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Top Attractions in Northland

Whangarei

Whangarei is the northernmost city in New Zealand and the regional capital of Northland Region. It is part of the Whangarei District, a local body created in 1989 to administer both the city proper and its hinterland. The district was created from the former Whangarei City, Whangarei County and Hikurangi Town councils. The city population was estimated to be 54,400 at the June 2014 estimate, up from 47,000 in 2001. The wider Whangarei area had an estimated population of 80,800 in 2011. The Whangarei urban area is spread throughout the valleys of the surrounding area and has several suburbs: Kamo, Springs Flat, Tikipunga, Three Mile Bush, Otangarei, Mairtown, Regent, Kensington, and Whau Valley lie to the north of the city. South and west of the town centre are Morningside, Raumanga, Maunu, Horahora, Woodhill, and the Avenues, and to the east are Riverside, Sherwood Rise, Onerahi, and Parihaka.

Kerikeri

Kerikeri, the largest town in Northland New Zealand, is a popular tourist destination about three hours drive north of Auckland, and 80 km north of the northern region's largest city, Whangarei. It is often called the Cradle of the Nation, being the site of the first permanent mission station in the country, and it has some of the most historic buildings in the country. A rapidly expanding centre of sub-tropical and allied horticulture, Kerikeri is in the Far North District of the North Island and lies at the western extremity of the Kerikeri Inlet, a northwestern arm of the Bay of Islands, where fresh water of the Kerikeri River enters the salty Pacific Ocean. Kerikeri is located at 35°16′S 173°55′E . A fast-growing community, the 2001 census showed the population of 4,878 was an increase of 16.3 percent over the 1996 figure, and the 2006 census tally of 5,856 was a further population growth of 20 percent, and at the 2013 census had increased by a further 11 percent to 6,507. The village was established by New Zealand's pioneering missionaries, who called it Gloucestertown, or Gloucester Town, but neither name endured. The Māori word Kerikeri was spelled and pronounced as Keddi Keddi or even Kiddee Kiddee, but the town's name is today generally pronounced Kerry Kerry but with a rolled r by Māori. In 1814 Samuel Marsden acquired land at Kerikeri from Hongi Hika for the use of the Church Missionary Society for a payment of forty-eight axes. Kerikeri was the first place in New Zealand where grape vines were planted. Samuel Marsden planted 100 vines on 25 September 1819 and noted in his journal that New Zealand promised to be very favourable to the vine. The plough was first used in New Zealand at Kerikeri, by Rev. J. G. Butler, on 3 May 1820.

Cape Reinga

Cape Reinga, official name Cape Reinga/Te Rerenga Wairua, is the northwesternmost tip of the Aupouri Peninsula, at the northern end of the North Island of New Zealand. Cape Reinga is more than 100 km north of the nearest small town of Kaitaia. State Highway 1 extends all the way to the Cape, but until 2010 was unsealed gravel road for the last 19km. Suitable vehicles can also travel much of the way via Ninety Mile Beach and Te Paki stream bed. The 'Te Rerenga Wairua' component of the name in Māori language means the leaping-off place of spirits. The 'Reinga' part of the name is the Māori language word meaning the underworld. Both refer to the Māori belief that the cape is the point where the spirits of the dead enter the underworld. Cape Reinga is on the tentative list of UNESCO waiting to receive World Heritage Site status. The cape is already a favourite tourist attraction, with over 120,000 visitors a year and around 1,300 cars arriving per day during peak season. Visitor numbers are growing by about five percent a year, and the increase is likely to become even more now that the road to the cape is fully sealed.

Te Matua Ngahere

Te Matua Ngahere is a giant kauri coniferous tree in the Waipoua Forest of Northland Region, New Zealand. The trees Maori name means "Father of the Forest". Although not as massive or tall as its neighbour Tāne Mahuta, Te Matua Ngahere is stouter, with a girth just over 16 metres . It is believed to be the second largest living kauri tree, and to have the biggest girth of any kauri in the country. According to The New Zealand Herald, it has the biggest girth of any tree in New Zealand. Though there is no proof of the tree’s age, it is estimated to be between 1200 and 2000 years old; or between 2000 and 3000 years old; or even 4000 years old. One resource, published by National Geographic Books, claims that Te Matua Ngahere may be the oldest tree in New Zealand, while another suggests that its the oldest rainforest tree on earth. Revered by the Māori, Te Matua Ngahere is under their special protection. The tree, a remnant of the ancient rain forest that once grew on the North Auckland Peninsula, has a relationship with other flora, such as orchids, clubmoss, and a rata tree that grew on it. Unfortunately, the Te Matua Ngahere suffered severe damage in July 2007, due to extreme winter storms in Northland when the rata which was growing on top of Te Matua Ngahere, was felled by strong storm winds, and took with it the central leader of Te Matua Ngahere plus several of its branches, thus shortening its life by hundreds of years.

