White Island (Otago)
Template: Infobox Island / Maintenance / area missing
White Iceland is the name of an island 2.5 km off the coast of Otago in New Zealand. Administratively, it belongs to the city of Dunedin.
The island is 80 m long and at its widest point, 30 meters wide, its area is 1,600 m², the maximum height of 15 m. A cliff overlooking a partially breaks through the water surface at low water, a further 100 m from the western end of the island extends into the sea.
The uninhabited island is a well known landmark of the two peri-urban beaches of the city of Dunedin (St. Clair and St. Kilda ) can be seen from.
The Māori call the island Ponuiahine, also Pomuiahine. This was, perhaps too literally and ambiguous, translated as " the girl's great night ." Goodall and Griffiths write in ' Māori Dunedin ', that it is rather to be understood as ' Pou -nui -a- Hine ', which refers to a post that is a monument to an important event that is involved in the " Hine ". " Hine " can be a man's name, everything else is speculation left. As a place for love adventure, the island seems very promising.
White Iceland may be the ' Ragged Rock' been where the sealers Brothers of Sydney under the command of Robert Mason in November 1809 three convicts from a group of 11 men exposed, including William Tucker. Alternatively Green Iceland may have been this island.
On May 1st, 1826 Gardeners Thomas Shepherd kept a diary as he approached with the first settlers of the New Zealand Company on the Rosanna this coast. She was accompanied by the Lambton. He reported that he had " two remarkable Sugarloaf Rock " near the coast saw project approximately 100 feet from the ocean. A man was sent to the coast and came back with a Māori named Tatawa, who said " that he belonged to Otago ".
A reef south of White Iceland can be seen today at the breaking sea, at the time of the expedition there loomed possibly even higher from the sea. In the settlement Dunedin 1848, there were in any case only the visible today island.
In the early 1880s, a retractable Armstrong Cannon ( " disappearing gun" ), similar to the sites to be visited today at Taiaroa Head, installed at Forbury Head over St. Clair. Apparently White Iceland was used for target practice this cannon, which they may have destroyed and made even more rugged.