Taipa-Mangonui 5.05

Taipa-Mangonui is one name given to a string of small resort settlements in the far north of New Zealand's North Auckland Peninsula, close to the base of the Aupouri Peninsula. The resorts of Taipa, Cable Bay, Coopers Beach, and Mangonui, all of which lie along the coast of Doubtless Bay, are so close together that they have run together to form one larger settlement with a combined population of 1566 (2006 census).The "miniature conurbation" lies 150 kilometres by road northwest of Whangarei (though only 100 kilometres as the crow flies), and 20 kilometres northeast of Kaitaia. It is thus the northernmost centre in New Zealand with a population of above 1000, even though it is nearly 100 kilometres southeast of the northernmost tip of the North Island.According to some Maori legends, the great Polynesian explorer and navigator, Kupe, sailed from Hawaiiki in his canoe, named Matahourua and landed at Taipa Bay. Others believe that he landed in the Hokianga Harbour around AD 900.Centuries after Kupe’s landing his descendants, the chiefs Te Parata and Tu moana were said to have brought the ancestors of the Ngatikahu tribe to the Mangonui area around AD 1350, returning on the same canoe. Legend has it that they found insufficient fresh water at Otengi Bay and travelled up to the mouth of the Taipa River to land. There they settled and married into the local tribes.