Parengarenga Harbour is a natural harbour close to the northernmost point on 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. Located at the northern end 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 ...

, it extends inland for over 10 kilometres, almost severing the northern tip of the island from the rest of the peninsula. The harbour's mouth is towards the northern end of

Great Exhibition Bay Great Exhibition Bay is a wide embayment close to the northernmost tip of New Zealand's North Island. It lies on the east coast of the Aupouri Peninsula in the Northland Region. The large natural inlet of Parengarenga Harbour lies at the northern ...

. The island's northernmost point, at the Surville Cliffs is only about 10 kilometres north of the harbour. Te Hāpua is a settlement at the western side of the harbour.

History

The harbour was an important location for the

kauri gum Kauri gum is resin from kauri trees (''Agathis australis''), which historically had several important industrial uses. It can also be used to make crafts such as jewellery. Kauri forests once covered much of the North Island of New Zealand, be ...

digging trade in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, as some of the highest quality kauri gum could be found around the harbour. The Parenga Gumfield Company was formed to harvest this resource. The white sand of Kokota Sandspit, at the southern head of Parengarenga Harbour, has provided a source of high purity

silica Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , most commonly found in nature as quartz and in various living organisms. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is one ...

sand for glassmaking. Dredging continued here until 1997. While smaller or lower purity deposits are found elsewhere in Northland, the Parengarenga area holds the region's largest silica sand resource by far.

Samuel Yates Samuel Yates (May 10, 1919 in Savannah, Georgia – April 22, 1991 in New Brunswick, New Jersey) was a computer engineer and mathematician who first described unique primes in the 1980s. In 1984 he began the list of "Largest Known Primes" (today Th ...

and his wife, Ngāwini Yates, were prominent landowners in the area in the later part of the 19th century and had a homestead on the southern side of the harbour, at Paua.

Ecology

The water is a habitat for

Green sea turtle The green sea turtle (''Chelonia mydas''), also known as the green turtle, black (sea) turtle or Pacific green turtle, is a species of large sea turtle of the family Cheloniidae. It is the only species in the genus ''Chelonia''. Its range exten ...

s, and

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 ...

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 pa ...

s, and

Pilot whale Pilot whales are cetaceans belonging to the genus ''Globicephala''. The two extant species are the long-finned pilot whale (''G. melas'') and the short-finned pilot whale (''G. macrorhynchus''). The two are not readily distinguishable at sea, a ...

s visit the adjacent areas.

Gallery

File:The Yates property at Parengarenga Harbour, 1910.webp, The Yates property at Parengarenga Harbour, 1910 File:Parengarenga_Harbour.jpg, Panorama of the Parengarenga Harbour File:Parengarenga Harbour New Zealand Aotearoa.jpg, Parengaranga from Great Exhibition Bay

References

{{Reflist, 30em Far North District Geography of the Northland Region Ports and harbours of New Zealand Kauri gum