History of New Zealand

For the first time in history so far as we know, two European ships anchored in New Zealand waters on 18th December 1642. Although the Dutch owned rich possessions in the East Indies no European seamen had ventured south or east of New Holland, as Australia was then called prior to this time.

The search by this expedition was for new lands rich in gold and precious stones. Abel Tasman was in charge of the two ships, the Heemskerck and Zeehaen. They arrived a little to the south of what is now Hokitika on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. They turned north without realising those shores where there was plenty of gold and coal. After four days they rounded the north-western tip of the South Island and anchored in the bay behind it.

The next morning a double canoe, with thirteen men aboard, put off from the shore and came within hailing distance of the ships. The Dutch held out cloth and knives to show that they wished to trade, but the Maoris could not be persuaded to come nearer and returned to shore. Tasman held a council on the Heemskerck, to which the officers of the Zeehaen were called. Messages were passed between the ships and the Zeehaen's cockboat was attacked the Maoris, who rammed it with their canoe. The Maoris killed three of the six men and seriously wounded a fourth. Tasman sailed away from 'Murderers' Bay. This is now known as Golden Bay. He continued his voyage northward...

What Time is it in New Zealand?

It is the 12th December at 2.45pm as I write this... New Zealand is currently in their daylight saving period. New Zealand Daylight Saving starts in early October and ends in March/April. I will not be more specific than that at this stage as there are people within the government that would like to extend the New Zealand Daylight Savings period for two weeks at either end. As we experience our summer in this period it means that we have some great evening hours over summer and some parts of the country have light until after 10pm in the evening. This is great for the barbeque evening with some sport, not so good for getting the kids off to sleep though!!

How do our times compare with other parts of the world? Well there are plenty of websites that cater for this, just go into one of the search engines and type in 'time zones'. For those that are not so familiar I will put up some of the most known, for comparison. The New Zealand Standard Time zone is an hour behind the New Zealand Daylight Time and the New Zealand Standard Time is 12 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). This is the basis of the time system and when you talk about the time in different areas you will often see them listed as a number + or - GMT. London is on GMT unless it is British Summer Time and then London will be one hour ahead of GMT. Eastern Standard Time is the time in New York and this is 5 hours behind GMT; they are currently on Daylight Saving Time there. Australia is now on Daylight Saving time and their time is 11 hours ahead of GMT.

The summer time zones can create confusion in understanding time zones. For this reason, I would recommend you become familiar with one of the time zone websites and check that site each time. Different sites explain it the zone differences in different ways and some people will like one style, others will prefer another. I like the site www.worldtimezone.com.