Hokianga Hotels

Hokianga Harbour, also known as The Hokianga River or The Hokianga, is a long estuarine drowned valley and its surrounding area on the west coast in the north of the North Island of New Zealand. The original name still used by local Mâori is Te Kohanga o Te Tai Tokerau ("the nest of the northern people") or Te Puna o Te Ao Marama ("the wellspring of moonlight"). The full name of the Harbour is Te Hokianga-nui-a-Kupe - "the place of Kupe's great return". Location of the Hokianga HarbourThe Hokianga is in the Far North District, which is in the Northland Region, and is 85 kilometres northwest of Whangarei and 25 kilometres west of Kaikohe. The estuary extends inland for 30 kilometres from the Tasman Sea. It is navigable for small craft for much of its length, although there is a bar across the mouth. 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 anchorages. This was the harbour that Kupe left from, and in 1822 saw the first European timber entrepreneurs. The area around the harbour is divided in three by the estuary. To the south are the settlements of Waimamaku, Omapere, Opononi, Pakanae, Koutu, Whirinaki, Rawene, Waima, and Taheke; to the north are Broadwood, Pawarenga, Panguru, Mitimiti, and Rangi Point; and at the top of the harbour upstream from the narrows are Horeke, Kohukohu and Mangamuka.