Moturoa is a steeply sloped island off the coast of

Taranaki Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano of Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont. The main centre is the city of New Plymouth. The New Plymouth Dist ...

, New Zealand. It is the easternmost and largest of the

Sugar Loaf Islands The Sugar Loaf Islands (often Sugarloaf; mi, Ngā Motu, ) are a collection of five small uninhabited islands and several sea stacks near Port Taranaki, New Zealand. The largest, Moturoa Island, covers approximately . Motumahanga is the island fu ...

, hence its name, which is

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

for "long island". Moturoa is 120 metres long at its longest point, and around 100 metres wide. It is separated from the

coast of the

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

mainland by an wide channel. The entrance to

Port Taranaki Port Taranaki is a port complex located in New Plymouth, New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ...

lies just to the east. The island has lent its name to

Moturoa Moturoa is a coastal suburb of New Plymouth, in the western North Island of New Zealand. It is located to the west of the city centre, bordering Port Taranaki and the Sugar Loaf Islands. One of the islands, Moturoa, the largest, shares it ...

, a suburb of

New Plymouth New Plymouth ( mi, Ngāmotu) is the major city of the Taranaki region on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after the English city of Plymouth, Devon from where the first English settlers to New Plymouth migrated. ...

, which lies on the mainland 1.5 kilometres to the southeast. A cluster of smaller islands, of which Whareumu (Lion Rock) is the largest, lies some 60 metres off the island's southwest coast.

Habitation

Moturoa is uninhabited, but it and several of the other Sugar Loaf Islands were hunting, fishing and gathering grounds and places of refuge for local inhabitants and the

and

Te Āti Awa Te Āti Awa is a Māori iwi with traditional bases in the Taranaki and Wellington regions of New Zealand. Approximately 17,000 people registered their affiliation to Te Āti Awa in 2001, with around 10,000 in Taranaki, 2,000 in Wellington and arou ...

for hundreds of years.

Blasting Moturoa and Whareumu

In the early 20th century Moturoa and Whareumu were blasted with explosives in the hope to connect the islands to Mikotahi and the growing port at

on the mainland. After this was abandoned focus turned to mining Paritutu, west of

. The appearance of the two islands was changed greatly as a result of this work.

References

{{Authority control Islands of Taranaki Volcanoes of Taranaki Uninhabited islands of New Zealand Volcanic islands of New Zealand Volcanic plugs of New Zealand Pleistocene volcanoes New Plymouth

Habitation

Blasting Moturoa and Whareumu

See also

References