Puysegur Point

Puysegur Point is located in the far southwest of the South Island of New Zealand. It lies within Fiordland National Park on the southern head of Preservation Inlet. It lies 145 kilometres west-northwest of Invercargill. It is the site of a lighthouse station now automated but for many years the home of 3 married permanent lighthouse keepers. The original wooden lighthouse was burnt down in 1943 by a man who had recently left a psychiatric hospital and made his way down to Coal Island across the fjord from the lighthouse. He decided the light was a deliberate plot to keep him awake at night by shining in his window so took matters into his own hands. He held all the keepers hostage with a rifle, smashed the radio telephone and set fire to the lighthouse. The concrete lighthouse which replaced it has now in turn been replaced by two automated beacons. A large earthquake in this region on 15 July 2009 pushed Puysegur Point closer to Australia by 30 cm. Humpback whales pass the point during annual migrations.