Great Barrier Island

Aotea, Great Barrier, is the largest island in the Hauraki Gulf and the least developed place of its size near a New Zealand city: about a thousand residents, no mains electricity, no reticulated water supply and no public sewerage, so every house runs on solar, rainwater and a septic tank. In 2017 it became the world's third International Dark Sky Sanctuary - the first island to hold that status - because there is essentially no artificial light to suppress. The east coast has long white beaches at Medlands, Awana and Kaitoke; inland are hot springs reached on a forty-minute bush walk at Kaitoke, the Aotea Track over the ridge, and Mount Hobson with its stairways and the remains of nineteenth-century kauri dams. Roads are narrow, winding and partly unsealed, fuel is limited, and card payment is not universal. It is a genuine trip, not a day out.

History

Ngāti Rehua Ngātiwai ki Aotea have lived on Aotea since the 17th century, and Captain Cook gave it its English name because it shelters the Hauraki Gulf from the Pacific. New Zealand's earliest mines were opened for copper at Miners Head in 1842, gold and silver were found around Whangaparapara in the 1890s, kauri logs were sent down to the sea from driving dams, and the country's last whaling station opened at Whangaparapara in 1956 (Wikipedia, Great Barrier Island).

Highlights

• The dark sky - sanctuary-grade, with no artificial light to fight.
• The east coast beaches - Medlands, Awana, Kaitoke, mostly empty.
• Kaitoke hot springs - natural pools at the end of a bush walk.
• The kauri dams - Victorian logging works on the Aotea Track.

When to go

December to March. Book transport and accommodation well ahead - both are limited and summer fills. New moon for the stars.

Things to know

Off-grid means it: bring cash, expect patchy phone coverage, and do not count on shops. A hire car is effectively required and must be booked in advance. Ferry crossings are long and can be rough. The hot springs are scalding at the source and unsupervised.

Nearby

Rangitoto, Tiritiri Matangi and Waiheke are elsewhere in the gulf.

Key facts