“On the evening of September 24th the Otago and Canterbury transports arrived in Wellington Harbour; by the morning of September 25th, under escort of H.M.S. Psyche, they were ready to join the Auckland and Wellington transports, which had already put to sea.
At this moment, however, orders were issued by the New Zealand Government that, for Imperial reasons, the sailing of the Expeditionary Force was to be temporarily postponed. In accordance with this unexpected development, arrangements were immediately made to disembark all horses and all mounted units. Camps were established in and around Wellington for the mounted units, while the infantry remained on the transports by night, and were taken ashore by day and exercised, for the first time, in tactical operations over the hills around Wellington …” [Byrne, AE, “Official History of the Otago Regiment, N.Z.E.F. in the Great War 1914-1918”, J. Wilkie & Company, 1921, p7]
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