The island is a public Recreation Reserve and visitors are welcome! You can come over on your own boat or kayak, or you can take one of several boat charter/water taxi options.
– Find out more about how to get here on this page.
You’re welcome to spend your time here relaxing, or you can also join one of the volunteering mahi or public events.
– Find out more about volunteering and other island events.
Groups can request to book the St.Martin Lodge and/or the Married Quarters building for day visits.
– Find our more about booking the St. Martin Lodge and/or the Married Quarters. Please contact us to ask about day hire and see our events page.
Our Island Keeper or volunteers can run a program alongside your group or involve you as a volunteer in a project. St. Martin Lodge is basic accommodation for groups and families. It is also used as a centre for hui, retreats, conferences, camps, and other gatherings in accordance with our values and vision.
– Find out more about staying overnight here. Please contact us to ask about overnight stays.
Our calendar shows when the Lodge is available along with upcoming public events.
“Very pleasant is an excursion to Quarantine Island on a fine day, when the placid waters of the harbour are bathed in sunshine, and ripple round many picturesque headlands, clothed with native verdure to their bases. On such a day Port Chalmers and its neighbourhood look their best, especially when viewed from seawards, and discover a rare commingling of nature unadorned, and nature embellished by the art and ingenuity of man.
Evidences of thriving prosperity, of the substantial progress of this land of our adoption, are apparent on all sides. Stately merchantmen in every stage of loading and unloading throng the harbour and line the jutting piers, whilst the scream of the railway whistle, the rattle of the heavily laden train, and the thud-thud of the paddles of the steamers which ply about the bay, tell the tale of the advance of science as applied to everyday affairs, and indicate that a share of the abundance of knowledge which pervades the world is not wanting here, and that man has profited and is profiting thereby”.
Otago Witness, 20 June 1874