Kauri Museum

The Kauri Museum is in the west coast village of Matakohe, Northland, New Zealand. The museum, to the south of the Waipoua Forest, contains many exhibits that tell the story of the pioneering days when early European settlers in the area extracted kauri timber and kauri gum. The museum has over 4000 sq metres of undercover exhibits, including the largest collection of kauri gum in the world, and the largest collection of kauri furniture. It has a model of a 1900s kauri house with furniture and models in the dress of the early years, and an extensive collection of photographs and pioneering memorabilia. On the wall, there are full-scale circumference outlines of the huge trees, including one of 81/2 metres, larger even than Tane Mahuta. The museum includes a working mock-up of a steam sawmill. It tells its story from the colonial viewpoint, and presents its representation of the kauri gum industry as part of the process of creating the New Zealand identity. It has little to say about negative aspects, such as the impact on the Māori people. The Kauri Museum has however helped raise awareness of the need to conserve the remaining forest through a display of photographs by the conservationist Stephen King, presented in partnership with the Waipoua Forest Trust.

Tāne Mahuta

Tāne Mahuta is a giant kauri tree in the Waipoua Forest of Northland Region, New Zealand. Its age is unknown but is estimated to be between 1,250 and 2,500 years. It is the largest kauri known to stand today. Its Māori name means "Lord of the Forest", from the name of a god in the Māori pantheon. The tree is a remnant of the ancient subtropical rainforest that once grew on the North Auckland Peninsula. Other giant kauri are found nearby, notably Te Matua Ngahere. Tāne Mahuta is the most famous tree in New Zealand, along with Te Matua Ngahere. It is thought it was discovered and identified in the 1920s when contractors surveyed the present State Highway 12 route through the forest. In 1928 Nicholas Yakas and other bushmen, who were building the road, also identified the tree. According to the Maori creation myth, Tāne is the son of Ranginui the sky father and Papatuanuku the earth mother. Tāne separates his parents from their marital embrace until his father the sky is high above mother earth. Tāne then sets about clothing his mother with vegetation. The birds and the trees of the forest are regarded as Tāne’s children. In April 2009, Tāne Mahuta was partnered with Jōmon Sugi on Yakushima, Japan. During the New Zealand drought of 2013, 10,000 litres of water from a nearby stream was diverted to Tane Mahuta, which was showing signs of dehydration.

