Norht Taranaki Bight

North Taranaki Bight curves along the western coast of the North Island. The Mōkau River enters the sea on this exposed shore, south of Kāwhia Harbour. In the early 1830s the trader Thomas Ralph worked at Mōkau, buying flax for the Sydney merchant Joseph Montefiore. Māori communities along the river grew flax as well as food crops, and the river connected the coast with the country inland.