Stephens Island - Takapourewa

Here is a very small island with a special lighthouse and some special residents. The lighthouse has three claims to fame, firstly that it was the highest elevation lighthouse ever built in New Zealand, and the brightest light when it was first lit, then nearly a century later, it was the last to be automated.

Ngati Koata were the original owners of this little (1.5km sq) landform, which they called Takapourewa, until the Crown took it in 1891.

Like Cape Maria Van Diemen in the Far North, Takapourewa had a name slapped upon it which references a person far away and now long ago, who was not ever to visit. In 1770, Captain Cook applied the name Stephens for his boss in the British Admiralty, Sir Phillip Stevens.

And like all its Cook Strait neighbours, Stephens Island is very windy. The annual mean windspeed here is 14 knots, and calm days are unheard of. The air temperatures are also typical for the Cook Strait environment.

The lighthouse has been automated since 1989, and in 2000 the light was replaced and moved to solar power. But before that, the special lighthouse was especially hard to access, transport for keepers and their families, all supplies being across Cook Straight, through raging seas and currents, then by crane, winch and basket, before a 180m uphill walk. The age of helicopters improved this journey. In World War Two, the island doubled as a naval radar station, but not for long.

Now the visitors here are conservation staff, and they taken over the lighthouse service buildings, a base for the Department of Conservation's mammoth efforts on the island which are saving endangered species. Reforestation is at the heart of the task, ninety percent of the island having been cleared in the early days of the lighthouse in order to graze sheep. Some sheep still remain and are useful to the project.

New Zealand Geographic gives a wonderful description of the conservation push that has taken place on this island which have led to it becoming the happy home for about 30,000 Tuatara, the world's only living dinosaur. Skinks, geckos and other species are regenerating here, including weta, beetles, and seabirds. One bird which won't be coming back is the Lyalls Wren, the last one was seen here about 100 years ago, some feral cats (and a lighthouse keepers cat named Tibbles) being guilty of carrying out the extinction. Polynesian rats were also rampant on Stephens but have now been eradicated.

NZPlaces contributor Koenraad Kuiper flew over Stephens Island in 2020 and took this photo. New Zealand Places has to categorise Stephens Island a virtual attraction, as there is no visiting for the sake of the Tuatara and other species under conservation care.