 The island has lent its name to Moturoa, a suburb of New Plymouth, which lies on the mainland 1.5 kilometres to the southeast.A cluster of smaller islands, of which Whareumu (Lion Rock) is the largest, lies some 60 metres off the island's southwest coast.Moturoa is uninhabited, but it and several of the other Sugar Loaf Islands were hunting, fishing and gathering grounds and places of refuge for local inhabitants and the Taranaki and Te Āti Awa for hundreds of years.