Spirits Bay, officially named Piwhane / Spirits Bay, is a remote bay at the northern end of the

Aupōuri Peninsula The Aupōuri Peninsula is a tombolo at the northern tip of the North Island of New Zealand. It projects between the Tasman Sea to the west and the Pacific Ocean to the east. It constitutes the northern part of the Far North District, incorpora ...

, which forms the northern tip of

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

North Island The North Island ( , 'the fish of Māui', historically New Ulster) is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but less populous South Island by Cook Strait. With an area of , it is the List ...

. It lies between

Cape Reinga / Te Rerenga Wairua Cape Reinga / Te Rerenga Wairua (; sometimes spelled Rēinga, ) is the northwestern most tip of the Aupōuri Peninsula, at the northern end of the North Island of New Zealand. Cape Reinga is more than 100 km north of the nearest small town ...

in the west and Ngataea / Hooper Point in the east. It is one of two bays in the short length of coast at the top of the North Island (the other being Takapaukura / Tom Bowling Bay, further to the east). Kapowairua, a locality at the eastern end of Spirits Bay, has a campsite managed by the Department of Conservation. A walking path of about 8.5 kilometres (5.3 miles) runs along the bay.

History and culture

The Māori tribe of the area is

Ngāti Kurī Ngāti Kurī is a Māori people, Māori iwi from Northland Region, Northland, New Zealand. The iwi is one of the five Muriwhenua iwi of the far north of the North Island. Ngāti Kurī trace their whakapapa (ancestry) back to Pōhurihanga, the ca ...

. The bay was given the official name of ''Piwhane / Spirits Bay'' in 2015. The bay is considered a sacred place in Māori culture as according to local legend, it is the location where spirits of the dead gather to depart from this world to travel to their ancestral home (or

afterlife The afterlife or life after death is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's Stream of consciousness (psychology), stream of consciousness or Personal identity, identity continues to exist after the death of their ...

) from a large old

pōhutukawa Pōhutukawa (''Metrosideros excelsa''), also known as the New Zealand Christmas tree, or iron tree, is a coastal evergreen tree in the Myrtus, myrtle family, Myrtaceae, that produces a brilliant display of red (or occasionally orange, yellow o ...

tree above the bay. The bay has two Māori names, ''Piwhane'' and ''Kapowairua'', the latter meaning to "catch the spirit", derived from a Māori language saying that translates into English as: "I can shelter from the wind. But I cannot shelter from the longing for my daughter. I shall venture as far as Hokianga, and beyond. Your task (should I die) shall be to grasp my spirit." The words were spoken by Tōhē, a chief of the Ngāti Kahu people, who is considered one of Muriwhenua’s most important ancestors. Tōhē made his way south, naming more than one hundred places along the western coast, until dying at Whāngaiariki near Maunganui Bluff.

Nature and wildlife

A variety of birds inhabit the bay area such as paradise ducks, New Zealand dotterel,

oystercatcher The oystercatchers are a group of waders forming the family (biology), family Haematopodidae, which has a single genus, ''Haematopus''. They are found on coasts worldwide apart from the polar regions and some tropical regions of Africa and Sout ...

s, and

Caspian tern The Caspian tern (''Hydroprogne caspia'') is a species of tern, with a subcosmopolitan but scattered distribution. Despite its extensive range, it is monotypic of its genus, and has no accepted subspecies. The genus name is from Ancient Greek '' ...

s. Mosquitos are very numerous. Plant life at the beach includes paraha vine. In September 2010, it was reported that more than eighty

pilot whale Pilot whales are cetaceans belonging to the genus ''Globicephala''. The two Extant taxon, extant species are the long-finned pilot whale (''G. melas'') and the short-finned pilot whale (''G. macrorhynchus''). The two are not readily distinguish ...

s were beached over five kilometres at Spirits Bay. About forty of these were believed to have died, including some that drowned and others that were euthanized because of injuries from rocks. The rest of the whales were relocated to Rarawa Beach because the weather and sea conditions at Spirits Bay meant refloating the whales there was not possible.More than 40 stranded whales die
. Stuff.co.nz. Retrieved December 2011 Most of the pilot whales that were refloated at Rarawa Beach survived. It was considered to be the largest whale transport ever attempted.A dozen whales refloated, three die
. NZ Herald. Retrieved December 2011 This mass whale stranding occurred a month after a pod of fifty-eight pilot whales became stranded at Karikari Beach.

References

{{Coord, 34.44, S, 172.82, E, region:NZ_type:waterbody, display=title Far North District Māori culture Bays of the Northland Region