The water chute

In January 1907, a young man calling himself Demos got on his bike, set it on fire and hurtled down the huge waterchute in Day’s Bay in Eastbourne, somersaulting into the manmade pond at the bottom.
The big waterchute, on loan from Miramar’s Wonderland theme park, was an attraction at the Williams Park in Day’s Bay when it was considered one of Wellington’s premier seaside resorts.
The chute was a 67m drop and people could reach 50kmh on their way down.
Usually people got into boats that plummeted down the chute and 5000 people a day went out to what was then the largest waterchute in Australasia.
Days Bay was originally known as Hawtrey Bay before it was settled by George Day who brought his family out from Kent in 1841. Day was hired to look after the area and built his house and operated a ferry of sorts for early settlers crossing the harbour regularly. He and his family later settled in the South Island.
It was James Herbert Williams who saw the potential of the area as a resort. He was a prosperous shipping owner who took his employees to Lowry Bay for pleasure trips using his own ships.
He rebuilt the Lowry Bay wharf when it became dangerous at his own expenses.
He also began to develop the area with playground equipment and a refreshment stand and in 1894, he took the chance to buy 125 acres of land in Days Bay and built another wharf.
It soon became so popular as a day trip that wharf gates were built,
Over time it continued to develop and building sites were put up for sale in the surrounding area.
Days Bay House was built in 1903 for William’s company and run as a resort hotel, although it had only moderate success before it was sold and then operated as a school.
The area was eventually bought by the Wellington City Council at the urging of the public in 1914.
Williams was said to have been born in Melbourne but in fact was born at sea and registered there.
He ran the shipping company his father had started, marrying Eliza and they had four children.
During his time in Wellington he founded the Wellington Steam Ferry Company.
It was his widowed mother Mary Ann Cox, already considered a great philanthropist, who gave a large sum of money to the Wellington City Council to allow it to buy the Days Bay resort.
The Wonderland closed in 1910 after losing money and the rides and the water chute was sold to Auckland where it ended up at the Auckland domain for a couple of summers before being dismantled.
Williams died just a year after Days Bay was sold, on January 19, 1915 and is buried in Karori Cemetery.​