NATUREANDCO.COM - Visit the Coast of Northland and the Bay of Islands, New Zealand

in this section
Visiting the New Zealand Coasts:

Outstanding areas

Northland & Bay of Islands

Hauraki Gulf & Auckland

Coromandel

Marlborough Sounds

West Coast

Fiordland

Catlins

Types and diversity

In regions

in parent section
Nature Sightseeing:

Native forests

Wildlife

Coasts

Islands

Volcanoes

Mountains

Native flora

Selected bibliography

Travel & Adventure>Nature sightseeing>Coasts

Visit the coastal areas of New Zealand
NORTHLAND & THE BAY OF ISLANDS

Northland has a magnificent coastline, diverse and very scenic.
The eastern coast is rocky and indented, with several large harbours and estuaries. Most are shallow and provide feeding grounds for migratory wading birds. The largest and best known of all is the Bay of Islands, where land and sea intermingle in a complex pattern of inlets, peninsulas and small islands.
In stark contrast with the east coast, the west coast of Northland is almost perfectly linear, and mainly made of sand beaches. In spite of this, south of Ninety Mile Beach it is wild and rugged, bordered by several of the largest kauri forests such as Waipoua and Warawara.

Cape Reinga, at the north-western tip of the North Island. The waters of the Tasman Sea and those of the Pacific Ocean meet in a broken swell over the Columbia Bank, just west of Cape Reinga. Photo courtesy of Tourism Northland.

LOCATION	DETAILS
Refer to map below
Cape Reinga & Te Paki Farm Park	The northern extremity of New Zealand is protected in a 23,000 ha (57,500 acres) set of 4 reserves collectively named the Te Paki Farm Park. The emphasis is on conservation, and on maintaining the remoteness of the area. This land is made of a great diversity of landforms, and has some of the most scenic coastline in the North Island. It also has a high biological value thanks to a high concentration of endemic plant species, many birds, and other native wildlife species, some of which are rare. There are a number of walks through the park that give access to outstanding beaches, sand dunes, bushland, and a stand of kauri.
Ninety Mile Beach	Ninety Mile Beach (102 km/63 miles in fact) and the Aupouri Peninsula connect the high ground of the Te Paki area to the rest of Northland. This narrow strip of land is a type of sandspit (tombolo) that was built by sea currents in the last 1 million years.
Bay of Islands	There are 150 islands in the Bay of Islands, many of them very small, some large enough to be farmed economically. Possible sightseeing activities include dolphin watching, and hiring a sea-kayak to explore gentle bays or estuaries. There are also many walks, some on the mainland, some on islands. They offer excellent opportunities to admire the landscape, as well as to discover native forest, birds, and other native wildlife.
Maunganui Bluff	South of the Hokianga Harbour and west of Waipoua Forest the coast is wild and unpopulated. For the most part it is made of sand beaches where seals are occasionnally seen resting, but at Maunganui Bluffs hills as high as 459 m (1506') fall directly into the sea. The resulting sea cliffs are spectacular. They can be approached both from the beach (Aranga), and inland from the east (public walk).

Specific references for this page:

Mark Pickering 1996: Wild Walks - Sixty Short North Island Walks. Shoal Bay Press.

Department of Conservation 1986: Te Paki - Northland New Zealand.

John Cobb 1990: The Walking Tracks of New Zealand's National Parks. Penguin.

Top