Latitude: 46°40' South

Longitude: 168°51' East

The light was lit for the first time on 1 January 1884, and the last keeper withdrawn in 1976. The light shines from a 13 metre-high white wooden tower, and is 21 metres above sea level. Its white light flashes five times every 20 seconds, and can be seen for 9 nautical miles (16 kilometres).

Waipapa Point, east of Invercargill, marks the scene of New Zealand's worst shipwreck. On 29 April 1881, 131 people were drowned when the passenger steamer Tararua was wrecked on a reef off the point. It was on one of its regular trips between Otago and Melbourne, via Bluff.

The sad tale of the wreck, in which only 20 of the 151 on board survived, is explained in Ingram's New Zealand Shipwrecks: "A particularly heavy sea swept over the forepart, and nearly a score of people were washed overboard. Only one person, the chief cook, succeeded in reaching the shore safely, after making a gallant but unsuccessful attempt to save a lady passenger. Towards evening those still surviving were forced to take refuge in the rigging, and on one occasion were heard cheering by those on shore, it was supposed at the sight of the steamer Kahanui steaming from the Bluff. Up till llpm lights in the rigging were occasionally seen, as though matches were being burned. At 2.35am on April 30 the closing tragedy in the disaster occurred. Those on the beach heard the piercing shrieks from the doomed people on the Tararua, and a voice, said to be that of the captain, calling for a boat, which could not be sent, as the chief officer's boat was damaged when it capsized, and could not be repaired. At daybreak the steamer had sunk almost out of sight, and bodies were coming ashore."

After the shipwreck a Court of Inquiry recommended a light be erected on the point. A light was ordered from England immediately, and work began on building the wooden tower and houses for three keepers and their families. It was the last wooden lighthouse tower built in New Zealand.

Two other recommendations submitted by the Court of Inquiry into the loss of the Tararua were also put into effect, marking an important turning point in New Zealand's maritime safety procedures. From 1882, lifebelts had to be provided for every person on board a ship, and crews were to regularly practise life-boat evacuation procedures. The light was lit for the first time on New Year's day in 1884. Not far from the tower is a small plot of land known as the Tararua Acre. It is here that the 64 bodies recovered from the wreck are buried.

The lighthouse greatly reduced the number of standings on the point, although in February 1891 the keepers themselves helped to save the crew of the Star of Erin, which struck the reef and became a total loss. The light was automated and the keepers withdrawn in 1976. Solarisation followed in 1988.