Kaitaia, New Zealand

KAITAIA, 40km west of Mangonui, is the Far North's largest commercial centre, situated near the junction of the two main routes north. It makes a convenient base for some of the best trips to Cape Reinga and Ninety Mile Beach, far preferable to the longer trips from the Bay of Islands. Kaitaia has suffered from a bad rap in some media, but the town is no more or less dangerous than elsewhere. That said, there's not a great deal to see in this working town and with your own transport, you might want to base yourself at the magnificent beach in Ahipara, to sand toboggan the giant dunes or to pass through the old gumfields.

A Maori village already flourished here when the first missionary, Joseph Matthews, came looking for a mission site in 1832. The protection of the mission encouraged other European pastoralists to establish themselves here, but by the 1880s they found themselves swamped by the gum diggers who had come to plunder the underground deposits around Lake Ohia and Ahipara. Many early arrivals were young Dalmatians (mostly Croats) fleeing tough conditions in what was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, though the only evidence of this is a Serbo-Croat welcome sign at the entrance to town, and a cultural society that holds a traditional dance each year.