DARGAVILLE to AUCKLAND
KAIPARA
Missing Link
2-3 days
© AA Traveller 2022
HEARTLAND HEARTLANDRIDES RIDE • KAIPARA MISSING LINK
BEST FOR: Seekers of shipwrecks and ghost stories.
TOP TIP – There’s nowhere to buy provisions in Pōuto Pt but you can grab supplies in Dargaville, Te Kōpuru and Helensville.
NZ.com
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open section boat route busy road section start/finish point point of interest i-SITE Visitor Centre town café/restaurant toilets car park accommodation camping state highway
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Dargaville
0m
28
Kaipara Missing Link provides a cycling connection between Auckland and Northland, to the Kauri Coast and Far North cycleways and the Great Ride Twin Coast cycle trail. nce you’ve soaked up every Dargaville charm, cycle south-west towards Pōuto Pt, located on the bottom tip of Pōuto Peninsula. This long and exposed bulb of land captivates visitors with its ever-shifting sands, petrified kauri forest and eerie sailor stories. Cycle along a windwhipped beach harassed by an explosive ocean. As you draw closer to Pōuto Pt, you’ll be confronted with the Valley of the Wrecks and The Graveyard, haunting monikers coined from the area’s turbulent seafaring history that has left 150 shipwrecks stranded on its sandbars. Considered one of the most treacherous stretches in the country, skeleton vessels chewed up and spat out by the Tasman Sea lie motionless on the sand.
MAP LEGEND
100m
118km
Parakai
Pōuto Pt 65km
boat
Britomart 49km
At Pōuto Pt, board a boat heading for Parakai. You’ll be crossing the calm and picturesque Kaipara Harbour before continuing towards the Victorian village of Helensville, and dropping into Auckland, the dazzling City of Sails. TOP TIP: The boat across Kaipara Harbour is not a commercial ferry and only operates for groups and charters. Fortunately, several charter services, including fish charters, operate in the area so an option is to link up with one of these.