, type =

Cape A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment which drapes the wearer's back, arms, and chest, and connects at the neck. History Capes were common in medieval Europe, especially when combined with a hood in the chaperon. Th ...

, photo = Cape Reinga, Northland, New Zealand, October 2007.jpg , photo_width = 270px , photo_alt = , photo_caption = , map = New Zealand , map_width = 270px , map_caption = , map_alt = , relief = , label = Cape Reinga , label_position = , mark = , marker_size = , location = Northland,

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, grid_ref = , grid_ref_UK = , grid_ref_Ireland = , coordinates = , coordinates_ref = , range = , part_of = , water_bodies = Tasman Sea , elevation_ft = , elevation_ref = , surface_elevation_ft = , surface_elevation_ref = , highest_point = , highest_elevation = , highest_coords = , length = , width = , area = , depth = , drop = , formed_by = , geology = , age = , orogeny = , volcanic_arc/belt = , volcanic_arc = , volcanic_belt = , volcanic_field = , eruption = , last_eruption = , topo = , operator = , designation = , free_label_1 = , free_data_1 = , free_label_2 = , free_data_2 = , free_label_3 = , free_data_3 = , website = , embedded = Cape Reinga (; sometimes spelled Rēinga, mi, Te Rerenga Wairua), and officially Cape Reinga / Te Rerenga Wairua, is the northwesternmost tip of the

Aupouri Peninsula The Aupouri Peninsula is a tombolo at the northern tip of the North Island of New Zealand. It projects between the Tasman Sea to the west and the Pacific Ocean to the east. It constitutes the northern part of the Far North District, incorpora ...

, at the northern end of the

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

of New Zealand. Cape Reinga is more than 100 km north of the nearest small town of

Kaitaia Kaitaia ( mi, Kaitāia) is a town in the Far North District of New Zealand, at the base of the Aupouri Peninsula, about 160 km northwest of Whangārei. It is the last major settlement on New Zealand State Highway 1, State Highway 1. Ahipara ...

. State Highway 1 extends all the way to the cape, but until 2010 was unsealed

gravel road A gravel road is a type of unpaved road surfaced with gravel that has been brought to the site from a quarry or stream bed. They are common in less-developed nations, and also in the rural areas of developed nations such as Canada and the Unite ...

for the last 19 km.
Cape Reinga improvements to restore mana of spirits' highway
' – ''

The New Zealand Herald ''The New Zealand Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment, and considered a newspaper of record for New Zealand. It has the largest newspaper circulation of all newspapers ...

'', Thursday 23 August 2007 Suitable vehicles can also travel much of the way via Ninety Mile Beach and Kauaeparaoa Stream (Te Paki Stream) stream bed. In Māori, means the ''leaping-off place of spirits''.
Te Rerenga Wairua — Leaping Place of the Spirits
' — ''

Te Ao Hou ''Te Ao Hou / The New World'' was a quarterly magazine published in New Zealand from 1952 to 1975. It was published by the Te Puni Kōkiri, Māori Affairs Department and printed by Pegasus Press. It was bilingual, with articles in both English a ...

'', No. 35, June 1961) is the Māori word for ''underworld''. Both refer to the Māori belief that the cape is the point where the spirits of the dead enter the underworld. Cape Reinga is on the tentative list of

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

waiting to receive

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

status.All Tentative Sites
(from the

website) , the cape is already a favourite tourist attraction, with over 120,000 visitors a year and around 1,300 cars arriving per day during peak season. Visitor numbers are growing by about five percent a year, and the increase is likely to become even more now that the road to the cape is fully sealed.

Meeting of the seas

Cape Reinga is generally considered the separation marker between the

Tasman Sea The Tasman Sea (Māori: ''Te Tai-o-Rēhua'', ) is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about across and about from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abe ...

to the west and the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

to the east. From the lighthouse it is possible to watch the

tidal race Tidal race or tidal rapid is a natural occurrence whereby a fast-moving tide passes through a constriction, resulting in the formation of waves, eddies and hazardous currents. The constriction can be a passage where the sides narrow, for example ...

