Whangārei Harbour is a large harbour on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The harbour stretches from Whangārei City, and the termination of the

Hātea River The Hātea River is a river of New Zealand. It flows from the north-east of Whangarei southwards and into the northern head of Whangarei Harbour. Its lower length forms the eastern boundary of the city. The banks along the lower reaches are parks ...

, south east around the

Onerahi Onerahi, for half a century known as Grahamtown, is a seaside suburb of Whangārei, New Zealand's northernmost city. It is the city's only seaside suburb. It is located 9 km south-east of the centre of Whangārei and is principally a peninsu ...

peninsula and out to 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 contin ...

Whangārei Heads Whangārei Heads is a locality and volcanic promontory on the northern side of the Whangārei Harbour in Northland, New Zealand. Whangārei is to the north-west, and Ocean Beach is to the south-east, with Taurikura between the two. Mount Ma ...

. Its Māori-language name (given by the ''

Ngāti Wai Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, ...

'' ''

iwi Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, ...

'' (tribe)) is ''Whangārei-te-rerenga-parāoa'', meaning "the place where

whale Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...

s gather". Another traditional name for this area is ''Whangarei-o-te-tohorā'' – "waiting for the breastbone of whales".

History

left, The Marsden Point Oil Refinery at the entrance of Whangārei Harbour Many early settlers and Maori used the harbour as a form of transport, and this played a large role in the establishment of

Whangārei Whangārei () is the northernmost city in New Zealand and the regional capital of Northland Region. It is part of the Whangārei District, a local body created in 1989 from the former Whangārei City, Whangārei County and Hikurangi Town coun ...

, and many of the industries in the area. These include Portland Cement Works,

Marsden Point Oil Refinery Marsden Point Oil Refinery is a 96,000 BPD refinery located at Marsden Point, Whangarei, Northland, New Zealand. It is the only oil refinery in New Zealand, and is operated by Refining NZ. The point was named after Samuel Marsden. The regional sur ...

and for the extraction of coal from

Kamo The name Kamo may refer to the following: Places Japan (Note: ''kamo'' ( 鴨), is the common word for ''duck'' in Japanese, but the following names do not necessarily mean ''duck'' and are not necessarily written with that character.) * Kamo, N ...

.
From 1911–1933 the Onerahi Branch Railway crossed the upper reaches of the harbour to provide rail access to a new wharf built at

, as the existing wharf in the town basin was unreachable for some craft. This further promoted the harbour as an important feature to the development of Whangārei. In 2006, two

marine reserve A marine reserve is a type of marine protected area (MPA). An MPA is a section of the ocean where a government has placed limits on human activity. A marine reserve is a marine protected area in which removing or destroying natural or cultural ...

s were opened in Whangārei Harbour. Whangarei Harbour Marine Reserve is located in an inter-tidal area between Onerahi and Waikaraka, and another around Motukaroro Island, at Reotahi,

. The Motukaroro Island reserve is popular with snorkelers due to the large amount of marine life seen there.

Geography

Whangārei Harbour stretches approximately 23 km north-west from Whangārei Heads to its farthest point inland at the town basin in Whangārei central. At its widest point it is approximately 6 km wide, between

Parua Bay Parua Bay is a locality and bay on the northern side of the Whangarei Harbour in Northland, New Zealand. Whangarei is 19 km to the west, and Whangarei Heads are 10 km to the south east, with Munro Bay between the two. The western he ...

and Takahiwai, near One Tree Point. The harbour is heavily tidal with a tidal range of approximately 2m, with much of the harbour being shallower than this in the wider parts. This means during low tide much of the harbour is

mud flats Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal fl ...

and exposed sand bars. However, at the harbour entrance, where it is only around 800m wide, and between

and Matakohe Island, where it is only around 500m wide, it is up to 20m deep and currents can be strong. This allowed for the deep water Northland Port to be built at

Marsden Point Marsden Point is a broad, flat peninsula that is the southern head of the Whangārei Harbour entrance on the east coast of Northland, New Zealand, southeast of the city of Whangārei. It is the location of Marsden Point Oil Refinery and the N ...

and for the former ports at Whangārei and Onerahi to be located so far into the harbour. The main rivers flowing into the harbour are Hātea River, Mangapai River, Limeburners Creek, Raumanga Stream and Otaika Creek. They carry much sediment from surrounding farmland, creating the muddy nature of the harbour, and this requires dredging in some parts for navigation purposes. As the naming of the harbour indicates, southern right whales (''Tohora'') and possibly other coastal species like humpback and Bryde's whales used to gather in the harbour historically, but today it is not often to see baleen whales in the harbour due to their small population sizes and slow recoveries caused by commercial whaling by Europeans and Maoris (a whaling station was situated in the harbour), and illegal mass whaling operations by Soviet Union with supports by Japan (it is said that if these illegal operations had not taken place, the numbers of whales in New Zealand would have been three to four times larger than those of today). The first documented return of the southern right whales into the harbour was in 2002. Smaller cetaceans such as

dolphin A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the ...

s and

killer whale The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black-and-white ...

s (orcas) can be observed in the harbour more frequently.

References

{{Reflist Whangārei Whangarei District Ports and harbours of New Zealand