Experience the best of Whitianga

Whitianga lies on Mercury Bay, where Captain Cook anchored in 1769 to watch the planet Mercury cross the face of the sun. The town grew around the Whitianga estuary, with a marina, a long town beach at Buffalo Beach and a main street of cafés and fishing shops. A small passenger ferry crosses to Ferry Landing, the start of coastal walks.

South of town, the road leads to Hahei, the start of the walk to the sea arch of Cathedral Cove, and Hot Water Beach, where hot water rises through the sand around low tide. The Mercury Islands lie offshore, ringed by clear water that attracts divers and anglers, and the bay is a base for game fishing and scallop boats.

Fish and chips made with snapper, scallops from the bay and mussels from the peninsula's farms are the staples at the waterfront cafés. Coves and bays along this coast stay warm and sheltered in summer, when the red flowers of the pohutukawa trees colour the shoreline in December. The town is quiet outside the holiday weeks.