BLUFF: Archive |
Pos S 46° 36.144' |
Bluff is at the most southern end of New Zealand, a port town nearly as old as the oldest European settlements in New Zealand.
This is because it was a favoured port for whalers and sealers and it was just west of Bluff that the first deliberate settlement took place at the place we now call Riverton but was originally known as Jacobs River. Many people mistakenly equate Bluff to Invercargill without realising that the latter is some twenty kilometres away to the NW and has a harbour of its own, called 'New Harbour' with great originality. We think of this place as being a very long way south but when you compare northern hemisphere cities it is in fact at the equivalent lattitude as Basle, in Switzerland! That makes Oslow in Norway virtually perched on the Pole in comparison... The cemetery is at the end of Lagan Street and situated in the saddle of the hill, with one part looking out over the harbour and township and the other towards Stewart Island visible in the purple distance. I remember that one one of the surveys of the cemetery a lone figure appeared from the seaward downslope with a kit and a smile and as he paused on his climb showed me the Kina (sea urchins) and Paua (Abalone) he'd been getting from the sea below. Its that kind of place. We have now gone to a live on-line database called MOP ('Myra's Other Place') and all the older records listed are being steadily being copied over. In this case we did not have a page for Mangapai before now so you will have to go directly to MOP. The MOP database has a lot more than just cemetery records and is worth checking out here where you can log in as Guest password guest. To find a person enter the surname in the target box and presss ENTER. This will list every case of that surname across all cemeteries. To list all persons in a particular cemetery enter the name of the cemetery and change the pull-down option immediately to the left from LAST NAME to CEMETERY then ENTER. |
Sample of MOP search screen |