Tongue Point and the SS Penguin Plaque

The Leaning Lighthouse is the marker for many things, including the tragic wreck of the SS Penguin and the point named 'Tongue' off Terawhiti Station.

As rough as any outcrop on the North Island's southern coastline, Tongue Point was where the Union Steamship Company's passenger boat Penguin accidentally found land on a rough evening in January 1909. The steamer has left Picton in fine weather but it soon became so messy, that even Pencarrow Light could not be seen.

Opinion differs as to whether the Penguin struck notorious Thom's Rock, or an earlier wreck, of which there are many scattered along this coast. One thing not in question is the weather, it was so rough, that all the lifeboats which were launched with women and children aboard, were capsized and therefore and those within were lost. Either 72 or 75 of the 102 or 105 people aboard lost their lives. So there we have New Zealand's greatest civilian shipwreck of the 20th Century, and the reason for the installation of the Karori Light.

If you are one of the keen cyclists, walkers or four wheel drivers who make it this far around the Terawhiti coast, this spot is where you will find the plaque remembering the Penguin, affixed to a rock 100 years later. Relics that washed up from the ship are in the Museum of City and Sea in Wellington and in the Lyttleton Museum.