Pepin Island is a privately owned

tied island Tied islands, or land-tied islands as they are often known, are landforms consisting of an island that is connected to mainland or another island only by a tombolo: a spit of beach materials connected to land at both ends. St Ninian's Isle in ...

in New Zealand connected by a causeway to the settlement of Cable Bay, north-east of

Nelson Nelson may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey * ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers * ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...

Geography

Pepin Island is long, and up to wide. It measures in area. The highest point is Stuart Hill, which rises to . The island is located on the northeast coast of

Tasman Bay / Te Tai-o-Aorere Tasman Bay (; officially Tasman Bay / Te Tai-o-Aorere), originally known in English as Blind Bay, is a large V-shaped bay at the north end of New Zealand's South Island. Located in the centre of the island's northern coast, it stretches along ...

, with the smaller indentation of

Delaware Bay Delaware Bay is the estuary outlet of the Delaware River on the northeast seaboard of the United States. It is approximately in area, the bay's freshwater mixes for many miles with the saltwater of the Atlantic Ocean. The bay is bordered inlan ...

to the east. It is joined to the mainland by a naturally formed pathway made from boulders that have tumbled down nearby hillsides then been shaped into a causeway by the sea.

History

Historian John Mitchell has said the

Ngāti Tama Ngāti Tama is a historic Māori iwi of present-day New Zealand which whakapapas back to Tama Ariki, the chief navigator on the Tokomaru waka. The iwi of Ngati Tama is located in north Taranaki around Poutama. The Mōhakatino river marks their ...

and other

iwi Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, an ...

came into the area from the 1820s, and that part of the island was once the pā of the paramount chief of Tama,

Te Pūoho-o-te-rangi Te Pūoho-o-te-rangi (died 1836 or 1837) was a notable New Zealand tribal leader. A Māori, he identified with the Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Toa iwi. Te Pūoho was born in Poutama, Taranaki, New Zealand, possibly in the late eighteenth century. Lat ...

, but that it left Ngāti Tama control around 1880. The island was named by the French explorer

Jules Dumont d'Urville Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville (; 23 May 1790 – 8 May 1842) was a French explorer and naval officer who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica. As a botanist and cartographer, he gave his nam ...

after his wife, Adèle Pépin. In 1996, the island was bought by the German businesswoman Dr Viola von Hohenzollern (née Hallman) for

NZ$ The New Zealand dollar ( mi, tāra o Aotearoa; sign: $, NZ$; code: NZD) is the official currency and legal tender of New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Niue, the Ross Dependency, Tokelau, and a British territory, the Pitcairn Islands. Within New ...

2 million. When von Hohenzollern bought the island, it was overgrazed, run down, and had many wild goats that prevent the growth of native bush. Her farm manager improved the situation by planting trees, fencing and pest control. Von Hohenzollern and farm manager Andrew Newton won a top Nelson Tasman Environmental award in 2011 for their custodianship. In December 2012, von Hohenzollern died and Pepin Island was inherited by her daughter, Olivia Hallman. The new owner has introduced public open days, and the second one was run in May 2015, which attracted over 1,000 people and was again a fundraiser for the

Hira Hira may refer to: Places *Cave of Hira, a cave associated with Muhammad * Al-Hirah, an ancient Arab city in Iraq ** Battle of Hira, 633AD, between the Sassanians and the Rashidun Caliphate *Hira Mountains, Japan * Hira, New Zealand, settlement n ...

Volunteer Fire Force. In late 2018, the island went on sale, with an asking price of $NZ16 million. Nelson mayor Rachel Reese expressed interest that the island be locally owned. In March 2021, a staff member from

real estate agency The law of agency is an area of commercial law dealing with a set of contractual, quasi-contractual and non-contractual fiduciary relationships that involve a person, called the agent, that is authorized to act on behalf of another (called the p ...

Sotheby's said that the price had been lowered to $13.5 million. In May 2021, it was announced that the island had been sold to a New Zealand company, but that the name of the purchaser and the cost were being kept secret. According to Sotheby's, the new owner intends "to continue the current farming operation, tourist accommodation business, maintain current public access and further explore the establishment of strategic environmental areas across the island".

References

{{Nelson, New Zealand, state=collapsed Islands of the Nelson Region Geography of Nelson, New Zealand Private islands of New Zealand Populated places around Tasman Bay / Te Tai-o-Aorere