Story: Rowing

This engraving from the Illustrated New Zealand Herald shows four men rowing and one man steering a lifeboat. This followed the wreck of the Tararuaon a reef at Waipapa Point, Southland, on the night of 29 April 1881. 131 people died in the wreck. Whether it was saving lives after a wreck or travelling across a lake, rowing was a much-used form of locomotion in colonial New Zealand.