Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Getting There & Around
Busabout Kaitaia
(
09-408 1092;
www.cbec.co.nz
)
runs services from Kaitaia ($3.50, 15
minutes).
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
HOKIANGA
I love the north of the north island, the beaten, bloody and beautiful landscape and
wairua. The small towns up north, where I grew up, reach out all along the moody
west coast. As kids, my brother and I would sneak in to Ngawha Springs and have
our mud baths in the morning - smelling of rotten eggs for the rest of the day. In
Opononi we'd go crab hunting on the rocks with Uncle Rata, then take the car ferry
from Rawene home. At Pawarenga - a dusty old Maori town - we'd go horse riding
with the cuzzies, learn Maori with my Grandpa, eat karahuand oysters, and, as we
grew up, drink with the aunties and uncles. We'd drive to Kaitaia to buy all our food
for the next week, and hang at the local pubs. Then further north for the Mangonui
fish 'n' chip shop, the best kaiin Aotearoa. When we were tired, we'd drive to
Ahipara and sleep on the beach.
Anika Moa, singer/songwriter
HOKIANGA
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 by the bush streams that feed
it.
Of all the remote parts of Northland, this is the pocket that feels the most removed
from the mainstream. Pretension has no place here. Isolated, predominantly Maori com-
munities nestle around the harbour's many inlets, as they have done for centuries. Dis-
covered by legendary explorer Kupe, it's been settled by Ngapuhi since the 14th century.
Hippies arrived in the late 1960s and their legacy is a thriving little artistic scene.
Many of the roads remain unsealed, and, while tourism dollars are channelled east-
ward to the Bay of Islands, this truly fascinating corner of the country remains remark-
ably undeveloped, just how many of the locals like it.
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