Qualla: Poor Knights Islands

Poor Knights Islands: Introduction

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter Southwood, CC BY-SA 3.0. Nobody has lived on the Poor Knights Islands since the 1820s, and nobody is allowed to. The islands are tapu -- sacred and forbidden -- a designation that predates any government reserve status by more than a century. In December 1823, while the chief Tatua was away fighting alongside Hongi Hika in the Hauraki Gulf, raiders arrived in three large canoes and overpowered the undefended settlement. Many of the islanders threw themselves from the cliffs rather than be taken as slaves. When Tatua returned, he found fewer than ten survivors, including his five-year-old son Wehiwehi, hidden in a cave during the attack. Tatua declared the islands tapu and left with the survivors. Two hundred years later, only scientists with permits set foot here.

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Image: Peter Southwood | CC BY-SA 3.0

Poor Knights Islands: Named for a Pudding

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, CC BY 4.0. How the Poor Knights got their English name remains a minor historical puzzle. Historian John Beaglehole speculated in 1955 that the islands might have been named for the Poor Knights of Windsor, a group of military pensioners at Windsor Castle. Or, he suggested, they might have ...

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Image: Department of Scientific and Industrial Research | CC BY 4.0

Poor Knights Islands: The Betrayal at the Cliffs

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pseudopanax at English Wikipedia, Public domain. The Ngati Wai and Ngati-Toki peoples had lived on the islands for generations, growing crops and fishing the surrounding waters. When Tatua left with his warriors to join Hongi Hika's expedition, an enslaved man named Paha escaped and traveled to Hokianga, where he found Waikato,...

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Image: Pseudopanax at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Poor Knights Islands: Rikoriko and the Underwater World

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter Southwood, CC BY-SA 3.0. Below the waterline, the Poor Knights are a different place entirely. The surrounding marine reserve protects subtropical species carried south by warm ocean currents, making these islands one of the premier diving destinations in the Southern Hemisphere. The volcanic cliffs plun...

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Image: Peter Southwood | CC BY-SA 3.0

Poor Knights Islands: Remnants of an Ancient Volcano

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, CC BY 4.0. The islands are what remains of a rhyolitic volcano that erupted between 10 and 9.5 million years ago, during some of the earliest activity of the Coromandel Volcanic Zone. At its peak, the volcano is estimated to have stood 1,000 meters tall with a diameter of 25 kilometers. Wha...

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Image: Department of Scientific and Industrial Research | CC BY 4.0

Poor Knights Islands: A Sanctuary by Default and Design

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter Southwood, CC BY-SA 3.0. After Maori departed, the islands existed in a kind of accidental wilderness. Feral pigs left behind on Aorangi were not exterminated until 1936. Since then, the islands have become a protected nature reserve where permits are granted almost exclusively for scientific research. T...

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Image: Peter Southwood | CC BY-SA 3.0