Urupukapuka is the largest island in the bay and the only one with public camping. Otehei Bay on the west coast is a popular stop on the standard island cruises, with a beachfront café and a long curving swimming beach. The island has been cleared of stoats, rats and possums since the early 2010s and is now a refuge for tieke (saddleback) and other forest birds.
A network of walking tracks links four sheltered bays around the perimeter. The longest, a six-kilometre loop, takes about three hours and crosses an old Maori pa site at the south end. Camping is allowed at three Department of Conservation sites; pre-booked permits are required and there are no shops, so bring everything in. Zane Grey, the American adventure novelist, ran a big-game fishing lodge here in the 1920s and 1930s; an interpretive panel near Otehei Bay tells the story.