Hokianga Harbor

While in Paihia, we met a neat local Maori gentleman who was working as a tourist volunteer, providing information and helping out all the silly foreigners like us. He said that was a direct descendant of one of the original Maori chiefs that signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, essentially the founding document for New Zealand as a nation, and as colony of the British Empire.

We told him that we were looking for some neat things to see, and he pointed us to a little town called Opononi. It's on the western coast, just east of the mouth of the Hokianga Harbor. He said that this was the location of the first Maori settlement in New Zealand, and that there is a monument there, but that it is only open to Maori descendants.

We believe that this is the monument, but we couldn't find a way to get up there. We asked a local if we could cross his property to hike up there, and while he didn't say that we couldn't go, he said that there were bulls there that were known to charge at people. So, we decided to enjoy the view from the road.

Looking north across the Hokianga Harbor. According to our guide, the first Maori to arrive in New Zealand paddled through here and established their first settlement nearby.