Waipu Scottish Heritage

The Waipu settlers took an unusually long route. Driven off their land in the Highland clearances, a group led by the minister Norman McLeod emigrated to Nova Scotia in 1817, farmed there for three decades, then in the 1850s built their own ships and sailed to Australia and finally to Northland - around eight hundred people arriving between 1853 and 1860 in six vessels. That double migration is the story the Waipu Museum tells, and it tells it well, with the passenger lists, the ships and the reasons. The town has held Highland Games on 1 January since 1871, one of the longest-running such events in the southern hemisphere, with caber tossing, piping, highland dancing and a substantial crowd. Outside that day Waipu is a quiet town with a good bookshop and cafes, near Waipu Cove and the Waipu Caves. The names on the graves are almost all the same handful of clans.

What you actually see

• The museum - the Highlands to Nova Scotia to Australia to Northland story.
• The Highland Games - every 1 January since 1871.
• The clan names - repeated through the cemetery and the district.
• The ships' records - passenger lists from the six voyages.

When to go

1 January for the Games, which fills the town and needs accommodation booked well ahead. Any other time for the museum, which keeps regular hours.

Honest expectations

Outside the Games it is a quiet small town - the museum is the reason to stop. Accommodation over New Year is scarce and expensive across the district.

Nearby

Waipu Cove and the Waipu Caves are close; Whangarei is north.