Skip to main content

Story: European exploration

Kaituna valley

Image
Kaituna valley

The New Zealand Company settlement in Nelson needed more flat land. Explorers went east and discovered the Wairau plain. The resistance of Māori to surveyors in June 1843 temporarily delayed settlement, but the company continued to explore the area. James Drake was a survey cadet with the company, and on 15 January 1844 he sketched this scene looking up the Kaituna River valley, just north of the Wairau plains.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: A-108-012

by James Charles Drake

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

All images & media in this story

How to cite this page

Jock Phillips, European exploration – Thomas Brunner, Nelson and the West Coast, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/artwork/11257/kaituna-valley (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Jock Phillips, published 1 March 2009.