Northland is the long finger of land that extends north of Auckland, pointing toward the subtropics. It is the warmest part of New Zealand, and the least developed — a place of rolling farmland, pristine harbours, kauri forests, and long surf beaches that receive a fraction of the visitors that the South Island draws. For many New Zealanders, Northland is where their history starts: the first Polynesian settlers arrived on these shores, and the Bay of Islands is where European New Zealand was born, negotiated, and fought over.
The Bay of Islands is the centrepiece — an extraordinary inland sea of 144 islands stretching across a sheltered gulf of clear water. Russell was New Zealand's first European settlement, with a reputation in its early days as the "hellhole of the Pacific" before settling into the quiet colonial village it is today. Paihia across the water is the main tourist hub, the departure point for sailing, dolphin watching, deep-sea fishing, and boat trips to the Hole in the Rock at Cape Brett. Waitangi, just north of Paihia, is the most significant historical site in the country: it is where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840, and the Treaty Grounds and museum there are worth a full morning.
Further north, the landscape empties out. Ninety Mile Beach runs almost the entire west coast of the Aupouri Peninsula — actually 88 kilometres of exposed, windswept sand that sees very little traffic. Cape Reinga at the top, where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean collide, is the spiritual departure point for Maori souls and has a quality of end-of-the-world remoteness that the tour buses parked nearby can't entirely undermine. For kauri trees — New Zealand's ancient giants, some over 2,000 years old — the Waipoua Forest in the west contains Tane Mahuta, the largest known living kauri.
