The year is 1879 and the ‘Mataura’ is rounding the Snares, 87 days after departing Gravesend, London, with an-other cargo of hopeful immigrants. She’s a full-rigged ship of 853 tons and the first NZ Shipping Co ship to be fitted with Harkin’s dry-air refrigerator.

Mataura will arrive in Port Chalmers on the 22nd September 1879. She is running before a strong South Westerly and shaping a course up the East coast of the South Island to Port Chalmers.

Snares Islands/Tini Heke, also known as The Snares, is a small group of uninhabited islands lying about 200 km south of New Zealand’s South Island and to the south-southwest of Stewart Island/Rakiura.