Banks Peninsula

Banks Peninsula has a roughly circular shape, with many bays and two deep harbours.

Model of Banks Peninsula, showing the mountainous nature otherwise atypical of the Christchurch area.

Banks Peninsula forms the most prominent volcanic feature of the South Island, similar to — but more than twice as large as — the older Dunedin volcano (Otago Peninsula and Harbour) 350 kilometres (220 mi) to the southwest. Geologically, the peninsula comprises the eroded remnants of two large composite shield volcanoes (Lyttelton formed first, then Akaroa), and the smaller Mt Herbert Volcanic Group.[1] These formed due to intraplate volcanism between approximately eleven and eight million years ago (Miocene) on a continental crust. The peninsula formed as offshore islands, with the volcanoes reaching to about 1,500 m above sea level. Two dominant craters formed Lyttelton and Akaroa Harbours.

The Canterbury Plains formed from the erosion of the Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana (an extensive and high mountain range caused by the meeting of the Indo-Australian and Pacific tectonic plates) and from the alluvial fans created by large braided rivers. These plains reach their widest point where they meet the hilly sub-region of Banks Peninsula. A layer of loess, a rather unstable fine silt deposited by the foehn winds which bluster across the plains, covers the northern and western flanks of the peninsula. The portion of crater rim lying between Lyttelton Harbour and Christchurch city forms the Port Hills.

According to tradition the first Māori settlers of the area now known as Banks Peninsula were the Waitaha led by their founding ancestor Rākaihautū. The Māori name for the peninsula is Te Pataka o Rākaihautū (The Storehouse of Rākaihautū) in recognition of his deeds and the abundance of mahinga kai (foods of the forests, sea, rivers and skies). They were followed by Kāti Māmoe, and then the Ngāi Tahu hapu Ngāi Tūhaitara, who arrived in the 1730s.[2]

The first European sighting of the peninsula was on 17 February 1770 by Captain James Cook and crew during Cook's first circumnavigation of New Zealand. Cook described the land as "of a circular figure ... of a very broken uneven surface and [having] more the appearance of barrenness than fertility."[3] Deceived by the outline of higher land behind the peninsula, Cook mistook it for an island and named it "Banks Island" in honour of Endeavour's botanist, Joseph Banks.[3] Distracted by a phantom sighting of land to the southeast, Cook then ordered Endeavour away to the south without exploring more closely. 1n 1809 Captain Samuel Chase corrected Cook's charts by determining that "Banks Island" was in fact a peninsula.[4]

In 1830 the Māori settlement at Takapūneke was sacked, and the local Ngāi Tahu chief, Tama-i-hara-nui captured, by Ngāti Toa chief, Te Rauparaha, with the assistance of the captain of the British brig Elizabeth, John Stewart.[5] It was partly as a result of this massacre that the British authorities sent James Busby, as official British Resident, to New Zealand in 1832.[5]

During the 1830s several European whaling bases were established on Banks Peninsula. In 1838 Captain Langlois, a French whaler, decided that Akaroa would make a good settlement to service whaling ships and "purchased" the peninsula in a dubious land deal with the local Māori.[6] He returned to France, floated the Nanto-Bordelaise company, and set sail for New Zealand with a group of French and German families aboard the ship Comte de Paris, with the intention of forming a French colony on a French South Island of New Zealand. By the time Langlois and his colonists arrived at Banks Peninsula in August 1840, many Māori had already signed the Treaty of Waitangi (the signatories including two chiefs at Akaroa in May) and New Zealand's first British Governor, William Hobson, had declared British sovereignty over the whole of New Zealand. On hearing of the French plan for colonisation, Hobson quickly dispatched HMS Britomart from the Bay of Islands to Akaroa with police magistrates on board.[7] While Langlois and his colonists sheltered from unfavourable winds at Pigeon Bay on the other side of the peninsula, the British raised their flag at Greens Point between Akaroa and Takapūneke and courts of law convened to assert British sovereignty over the South Island.

From the 1850s, Lyttelton and then Christchurch outgrew Akaroa, which is now a holiday resort and cruise ship destination and has retained many French influences as well as many of its nineteenth-century buildings.

Historic harbour defence works dating from 1874 onwards survive at Ripapa Island in Lyttelton Harbour, and at Godley Head.

In 2011, the Christchurch earthquakes of Feb and June had their epicentres in the Port Hills, significantly affecting communities.

The Summit Road forms a notable feature on the peninsula. Built in the 1930s, the road is in two sections (both of which have views of the area, as well as parks, walkways, and other recreational features):

• one section runs along the crest of the Port Hills from Godley Head (the northern head of Lyttelton Harbour) to Gebbies Pass at the head of the harbour
• the other section runs around the crater rim of Akaroa Harbour from 'Hill Top' – the junction with the main Christchurch-Akaroa highway – to a point above Akaroa.

Estimates suggest that native forest once covered 98% of the peninsula. However, Māori and European settlers successively denuded the forest cover and less than 2% remains today, although some reforestation has started. European settlers have planted many English trees, notably walnut.

The annual 100 km road cycling race from Cathedral Square in Christchurch to Akaroa traverses the Banks Peninsula. The course climbs up Dyers Pass road, follows the summit road along the Port Hills before descending Gebbies Pass to State highway 75. It then ascends to Hilltop before turning off and following the summit road, climbing Duvauchelle peak and descending Long Bays Road into Akaroa. It has been won by three times by Mark Bailey, twice by Michael Vink, Jeremy Yates and Daniel Whitehouse. Hayden Roulston (2016) and Brian Fowler (2005 ) have also won it.[32] In the women's competition Jo Buick, Reta Trotman and Sharlotte Lucas have all won it three times.[32]

• Highest point: Mount Herbert / Te Ahu Pātiki 919 metres (3,015 ft)[33]
• Permanent population: 7600

• Laing, Robert (1919). "The Vegetation of Banks Peninsula, with a List of Species (Flowering-plants and Ferns)". Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand. New Zealand Institute. 51.
• Wilson, Hugh D (2009). Natural History of Banks Peninsula. Christchurch, N.Z: Canterbury University Press. ISBN 978-1-877257-82-7.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Banks Peninsula.

• Banks Peninsula District census results: 2001, 1996
• Map of Banks Peninsula ward, Christchurch