Katikati Mural Town

Katikati began painting murals in 1991 on the model of Chemainus in British Columbia, with the explicit aim of giving highway traffic a reason to stop in a town whose kiwifruit and citrus economy was under pressure. There are now well over seventy murals on buildings through the town, painted by different artists and mostly documenting local history - the Ulster settlers who founded the district in the 1870s under George Vesey Stewart, the orchards, the Maori history of the harbour. A haiku pathway along the Uretara Stream adds around forty haiku carved into boulders, which is an unusual companion project. The murals are of variable quality, as any long-running community art programme's will be, and some have faded or been repainted. It is a walking stop of an hour or so on the road between Tauranga and the Coromandel, and it is honest about being an economic initiative.

What you actually see

• The murals - over seventy through the town, on local history.
• The haiku pathway - about forty poems carved into boulders by the stream.
• The settler history - the 1870s Ulster settlement, documented on the walls.
• The reason for it - a town trying to make traffic stop.

When to go

Any time; it is a daytime walking stop. An hour to ninety minutes covers the main street and the haiku path.

Honest expectations

Mural quality varies and some are faded. It is a working small town on a state highway, not a gallery. There is little else to do beyond the walk and a cafe.

Nearby

Tauranga and Mount Maunganui are south-east; Waihi and the Coromandel are north.