hlrty-one kilometres south of Whangarei the North River Road No. 1 leads off State Highway 1 and this will take you to the Ruakaka Wildlife Reserve where large numbers of ducks are found including brown teals, which survived in the north in small numbers after vanishing from most other parts of the country. It was in this district too that the Australian welcome swallows first appeared around 1956. Since then the swallows have colonised most of the rest of New Zealand and are now found in most open country south to Stewart Island. In Australia swallows are migratory, but any seasonal movement here is of birds from inland to coastal areas in winter.

The kaka that gave Ruakaka its name have long since disappeared, and such commemorative names serve as a poignant reminder of the natural paradise that was once New Zealand. Waikereru (water of the kereru), Waiparera (water of the grey duck) and Mangatete (river of the grey teal) are just a few of the very many names used in the north.

It is not far from here, at Tangiteroria, that Walter Buller, perhaps the best known of our early ornithologists, spent his youth and developed his passion for collecting. Near his father’s mission station he collected what he believed to be the last piopio in the north and later penned what must surely be one of the most extraordinary contributions ever made to our ornithological literature in which he recalled:

... the bright dewy morning, now five-and-thirty years ago, when I shot my first kohoperoa [long-tailed cuckoo] in the old Mission-garden at Tangiteroria, and found my beautiful prize lying on the sward with its banded wings and tail stretched out to their full extent. I have remembered the delight with which, almost as long ago, I shot in the Tangihua mountains my first piopio bird so rare in the far north, even at that time, that it was entirely unknown to the natives of the district.

In Whangarei a visit to the information centre in Rust Ave will provide directions to the many parks and walks in the area. And if you have the time, a 35-kdometre drive south-east of the city to Ocean Beach will enable you to see many seabirds and study the strange and craggy volcanic peaks at the Whangarei Heads.

From Whangarei north to the Bay of Islands the scenery is constantly changing, from farmland to swamp to scrub and then to forest, and this wide and often abrupt variation means a corresponding variation in the life living there. If you are interested in seabirds, take a detour from Whangarei to Ngunguru, Tutukaka, Matapouri and Whananaki, returning to the main route at Whakapara, 22 kilometres north of Whangarei.