Located at the eastern end of the sound where it meets the sea, Arapaoa (formerly Arapawa) Island was a whaling station until 1964, when whaling in New Zealand ended. Some 200 years earlier, Captain Cook stopped at the island in 1770 and from the spot now known as Cook’s Lookout, he was able to locate the passage from the Pacific Ocean to the Tasman Sea—the Cook Strait. As you sail by the island, you may be able to spot some of the livestock that lives there, including the Arapawa sheep, believed to be descendants of merino sheep introduced in the 19th century.
