Oku Street Reserve

The Victoria University Coastal Ecology Laboratory (VUCEL) is a research facility of the School of Biological Sciences at Victoria University of Wellington that supports research in coastal ecology and marine biology. Located at the southern end of the North Island of New Zealand, in Island Bay on Wellington's south coast, approximately 8 km south of the university's main campus, the laboratory overlooks Cook Strait and the exposed rocky reef systems of the Taputeranga Marine Reserve.VUCEL is known in Māori as Te Toka Tū Moana, which means "the surf-beaten rock that stands firm in the ocean". The Māori name is both a description of the VUCEL building (with natural design elements that give it the appearance of rising from the rocks of the Wellington south coast), and it is representative of the strong connections between land and sea that are the focus much of VUCEL-supported research.VUCEL is a purpose-built research facility designed by Pynenburg & Collins Architects Ltd with the internal laboratory spaces designed by Labworks Architecture Ltd, the research facility was completed in early 2009 and comprises an 816m² research space that includes 113m² of science laboratories, 168m² of wet laboratory facilities supplied with filtered and unfiltered flow-through seawater, and 161m² of oceanfront office space for up to 30 VUCEL research students, academics, and support staff. VUCEL provides a staging area for field-based research programmes along the Wellington south coast and surrounding regions. The lab maintains a small fleet of research vessels and vehicles, SCUBA diving facilities, research infrastructure, and instrumentation for field-based ecological research. VUCEL provides logistic support to research programmes in coastal ecology that are conducted in the Wellington region and throughout New Zealand, the Indo-Pacific region, and Southern Ocean. Victoria University first proposed a marine lab along the south coast of Wellington in the 1920s but it was not until the 1960s that a lab was established. This predecessor to VUCEL, known as the Island Bay Marine Lab, occupied a building that was originally constructed as a shark liver oil processing plant by the Glaxo Company. This 1950's structure supported the marine biology programme of Victoria University until 2007, when it was demolished to make way for the new purpose-built coastal ecology laboratory.

Welland Place Park is a park in Wellington, New Zealand. It is located between the suburbs of Island Bay and Ōwhiro Bay, and looks down over Ōwhiro Bay. It comprises a small grass sward, with fencing and some landscaping with native plants. The park is visible on a map of reserves in the city.

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).

Island Bay is a coastal suburb of Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, situated 5 km (3.1 mi) south of the city centre. Island Bay lies on the bay which shares its name, one of numerous small bays off Cook Strait and west of Lyall Bay. 500m offshore in Island Bay lies Tapu Te Ranga Island, which forms a natural breakwater and provides a sheltered anchorage for local fishing boats. Noted current Island Bay residents include Minister of Justice Andrew Little MP, and Celia Wade-Brown, former Mayor of Wellington. Former residents include Bruce Stewart, writer and dramatist at Tapu Te Ranga Marae; Middlesbrough F.C. and All Whites striker Chris Killen; artist John Drawbridge; poet Alan Brunton; writer Robin Hyde; and, in the late 19th century, The Hermit of Island Bay.

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.

Tapu Te Ranga Marae is located in Island Bay, Wellington, New Zealand. The marae was founded by Bruce Stewart who lived there until his death in 2017. It was a tribute to Stewart's mother, Hinetai Hirini, and is listed as a heritage site .

Southgate is a suburb of Wellington, New Zealand, in the Paekawakawa/Southern Ward. The main road is Buckley Road, which runs south from the point at which Mount Albert Road changes name to Houghton Bay Road. The earliest residential housing was at the beginning of the 20th century. A housing development was created on Buckley Road in 1957, and another ten years later. Most houses in the suburb were built in the 1970s.

HMNZS Wellington was a Leander-class frigate of the Royal Navy and the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN). Originally commissioned in 1969 for the Royal Navy as HMS Bacchante, she joined the RNZN in 1982. She was decommissioned in 1999 and sunk in 2005.

Erskine College is a collection of historic buildings and landscapes (including the Chapel of the Sacred Heart and Main Block Convent) in Wellington, New Zealand. Built in 1905 by the Society of the Sacred Heart (Sacré Coeur), the buildings served as a Catholic girls' boarding school (Convent of the Sacred Heart at Island Bay) until its closure in 1985.The name was changed to Erskine College in the late 1960s to avoid confusion with Sacred Heart College, Lower Hutt; being named after Mother Janet Erskine Stuart, the fifth Superior General of the Society of the Sacred Heart.The buildings and grounds are now classified as a "Category I" ("places of special or outstanding historical or cultural heritage significance or value") historic place by Heritage New Zealand.The college buildings, with the exception of the chapel, were controversially demolished by its owners The Wellington Company in 2018, to make way for 96 townhouses.

Houghton Bay and Valley is one of the southern suburbs of Wellington, New Zealand. It is located between Island Bay and Lyall Bay, on the rocky shores of the Cook Strait. It has two beaches, Houghton Bay and Princess Bay, used by surfers, swimmers and divers.

Kingston is a southern suburb of Wellington, New Zealand, south of Brooklyn and Mornington. The suburb was developed in the 1960s, when there was more "cut and fill" earthworks in new subdivisions to provide flat sections. In 2013 and 2017 there were slips of unstable land, and a Wellington City Council spokesman blamed the "cut and fill" for the slips, though after a previous slip some local residents suggested that broken or faulty water mains or stormwater drains could be responsible. In 2014 a "slip-prone" Kingston house was demolished. A lot of streets in Kingston have names associated with Canada, such as Vancouver Street and Caribou Place. Between 2017 and 2021 the median house sale price in Kingston increased from $772,000 to $1,080,000.As of 2021, the Kingston shops consist of a dairy, a fish and chip shop and a mechanic. The nearest post office is NZ Post Centre Island Bay.

Princess Bay is one of the southern beaches of Wellington, New Zealand.