, as the two seas clash to create unsettled waters just off the coast. The Māori refer to this as the meeting of ''Te Moana-a-Rehua'', 'the sea of Rehua' with ''Te Tai-o-Whitirea'', 'the sea of Whitirea', Rehua and Whitirea being a male and a female respectively. Cape Reinga Lighthouse

The cape is often mistakenly thought of as being the northernmost point of the North Island, and thus, of mainland New Zealand. However, North Cape's Surville Cliffs, 30 km east of Cape Reinga are 3 km further north. Another headland just to the west of Cape Reinga is

Cape Maria van Diemen Cape Maria van Diemen is the westernmost point of the North Island of New Zealand. A tombolo, it was originally an island composed mainly of basaltic-andesitic lava flows and dykes. Drifting sands joined it to the rest of the North Island during ...

, which was named by the Dutch explorer

Abel Tasman Abel Janszoon Tasman (; 160310 October 1659) was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He was the first known European explorer to reach New Z ...

during his journey in 1642 and thought of by him to be the northernmost point of the newly discovered country he named 'Staten Landt'.

Māori mythology

According to

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...

, the spirits of the dead travel to Cape Reinga on their journey to the afterlife to leap off the headland and climb the roots of the 800-year-old pohutukawa tree and descend to the underworld to return to their traditional homeland of

Hawaiki In Polynesian mythology, (also rendered as in Cook Islands Māori, in Samoan, in Tahitian, in Hawaiian) is the original home of the Polynesians, before dispersal across Polynesia. It also features as the underworld in many Māori stories. ...

, using the ''Te Ara Wairua'', the 'Spirits' pathway'. At Cape Reinga they depart the mainland. They turn briefly at the

Three Kings Islands 3 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 3, three, or III may also refer to: * AD 3, the third year of the AD era * 3 BC, the third year before the AD era * March, the third month Books * ''Three of Them'' (Russian: ', literally, "three"), a 1901 n ...

for one last look back towards the land, then continue on their journey. A spring in the hillside, ''Te Waiora-a-Tāne'' (the 'Living waters of Tāne'), also played an important role in Māori ceremonial burials, representing a spiritual cleansing of the spirits, with water of the same name used in burial rites all over New Zealand. This significance lasted until the local population mostly converted to Christianity, and the spring was capped with a reservoir, with little protest from the mostly converted population of the area. However, the spring soon disappeared and only reappeared at the bottom of the cliff, making the reservoir useless.

Restoration

In 2007 protests by Māori and increased tourist numbers led the

Department of Conservation An environmental ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for the environment and/or natural resources. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of the Environment ...

to announce that the public carpark and toilet facilities, which intrude on traditionally sacred ground, would be moved further away from the cape and extended, at a cost of NZ$6.5 million (for details, see external links below). The road to the cape, one of the last stretches of State Highway 1, was only recently sealed following three years of work and include extensive roadside revegetation with over 150,000 plants to prevent erosion. In March 2009, the works on the visitor facilities were completed.

Climate

Cape Reinga has a very mild

oceanic climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ( ...

( Cfb) with high precipitation and little temperature difference between the seasons.

Lighthouse

The

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

at Cape Reinga was built in 1941 and first lit during May of that year, replacing a lighthouse located on nearby Motuopao Island, which had been built 1879. In 1987, the lighthouse was fully automated and the lighthouse keepers were withdrawn. The previous 1000 watt light and its revolving

Fresnel lens A Fresnel lens ( ; ; or ) is a type of composite compact lens developed by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) for use in lighthouses. It has been called "the invention that saved a million ships." The design allows the c ...

have since been replaced with a tiny 50 watt flashing beacon, lodged in their place in the huge lantern.

References

External links

Cape Reinga
(from the New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC) website)
Cape Reinga
(from Eske Family Trust website, see the Maori Mythology explanation) {{Authority control Far North District Reinga State Highway 1 (New Zealand)