Matakohe’s a sweet village on one of the Kaipara’s many inlets. Apart from its rural charms, the reason for visiting is the superb Kauri Museum (09-431 7417; www.kaurimuseum.com; Church Rd; adult/child $15/3; 8.30am-5pm). The giant cross-sections of trees are astounding in themselves, but the entire industry is brought to light through life-sized reproductions of a pioneer sawmill, boarding house, gum-digger’s hut and Victorian home – along with photos, artefacts, and fabulous furniture and marquetry. The Gum Room holds a weird and wonderful collection of kauri gum, the amber substance that can be carved, sculpted and polished to a jewel-like quality. The museum shop stocks mementos crafted from kauri wood and gum.
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Kerikeri means ‘dig dig’, which might imply that the town’s a hole. That’s not the case, although a lot of digging goes on in the surrounding fertile farmland. Famous for its oranges, Kerikeri also produces plenty of kiwifruit (don’t call them kiwis unless you want to offend Kiwis), vegetables and, increasingly, wine. If you’re looking for some back-breaking, poorly paid work that Kiwis (the people, as opposed to kiwifruit) aren’t keen to do, your working holiday starts here.
Apart from the odd bluff and river, this coast is basically unbroken and undeveloped for the 110km between the Hokianga and Kaipara harbours. The main reason for coming here is to marvel at the magnificent kauri forests, one of the great natural highlights of NZ. This is one for the chubby chasers of the tree- hugging fraternity – you’d need 8m arms to get them around some of the big boys here.
The Hokianga Harbour stretches out its skinny tentacles to become the fourth- biggest in the country. Its ruggedly beautiful landscape is painted in every shade of green and brown. The water itself is rendered the colour of ginger ale from the bush streams that feed it.
The bay gets its unusual name from an entry in Cook’s logbook, where he wrote that the body of water was ‘doubtless a bay’. No shit, Cap’n. It’s a bloody big bay at that, with a string of pretty swimming beaches heading towards the Karikari Peninsula.
When a town proclaims itself the ‘kumara capital of NZ’ (it produces two-thirds of the country’s sweet potatoes) you should know not to expect too much. Founded in 1872 by timber merchant Joseph Dargaville, this once-important river port thrived on the export of kauri timber and gum. As the forests were decimated, it declined and today is a quiet backwater servicing the agricultural Northern Wairoa area.
Maori consider Cape Reinga (Te Rerenga-Wairua) the jumping-off point for souls as they depart on the journey to their spiritual homeland. That makes the Aupouri Peninsula a giant diving board, and it certainly resembles one – long and thin, it reaches 108km to form NZ’s northern extremity. On its west coast Ninety Mile Beach (Ninety Kilometre Beach would be more accurate) is a continuous stretch lined with high sand dunes, flanked by the Aupouri Forest.
Undeniably pretty, the Bay of Islands ranks as one of NZ’s top tourist drawcards. The footage that made you want to come to NZ in the first place no doubt featured lingering shots of lazy, sun-filled days on a yacht floating atop these turquoise waters punctuated by around 150 undeveloped islands. The reality is that NZ has many beautiful spots and this bay, while wonderful, could be a teensy bit overhyped.