SS Penguin

Terawhiti Station is one of New Zealand's oldest and largest sheep stations, located along the south coast of Wellington. Terawhiti Station has seen a diverse range of land uses over the past 160 years. Originally a cattle station, Terawhiti grew into one of New Zealand's largest sheep stations before returning to cattle in 1993. The station originally consisted of the upraised marine terrace at Tongue Point on Wellington's south coast and was purchased by two Wellington businessmen Samuel Revans and William Mein Smith following the sale of Crown 'waste lands'. Captain William Barnard Rhodes later bought Revans’s land at Tongue Point stocking it with shorthorn cattle. His young manager, James McMenamen (known as Terawhiti Jack), later bought the Tongue Point farm and neighbouring blocks, forming Terawhiti Station and (later) Te Kamaru Station (at Te Ika a maru Bay). Today the station is approximately 13,000 acres (53 km2) in size, running from Te Ika a Maru Bay in the north, down to Karori Stream in the south and Cape Terawhiti in the West.The area boasts a rich and varied history. Gold mining was prominent on the station during the 19th century. The first alluvial 'rush' began in the 1850s, while the more concerted effort to extract gold from Cape Terawhiti followed in the 1880s. The latter of which failed to provide an economic return. Problems arose when miners encountered the fragmented geological landforms that make up much of the Wellington region. While payable quartz veins, containing gold, would be located, these seams come to an abrupt end, making mining a fragmented, and expensive exercise. This eventually caused the demise of gold mining on Cape Terawhiti. The company to expend the most time and money into the Terawhiti goldfield was the Albion Gold Mining Company. The Albion Battery, built in 1883, is one of the last remaining remnants of the short-lived gold rush. The farm still remains in the family of James McMenamen's descendants. Wind farming is seen as a new chapter of land-use in the ongoing story of survival in this harsh landscape. Meridian Energy completed the 62 turbine Project West Wind in 2009 in Mākara over the combined project area of Terawhiti Station and Makara Farm. The energy produced by Project West Wind has a capacity of 143 MW – enough power for all the houses in Wellington City, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt and Porirua.

Sinclair Head / Te Rimurapa is a major promontory on the south coast of New Zealand's North Island. It lies 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) to the west of the entrance to Wellington Harbour, and a similar distance to the east of Cape Terawhiti. The headland is named for Sir George Sinclair, a director of the New Zealand Company. The Māori name literally means "the search for seaweed".Sinclair Head is home to a non-breeding colony of New Zealand fur seals, with resident seal numbers ranging from over 300 in winter to about 50 in summer when only the non-breeding males stay behind. The seal haul-out is also known as the Red Rocks seal colony, named after an area of red coloured rocks immediately east of the headland.

Long Gully Wind Farm was a proposed wind farm in Wellington, New Zealand. Long Gully is an area adjacent to Zealandia (formerly known as the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary). The proposal involved using turbines manufactured by the New Zealand company Windflow Technology Limited. In 2008, Windflow Technology took on the overall management of the project.Windflow Technology announced in 2009 that Wellington City Council had granted resource consents for the wind farm. Two appeals against the consent were lodged and according to Windflow were resolved in principle by mid-2010.Mighty River Power (now Mercury Energy) was involved in early development of the proposal, but withdrew in 2010. In late 2010, the proposed wind farm was on hold as Windflow Technology did not want to pursue the proposal in the short-term due to low wholesale electricity prices. In 2012 a community group attempted to raise funds to begin construction.Consents for the project have now lapsed.

The Te Kopahou Reserve is a scenic, conservation and recreation reserve in Wellington in the North Island of New Zealand. It is located on the south coast of Wellington, and features rugged landscape including the sea coast adjoining Cook Strait, and the hill tops of Te Kopahou and Hawkins Hill. The reserve extends from the suburb of Brooklyn to the south coast at Ōwhiro Bay, and westwards along the south coast to Red Rocks/Pariwhero and Sinclair Head/Rimurapa.

Pariwhero / Red Rocks is a geological formation located in a scientific reserve on the south coast of Wellington, New Zealand. The site has been classified as nationally significant, and of high educational and scientific importance. The reserve provides examples of a wide range of rock formations and geological processes that are representative of the earliest stages in the formation of New Zealand.

West Wind is a wind farm located at Terawhiti Station and Mākara, west of Wellington, New Zealand. It is the first wind farm for the capital city, and has a capacity of 143 MW. Construction of the wind farm project began in September 2007 and was completed in late 2009. The wind farm received resource consent for up to 66 turbines, however only 62 were installed. It is owned and operated by Meridian Energy. The wind farm was officially opened in April 2009, when Prime Minister John Key turned on the first 15 turbines. Electricity from the farm is stepped-up to 110 kV and is injected into Transpower's national grid via hard tee connections into two of the three Central Park to Wilton circuits (both circuits of the Central Park - Wilton B Line). Six turbines suffered premature bearing failures in 2011.The wind farm was the winner of the Energy and Resources category in the 2012 New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards.In September 2019 Meridian celebrated 10 years of generation with the Mākara and Wellington community at the recreation area.