Mangonui

Taipa-Mangonui is one name given to a string of small resort settlements in the far north of New Zealand's North Auckland Peninsula, close to the base of the Aupouri Peninsula. The resorts of Taipa, Cable Bay, Coopers Beach, and Mangonui, all of which lie along the coast of Doubtless Bay, are so close together that they have run together to form one larger settlement with a combined population of 1566 . The "miniature conurbation" lies 150 kilometres by road northwest of Whangarei (though only 100 kilometres as the crow flies), and 20 kilometres northeast of Kaitaia. It is thus the northernmost centre in New Zealand with a population of above 1000, even though it is nearly 100 kilometres southeast of the northernmost tip of the North Island. According to some Maori legends, the great Polynesian explorer and navigator, Kupe, sailed from Hawaiiki in his canoe, named Matahourua and landed at Taipa Bay. Others believe that he landed in the Hokianga Harbour around AD 900. Centuries after Kupe’s landing his descendants, the chiefs Te Parata and Tu moana were said to have brought the ancestors of the Ngatikahu tribe to the Mangonui area around AD 1350, returning on the same canoe. Legend has it that they found insufficient fresh water at Otengi Bay and travelled up to the mouth of the Taipa River to land. There they settled and married into the local tribes. Another canoe led by Moehuri is said to have been guided by a large shark into the Mangonui Harbour to a landing spot opposite the old post office. He made the shark Tapu and called the harbour Mangonui, meaning ‘Big Shark.’ in the Maori language. In the 19th century, the spelling of Mongonui was more common, and the Mongonui electorate filled one seat in Parliament between 1861 and 1881. Moehuri settled in Mangonui and married into the local people- remnants of the Ngati Awa and branch tribes of the Ngati Whatua. Pā were located all around the area, including one at Mill Bay, called Rangikapiti by Moehuri. Taumarumaru pa was located on the headland between Mangonui and Coopers Beach while at the western end of Coopers Beach was Ohumuhumu pa, surrounded at one time by a large village. The first European visitors appeared in 1769. Jean De Surville and his crew aboard St Jean Baptiste landed at what he named Lauriston Bay to get fresh vegetables to combat scurvy. Captain James Cook had sailed by eight days earlier and believed the area to be an enclosed body of water, commenting that it was ‘doubtless a bay’ and so the name Doubtless Bay came about. Around twenty years later, whalers and sealers from all over the western world were the next to arrive and the name Coopers Beach is thought to have come from the coopers on the whaling boats. When Hone Heke destroyed Kororareka (Russell), the evacuation saw 40 to 50 ships in the Mangonui Harbour. The town assumed new importance and was considered the country’s second capital. The last whaling ship visited Mangonui in 1885. The first European settler is considered to be James David Berghan from Ireland who arrived in Mangonui in 1831. By the later half of the 19th century, flax and timber industries were flourishing in the area. Other setters developed farms and businesses in the area while some married into the native population. The dynamic mix of settlers coming from various parts of Europe, combined with the Maori population provided Mangonui with a rich heritage.

Butler Point Whaling Museum

Butler Point Whaling Museum is located at Hihi, near Mangonui in New Zealand’s Doubtless Bay, a centre for whaling fleets in the 1820s-1850s. The museum comprises the house built in the 1840s by early settler William Butler, an earlier Church Missionary Society house from the Waimate Mission moved to the site by Butler, both fitted with original furniture.and a recently built whaling museum, with a restored fully equipped whaling boat, tryworks, a collection of harpoons, models, scrimshaw and artefacts from the whalers who called into Doubtless Bay, including Charles W. Morgan. There are also substantial gardens and grounds surrounding the museum, including a 10.9 metre circumference Pōhutukawa tree, claimed to be the world’s largest. The owners and curators,, live in the grounds.

Mission House

The Mission House at Kerikeri in New Zealand was completed in 1822 as part of the Kerikeri Mission Station by the Church Missionary Society, and is New Zealand’s oldest surviving building. It is sometimes known as Kemp House. Samuel Marsden established the Anglican mission to New Zealand with lay preachers, who lived in the Bay of Islands under the protection of Hongi Hika, the chief of the local tribe, the Ngapuhi. In November 1819, Marsden purchased 13,000 acres from the Ngapuhi. Marsden instructed the Reverend John Butler to erect buildings for the mission station under the shelter of the Ngapuhi Pa or fortress of Kororipo at Kerikeri, . Using Māori and skilled European labour, Butler had completed the centre piece Mission House by 1822, . Butler’s house was a weatherboard clad, two-storey Georgian design with a verandah and two chimneys. It was built primarily from Kauri. At some point in the 1830s, a skilling was added, and the verandah was replaced with an enlarged design in 1843. In the 1920s a bathroom was added behind the kitchen. Butler was sacked in 1823, and George Clarke occupied the building until the early 1830s, by which time the Ngapuhi had abandoned Kororipo, but the mission station was strong enough to feel no need for protection. The house was occupied by James and Charlotte Kemp in 1832 and although initially part of an expanded mission presence,, it was later purchased by the Kemps, and stayed in that family for 142 years, until Ernest Kemp donated it to the New Zealand Historic Places Trust in 1976. The Trust has restored the building to an approximation of its 1843 appearance, . Together with the Stone Store, the Mission house is now a museum open to the public.

