Port Levy
Port Levy is a long, sheltered bay and settlement on Banks Peninsula in Canterbury, New Zealand.
The current population is under 100, but in the mid-19th century it was the largest Māori settlement in Canterbury with a population of about 400 people. It is named after Solomon Levey, an Australian merchant and ship owner who sent a number of trading vessels to the Banks Peninsula area during the 1820s.
The bay was settled by the Ngai Tūāhuriri sub-tribe of Ngāi Tahu, and the chief Moki named the bay "Koukourarata" after a stream in Wellington that recalls the birth of his father, Tu Ahuriri.
It was also the home of Tautahi, the chief after whom the swampland area Ōtautahi was named – now the site of the city of Christchurch.
The first Māori Anglican church was built here; a stone memorial marks the site.
Portions of the Peter Jackson film Heavenly Creatures were shot in Port Levy. At this place, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, two 16-year-old girls from Christchurch, saw their imaginary Fourth World on 3 April 1953, the so-called Port Levy Revelation. It was never explained what actually happened then (a gateway through the clouds, they called it).
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References
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