Cape Terawhiti is the southwesternmost point of the North Island of New Zealand. The cape is located 16 kilometres to the west of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. Ohau Point, located on the northern tip of Cape Terawhiti and, along with Perano Head on Arapaoa Island in the Marlborough Sounds, marks the narrowest part of Cook Strait. It is also the closest point in the North Island to the South Island, with West Head, at the mouth of the Tory Channel being only 28 kilometres away (this point in the South Island lies to the northwest of Cape Terawhiti). Cape Terawhiti, from which historic Terawhiti Station gets its name, came into being through a misconception of Captain Cook’s Tahitian interpreter, Tupaea. When, in 1769, Cook asked what the land in the east was, the local Maori replied simply, 'the east'. In fact Te Ra-whiti (The Rising Sun) is the general Maori term for the East Coast of the North Island. Omere is said to be the original name of Cape Terawhiti. At the southern end of Cape Terawhiti is Oteranga Bay, the termination point for the inter-island Cook Strait power cable. The proper name for the bay is Oterongo. The Maria, on its way from Lyttelton Harbour to Wellington, foundered at Cape Terawhiti on 23 July 1851, with the loss of 26 lives and 2 survivors. One of those drowned was the early Canterbury settler William Deans. Gold was found near Cape Terawhiti in 1862 and was mined for several years.

Mākara Peak Mountain Bike Park (Māori: Mākara Maunga Pahikara) is a mountain biking and walking park in Wellington, New Zealand.

Mākara is a locality located at the western edge of Wellington, New Zealand, close to the shore of the Tasman Sea. The suburb is named after the Mākara Stream (mā is Māori for white, kara is a kind of greywacke stone). The Wellington City Council regards the nearby Mākara Beach as a separate suburb. With winding road access from Karori or Ohariu, Mākara is a rural area with sparse development. It has attracted people who want rural living near Wellington.

Wrights Hill Fortress is a counter bombardment coastal artillery battery in the Karori suburb of Wellington, New Zealand. It was built between 1942 and 1944 and is predominantly underground, with numerous tunnels linking the war shelters, gun emplacements, magazines, plotting rooms and engine room - which are, at some points, over 50 feet underground. The fort was intended to house three 9.2" Mk. XV guns, but only two guns were installed and the fort never saw action. After World War II was over, fort commanders fired both of the guns (Gun number one in 1946 and the second in 1947). The fall of the shot was observed in Cook Strait and these test firings (three rounds on each occasion) were deemed a success. In 1960, somewhat ironically, both of the guns were sold to the Japanese as scrap metal, the very nation Wrights Hill Fortress was constructed to defend Wellington against. The design of the fort is similar to the Stony Batter and Whangaparaoa 9.2" Mk. XV batteries, near Auckland.Wrights Hill Fortress is currently in the hands of a preservation society and can be visited, by the public, on Waitangi Day, ANZAC Day, the Queen's birthday, and Labour Day. Tours may be booked, at other dates and times, by prior arrangement. The Fortress is listed as a Category I Historic Place.

Happy Valley is a southern suburb of Wellington, New Zealand, although it is not an "official" suburb to the Wellington City Council. It is a main thoroughfare between Wellington city and Wellington's somewhat rugged and scenic southern coast. The statistical area of Happy Valley-Owhiro Bay had a population of 1,743 at the 2013 New Zealand census, an increase of 84 people since the 2006 census. There were 858 males and 885 females. Happy Valley currently has a small eclectic Green community. There is an active community garden nearby the main waterway, the Owhiro Stream, between the school and the coast. North Happy Valley has an active environmental care group called Friends of the Owhiro Stream (FOOS), who have done quite an amount of eco-renewal. Happy Valley features in the opening and closing scenes of the World War II novel 'Lancewood', written by Alan Marshall, in which both penguins and cows are represented side by side on the beach.

Ōwhiro Bay is a southern suburb of Wellington, New Zealand, that overlooks Cook Strait. It is situated west of the larger suburb of Island Bay. The official name of the suburb was changed from Owhiro Bay to Ōwhiro Bay (with macron) by the New Zealand Geographic Board on 21 June 2019. The Bay and stream are named after the navigator Whiro, who landed the waka Nukutere there, and has been historically settled by the Kati Mamoe, Ngati Ira and Ngai Tara tribes. The suburb has been an industrial area of southern Wellington since the 1950s with the opening of Bata Shoes and the Southern Landfill (1976).