From smooth to shabby chic to rakishly dishevelled: such is the cinematic transformation unravelling before me on the 74-kilometre journey from the Bay of Islands to Hokianga Harbour. The manicured paddocks of Kerikeri have given way to neighbours fringed with unruly tussocks and circled by moody ranges and forests of the deepest green. This farmland, it seems, is woolly garbed against the impending wilderness and the oncoming storm.
The shores and dunes of Hokianga Harbour. Brooding clouds notwithstanding, the weather is temperate here in New Zealand’s “winterless north”. Take no mind of the stupendous collision of Tasman Sea and Atlantic Ocean 140 kilometres north at the mainland’s northernmost tip, from which the souls of all Maori are said to depart.
Even the promontory up there – shaped like a seahorse’s snout and culminating at Cape Reinga – is mild as summer approaches. Further south, as I pull into Rawene, sunlight skims the Hokianga River and a breeze fluffs the bone-white dunes. Boats putter in the gulch beside me as I take a table on the deck at the Boatshed Cafe.
The Boatshed Cafe in Rawene, overlooking Hokianga Harbour. Credit: Northland NZ My lunch could be drawn directly from these waters, and from the vineyards left in my wake at Kerikeri: a dozen kutai (mussels) on the shell, wallowing in creamy white wine sauce. These crustaceans emerge beyond the dunes at low tide, crusting the shore like shards of black glass; they’ve been harvested by Maor.