Cuvier Island Lighthouse guards the approach to Auckland Harbour and the Hauraki Gulf. It marks the first sight of land for ships coming in from the Pacific and is New Zealand’s most distant offshore lighthouse.
Location: 36°26′ S, 175°47′ E
Elevation: 119 metres above sea level
Radio callsign: ZLPV
Construction: cast iron
Tower height: 15 metres
Light configuration: 100 watt rotating beacon
Light flash character: white light flashing once every 15 seconds
Power source: batteries charged by solar panels
Range: 19 nautical miles (35 kilometres)
Date light first lit: 1889
Automated: 1982
Demanned: 1982
Cuvier Island Lighthouse, 1902. Sears, Auckland War Memorial Museum call no. Album 231, p. 23, no. 2.
Chief Lightkeeper Livingstone and his daughter Jane at Cuvier Island Lighthouse. Auckland Weekly News, 14 July 1927
Lightkeepers and their families at Cuvier Island welcome the arrival of the monthly Government supply boat. Auckland Weekly News, 6 July 1932
The Chief Lightkeeper at Cuvier Island reads the Auckland Weekly News, which arrives on the monthly supply boat. Auckland Weekly News, 6 July 1932
Unloading supplies for Cuvier Island Lighthouse in the 1950s. Photo: New Zealand Herald
Cuvier Island Lightkeepers at their radiotelephone in 1956. (See more in the video below from the NZ National Film Unit.)
In this 1956 video produced for the New Zealand Post Office, Cuvier Island Lighthouse is seen in contact first with the lighthouse tender Endeavour, and then with Auckland Radio ZLD, starting at 6:08.
Cuvier Island Lighthouse today. Photo: Maritime NZ
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