Motuareronui / Adele Island

Motuareronui / Adele Island is an uninhabited, roughly 87-hectare island about 800 metres off the Abel Tasman coast. Its wooded ridge reaches 119 metres above sea level. I'd make time for it on a boat or kayak day if you want beaches and a chance to hear native birdsong in a place with a long restoration story.

Reach the island by boat or kayak; there is no road access. There are no toilets or camping, and the nearest toilets are at Appletree Bay. No food service or drinking water is listed on the island, so plan for a self-contained visit. Dogs are not allowed on the island or its foreshore.

Before landing or even mooring nearby, check your boat or kayak, bags and other gear for rats, mice, ants, seeds and weeds. Those checks help protect the island's recovering wildlife.

Rodents were removed from Adele and neighboring islands in 2007. Later trapping, with help from the Marahau community, removed stoats from Adele. The restoration brought 31 South Island robins, or toutouwai, in 2009 and 14 more in 2011; 28 saddlebacks, or tīeke, followed in 2014. The project reports successful establishment, with saddlebacks favoring the coastal forest fringe. Take a moment to listen as you walk.

The beaches are part of the appeal, and seals are sometimes reported around the island. Look along the water as well as the shore; sightings are a bonus, not a sure thing.

French navigator Jules Dumont d'Urville charted the island in 1827 and named it Adele for his wife, Adèle Pépin. His ship Astrolabe lent its name to the nearby roadstead. Accounts from that visit and later early surveyors also record Māori settlements on Adele and nearby Fisherman Island.

Motuareronui became part of the island's official dual name in 2014. A common gloss connects it with a “big tongue-shaped island,” but that interpretation is disputed, so the meaning is best left open.

From the water, the island's long tree-covered outline and low peak make the clearest picture. A sandy shoreline in the foreground gives the island a sense of scale; the wooded slopes and sea are the subject, rather than a built viewpoint.