[1] Soon after launch she sailed to New Zealand, to become one of a small number of luxury steamers plying the route across the Tasman Sea to Australia.

At around 8 minutes past midnight on Monday, 29 October 1894, the ship was wrecked on the steep cliffs near Miners Head on the northern tip of Great Barrier Island, off the coast of Auckland.

One lifeboat eventually succeeded in reaching a local community of Ngati Wai Māori based at Katherine Bay, on the western coast of the island.

As the only contact with the island at the time was via weekly trips from a steamer, it was three full days until news of the shipwreck reached Auckland.

The steamer then proceeded to the site of the shipwreck, and to Katherine Bay, picking up further survivors and sailing back to arrive in Auckland about 3am Thursday 1 November.

[7] The wreck of Wairarapa is scheduled for preservation in the Auckland Unitary Plan and is also protected under the archaeological provisions of the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014.