The name Kaitaia means abundance of food. Doubtless Bay was named by Captain James Cook who, in sighting it, is reputed to have said 'doubtless a bay'.
The top of the North Island is the tail of the mythical stingray and New Zealand's northernmost township is the only place in the world where a sign welcomes visitors in English, Maori and Croatian.
This is Ngati Kahu, Ngati Kuri and Te Rarawa territory and it was Te Rarawa leader, Nopera Pana-kareao, who invited missionaries to the area. The Treaty of Waitangi was signed by 61 chiefs on 28 April 1840.
Europeans began arriving in the 1850s and the settlement expanded as kauri gum diggers, many of whom were Dalmatians, moved north. The legacy of the Yugoslav diaspora is still apparent in the surnames.
The region's most distinctive feature is the long stretch of Ninety Mile Beach or Te Oneroa-a-Tohe, and it isn't 90 miles long but 55 miles or 88 kilometres. It's suggested that when missionaries travelled on horse back, an average day's ride would be 30 miles and it took three days to travel the beach. They didn't account for the slower pace of horses walking on sand. It only seemed like they had covered 90 miles.
The town's stunning Te Ahu Centre is worth a visit as is tiny Awanui a few kilometres out of town.
DOUBTLESS BAY
The bay west of Mangonui is claimed as the site where the Polynesian explorer, Kupe, first landed and a monument at Taipa marks this spot.
Both the French explorer, Jean Francois Marie de Surville and Captain Cook visited the area in December 1769 at the same time but unbeknown to each other. Surville's vessel St Jean Baptiste was so tossed around in a violent storm that it lost three anchors off the peninsular. One is now in Kaitaia's museum.
Mangonui township grew as a trading port and by the early 1800s it became known as a haven for whalers. By 1860 it was the administrative centre for the Far North. Gum digging and flax milling boosted growth in the 19th century until better roading led to Mangonui's decline as a coastal shipping port in the 1950s.
Mangonui's fish and chip shop is world famous, says its sign, and across the harbour from the Mangonui Village is Butler Point, now home to a whaling museum and the historic Captain Butler's House.