The Kaipara is a harbour of superlatives. It’s the biggest in New Zealand by a country mile, with over 800km of shoreline. The water covers 947 square kilometres at high tide: at low water, a huge spread of 409 square kilometres of mudflats are exposed (!). All of which makes for some considerable tidal flows, with 7960 million cubic metres of water being moved every day by the tides.
Within this rich saltwater habitat, 90% of the snapper on the west coast of the North Island are recruited (hatched from eggs).
There are 100 rivers flowing into the Kaipara, but unfortunately an overwhelming majority of them are polluted – as was revealed by the seminal 2005 documentary film by Barry Barclay. But still, it remains an enormously productive ecosystem; and the miles and miles of healthy mangroves (some of the biggest trees I’ve ever seen) bear testimony to that. And yes, despite huge areas of the harbourside hills being logged back in the day, we encountered pockets of untouched and
