Northland

Winters are mild and citrus fruits, even bananas, grow among its gentle hills and valleys. The Maori were quick to appreciate the rewards of settling here and today the Maori presence, both historical and contemporary, is strong.

But the region is best known for the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, in which the Maori chieftains sealed their future alongside that of the ‘pakeha’, the whites. Early exploitation of the Kauri forests soon gave way to dairy farming, today replaced by horticulture as the main economic activity.

Wherever you are on this long thin peninsula, you are never far from the sea. To the east, the sheltered Pacific coast is highly indented and dotted with islands. Thrashed by the Tasman Sea, the windswept west coast couldn’t be more different, its long beaches backed by dunes and forests of ancient kauri trees.

Fortunately for visitors, the region lends itself to exploration, with a roughly circular route the obvious choice for travellers by road. For those preferring a single base, we suggest the Bay of Islands, where there is an excellent choice of accommodation and a great range of exciting excursions.