The Cook Strait is the body of water that separates the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Fourteen miles wide at its narrowest point, it connects the Tasman Sea with the South Pacific Ocean.
Maori legend tells of Kupe, the famed Polynesian navigator who is said to have first discovered New Zealand, chasing a monstrous octopus across what is now Cook Strait. Later in 1770 Captain Cook, for which the strait is named, was the first European to circumnavigate New Zealand and to show that it consisted of two large islands separated by the strait.
Cook Strait is actually oriented in a north-south direction with Wellington, New Zealand’s capital, to the east on the North Island, and Picton, a small port city located to the west on the South Island.
Cook Strait (2)
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