The Avon River (Ōtākaro)

I can’t begin to fathom how surreal the afternoon/evening of the 16th December 1850 would have been for the Deans brothers. Especially as they may have stood in the doorway of the Deans Cottage while the shrieks and shouts of two stripped down male settlers splashed about in the Avon River – their echoes adding …

RICCARTON – William & John Deans (1817 -1851 & 1820 -1854)

William Deans, Samuel Manson and Jimmy Robinson Clough had quite a journey to complete from the Sumner bar, down the Otakaro (the Avon River) and then on on to Putaringamotu (Riccarton) in 1841. When the party reached what is now the Barbadoes Street Bridge, by Oxford Terrace, they continued in a canoe as the Port …

The Cambridge Green

On the corner of Barbadoes and Salisbury Streets is an area now known as The Cambridge Green. A reserve of great historic significance.The home of the Ngai Tahu’s Puari Pa, it was a gathering place of foods such as eels, whitebait, native trout, grey and paradise ducks. During the 18th century, a great Maori wedding …