Cape Reinga

Cape Reinga - the Maori name means underworld - is the most northwesterly point on the North Island. It is reached from Kaitaia on a road that runs along the narrow tongue of land fringed by Ninety Mile Beach, passing through Aupouri Forest (planted to consolidate the dunes) and an extensive area dug over by kauri gum diggers in earlier days. At some points it is like driving over a desert.

In 1769 Captain Cook almost met the French navigator JM de Surville in this area. During a violent storm their ships were only a short distance apart but they sailed past without seeing one another.