Arapawa Island - History

History

It was from a hill on Arapawa Island in 1770 that Captain James Cook first saw the sea passage from the Pacific Ocean to the Tasman Sea, which was named Cook Strait. This discovery banished the fond notion of geographers that there existed a great southern continent, Terra Australis. A monument at Cook's Lookout was erected in 1970.

From the late 1820s until the mid-1960s, Arapawa Island was a base for whaling in the Sounds. John Guard established a shore station at Te Awaiti in 1827 for right whales. Later, the station at Perano Head on the east coast of the island was used to hunt humpback whales from 1911 to 1964 (see Whaling in New Zealand). The houses built by the Perano family are now operated as tourist accommodations.

Read more about this topic:  Arapawa Island

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    I am not a literary man.... I am a man of science, and I am interested in that branch of Anthropology which deals with the history of human speech.
    —J.A.H. (James Augustus Henry)

    The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.
    Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)

    Every member of the family of the future will be a producer of some kind and in some degree. The only one who will have the right of exemption will be the mother ...
    Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)