Islands {{OutlyingNZ-geo-stub