The Cape Egmont Lighthouse Trust came into being in October 1999 to take custodianship of the original light from Cape Egmont Lighthouse when that was replaced with a modern New Zealand Vega Light.
The Trust has restored the light to full working order and has had installed at the top of a replica light house approximately two-thirds the height of the original light house, but with otherwise similar dimensions.
It has been built on a small area, stopped road, leased to the trust by the council, directly adjacent to the Cape Egmont Boat Club and Coast Guard buildings on the foreshore at Bayly Road, Warea. The aim of the project is to preserve and display this Historical icon in a way that not only the local community can appreciate but also envisages it contributing to the development of Surf Highway 45 as a destination for national and international visitors, open to all, operating to show, yesterday, today.
In 1888 the Rutherford family, all their household possessions, horses, and a flax mill engine, arrived from Havelock, Nelson to start milling flax. Ernest, then 17, remained in Nelson to sit his university entrance exams, travelling up to join the family when his school year ended.
Created by a New Plymouth Rotary Club in 2005, the ground floor of the building houses a small Museum recognising the contribution Lord Ernest Rutherford made to international science and his family connections to Taranaki.
The Historic Cape Light & Museum is open most weekends 11:00 am to 3:00 pm with admission by donation.
The cache is not in the light house. Please bring your own writing stick.