Treaty House

The Treaty House at Waitangi in Northland, New Zealand, is the former house of the British Resident in New Zealand, James Busby. The Treaty of Waitangi, the document that established the British Colony of New Zealand, was signed in the grounds of the Treaty House on 6 February 1840. The grounds had previously been the site of other important events, such as the signing of the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand in 1835. The house and grounds remained in private hands until 1932, when they were purchased by Governor General Viscount Bledisloe and donated to the nation. They were dedicated as a national reserve in 1934, in a ceremony attended by thousands of people, both Māori and Pākehā, and including the Māori King. It was the site of another major event in 1940, when the centenary of the Treaty signing was celebrated. From 1947 the grounds became the site of annual Waitangi Day celebrations.

Stone Store

The Stone Store at Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands is New Zealand’s oldest surviving stone building. Part of the first Church Missionary Society station in New Zealand, the store was designed by John Hobbs to replace an earlier wooden store house. The Stone Store was erected between 1832 and 1836 by mason William Parrott, carpenter Ben Nesbitt and a team of Māori. Construction was of sandstone from Australia, local volcanic rocks and burnt shell mortar. Iron ties and window bars were forged by James Kemp, . Initially it had a wooden belfry on one side. The Stone Store was intended to be the base of the Church Missionary Society’s trading post, selling produce from the farms at Te Waimate mission to ships, and European goods to Māori. Marsden planned to build a flour mill on the adjacent Kerikeri River, but this was eventually built at te Waimate instead. Stone was used to protect wheat from rats, for defence against Māori and to reduce the risk of fire. By the mid-1830s the mission stations could not compete with the private enterprise of other European settlers, either as traders or farmers, and the store was not profitable. The building was converted into the mission library by Bishop Selwyn in the early 1840s. Following the sacking of Kororareka in the Flagstaff War, it was briefly taken over by Governor George Grey for use as a magazine and barracks. After the cessation of hostilities in 1845, the stone store was leased to become the centre of Kauri gum trading operation, and then in 1863 it was used to house a boys school. The building was sold to the Kemp family in 1874, and was used as a general store, although it increasingly became a tourist attraction. The Stone Store was purchased from the Kemps by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust in 1975. Conservation work was done in the 1990s. The store, together with the neighbouring Mission House now form a small museum.

Ninety Mile Beach

Ninety Mile Beach, official name Te Oneroa-a-Tōhē/Ninety Mile Beach, is on the western coast of the far north of the North Island of New Zealand. It stretches from just west of Kaitaia towards Cape Reinga along the Aupouri Peninsula. It begins close to the headland of Reef Point, to the west of Ahipara Bay, sweeping briefly northeast before turning northwest for the majority of its length. It ends at Scott Point, 5 kilometres south of Cape Maria van Diemen. It is actually just 88 kilometers long. . The beach and its northern dunes are a tourist destination. The dunes, looking much like a desert landscape, are often used for bodyboarding. In 1932 the beach was used as the runway for some of the earliest airmail services between Australia and New Zealand. It is officially a public highway and sometimes used as an alternative road to State Highway 1 north of Kaitaia, though mainly for tourist reasons, or when the main road is closed due to landslides or floods. In a 2013 feature for TV show Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson drove the length of the beach in a Toyota Corolla as part of a race against an AC45 racing yacht with a crew that included James May.

Mokohinau Islands

The Mokohinau Islands are a small group of islands that lie off the northeast coast of New Zealands North Island. The islands are 21 km northwest of Great Barrier Island and approximately 52 km east of Bream Head. Most of them are managed by the Department of Conservation as nature reserves and wildlife sanctuaries. Landing is not allowed without a permit, with the exception of Burgess Island, much of which is managed as a scenic reserve by the Department of Conservation. The remainder of Burgess Island is Crown Land and is administered by the Ministry of Transport. The islands are volcanic stacks, sitting at the edge of the continental shelf. Nowadays free of mammalian pests again, the islands are being left to regenerate naturally, and are the home to a number of New Zealands smallest endangered species, such as the Mokohinau skink, the robust skink and the Mokohinau stag beetle as well as a number of endangered plant species. Historically, the islands were often visited seasonally by Maori for muttonbirding, harvesting the chicks of petrels for food and oil. Today, the main attractions for the rare tourists are the very clear waters teeming with wildlife. Burgess Island is also the location of the Mokohinau Islands Lighthouse, one of the most distant lights from the mainland. The light was built in 1883 and fully automated in 1980.
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