Hokianga Harbour

Attractions and Activities

Hokianga Harbours untamed beaches, offer contrasting landscapes. The northern shores are made up of giant golden sand dunes, heaped up to 170 metres high by the westerly winds. While the southern side is green consisting of farmland forest, bush and scrub. The harbour is visited by dolphins, orcas and seals. The regions of the harbour and coast provide an environment for surfing, sandboarding, swimming, fishing, kayaking, coastal and mangrove walks, and harbour cruises. Bordering the harbour on the southern is the Kauri forests, with rare New Zealand flora, kiwi and othere wildlife. Further down the road is Tane Mahuta, “Lord of the Forest”, the largest kauri tree in New Zealand. Many settlements reside on the harbours shores, 4Omapere, 5Opononi, 7Rawene and 8Kohukohu, to name a few. Among these towns, artists, craft outlets, bone carvers, sculpters ply their trade.

Puketi and Omahuta Forests are easily accessible from the Hokianga harbour and the Bay of Islands. Puketi and Omahuta form one of the largest remaining continuous tracks of native forests in Northland. The forest type is a diverse mixture of hardwoods, podocarps and kauri. Many of the kauri stands have been logged or bled for gum in the past. The area is still a treasure house for native plants and animals, and includes populations of kiwi, kokako, kaka and lesser short-tailed bats.
Mangungu Mission House is the site of the second signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Whiria mountain at Pakanae is Hokianga’s most famous Pa site. It is a large steep conical hill and on the crest is a memorial to Rahiri, the chieftain and founder of the Ngapuhi Iwi. Events taking place the Hokianga Country Music Festival in September is three days of music, the festival venues are at Rawene, Opononi, and Kohukohu. The Annual Rawne Book Festival takes place in April/May, and across the harbour at Kohukohu, a Jam Session at the Waterline Café on the first Sunday of every month

General Information

1 Hokianga Harbour is located in the far north of the North Island of New Zealand. The Hokianga harbour is also known to Māori as 3Te Kohanga o Te Tai Tokerau (the nest of the Northern People). The estuary extends in land for 70 kilometres from the Tasman Sea. One of the most beautiful and relatively unspoilt parts of New Zealand. It has a low population, which means deserted beaches with room to move. The climate is mild at all times of the year, making gardens grow well in this area. The estuary is a tidal river system lined with mangroves, small harbourside towns and family farms. Hokianga is considered to be one of the oldest settlements for the Māori and is still a heartland for the Nga Puhi people. Here you can read more about the best tourist places in New Zealand.

History

Twelve thousand years ago Hokianga was a river valley flanked by steep bush-clad hills. As the last ice age regressed, the dramatic rise in sea level slowly flooded the valley turning it into a tidal saltwater harbour with abundant sheltered deep water anchorage. This was the harbour that farewelled Kupe and in 1822 would welcome the first European timber entrepeneurs.

Oral tradition suggest that Māori made their first landfall at Hokianga Harbour from their original island home of Hawaiki. The great Polynesian explorer Kupe settled on the Hokianga Harbour making it his home. Te Puna i te ao marama (The spring of the world of light) was his beautiful name for the harbour, and so it stayed until his old age when he returned to Hawaiki. The words he uttered then about his decision became the preferred name for the harbour. “Hei konei ra i te puna i te ao marama, ka hoki nei ahau, e kore ano e hokianga-nui mai” – “This the spring of the world of light, I shall not come back here again”. So the name 2Te Hokianga-nui-a-Kupe was given, and in time became simply “Hokianga”.
Kupe’s descendants in Hawaiki followed Kupe’s navigational directions to sail back to the Hokianga Harbour where they settled, so founding the people now known as the Nga Puhi.