Whangaroa Harbour

Whangaroa Harbour is a deeply into the country inside -reaching bay on the north coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It belongs administratively to the Far North District of Northland Region. The natural harbor opens out at its north end in the belonging to the Whangaroa Bay Tauranga Bay into the Pacific Ocean and is very popular as a sport fishing waters and as a base for deep-sea fishing.

Geography

The northern side of the entrance is formed by a promontory on the south side of the Ranfurly Bay is located. The Pekapeka Bay and Rere Bay form a branch of the south. A 500 ​​m wide driveway leads further into the interior of the port. East of the entrance is the small island Shark Iceland, south of the passage the larger Ohauroro Iceland. In the West, now follow the small Waihi Bay and after a further passage, in which the villages and Totara North Whangaroa opposite, the southern part of the port. In its center is the island Motu Wai Iceland, on the west side near Totara North Motu Kauri Iceland. To the west of the access road from the north Owhataga Bay, the larger island of Milford Iceland, the Ouwai Bay, a promontory and the follow Waitapu Bay to the south.

Are the small settlements Totara North and Saies, on the south side Waitaruke and Whangaroa on the east side to the west side of the natural harbor. State Highway 10 runs along the south-west and south side of the sea inlet and crosses Waitaruke.

The name comes from the action " Whaingaroa " ( "What a long wait " ) of a woman whose husband had set out on an expedition to the south. The harbor was formed when rising sea levels flooded a valley about 6,000 years ago. From ancient volcanoes steep rock formations were preserved.

In the southern part of the port there are extensive mangrove swamps, and some of the oldest fossils of the North Island from the early Permian period about 270 million years ago have been found in the territory of Whangaroa.

History

According to the traditions of the Māori explored during the colonization of New Zealand Waka ( canoe) Māhuhu -ki -te- rangi the Whangaroa Harbour. The area was inhabited by descendants of the crews of the Te Waka Māmaru and Mataatua.

Whaling ships and other vessels ran Whangaroa 1805-1809 at. After 66 crew members and passengers Boyd of Māori were killed in 1809 because the team had whipped the son of their chief, obeyed the ship visits and were only resumed in 1819.

In June 1823 a mission station of the Wesleyans was founded. Hongi Hika The chief attacked on 10 January 1827 the local Māori to gain control of the weft mature kauri trees growing there. Although he did not attack the mission, they gave it to fear. Hongi Hika died 1828 in Whangaroa to a wound which he had previously received 14 months in the territory of Hokianga.

Europeans settled the shores in the 1840s, and a mission of the Catholic Church was built in Waitaruke. The port was a center of logging and the collection of kauri resin. Sawmills and shipyards emerged, and 1850-1909 about 100 schooner, brigantines and Ketche were built here. Kauristämme are concatenated into rafts and towed by steam tugs; for the route to Auckland one needed three days. In the early 20th century was in the Sea Sick Bay near the south end of the harbor entrance a whaling station that was moved in the 1920s to the Ranfurly Bay on the north side of the driveway.

- 35.05173.73333333333Koordinaten: 35 ° 3 '0 "S, 173 ° 44' 0" E