Kawakawa Attractions
16km south of the Bay of Islands on Highway 1 is Kawakawa (pop. 2000), now the administrative center of the Bay of Islands district. It was originally a flax-processing center, and later coal was mined here. Today Kawakawa is noted in particular as the elected home of Friedensreich Hundertwasser. The artist donated to the township a toilet shack constructed in his particular style with no corners or straight edges and which is now a tourist attraction.
Mission House
A relic of the early settlement is the mission house, built in 1832 and thus the second-oldest surviving European building in New Zealand. A good example of the early colonial architecture, it is furnished in period style.
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Ruapekapeka Pa
Ruapekapeka Pa is the site of a famous battle between the British and the Hone Heke in 1846.
Waiomio Caves
4km south of Kawakawa, on a side road off Highway 1, are the Waiomio Caves. This ramified cave system attracts many visitors with its bizarre karstic features, stalactitic formations and the spectacular Glow-worm Cave. It is owned by descendants of Chief Kawiti, who fought alongside Hone Heke at Ruapekapeka.
St John's Church
Beside the mission house is St John's Church (1871), the third church on the site. The churchyard contains 19th C gravestones.
Steam Railway
Another attraction is the old steam railroad that runs beside the main road and links Kawakawa with the old coal port of Opua.
Waimate North
20km west of Paihia Samuel Marsden established the first Anglican settlement in the interior of the island in 1830. He laid out a farm on a British model so that the natives should not only be converted but should be introduced to useful work. The farm was a great success, and Charles Darwin, emerging from a long journey through primeval forest in 1835, was astonished to find himself in what seemed to him an English village. For a time Bishop Selwyn made the farm his residence and installed a theological seminary here.
