4 Best Sights in Northland and the Bay of Islands, New Zealand

Most of the interest in Kerikeri lies just northeast of the modern town on the Kerikeri Inlet where you'll see the Stone Store, the country's oldest stone building. It was designed by the Wesleyan missionary John Hobbs, and built by Australian convict William Parrott. Behind it is Kemp House, known also as the Kerikeri Mission House, built about the same time as the store between 1832 and 1836 by the London-based Church Missionary Society.

It was built for the Reverend John Butler by missionary carpenters (though Māori sawed the timber) and the two-story structure is of simple Georgian design, with a hipped roof and symmetrical facade.

Viewers should be able to take from these buildings an idea of how Anglican missionaries attempted to re-create some of what they had left behind. They were invited to Kerikeri by its most famous historical figure, the great Māori chief Hongi Hika. The chief visited England in 1820, where he was showered with gifts. On his way back to New Zealand, during a stop in Sydney, he traded many of these presents for muskets. Having the advantage of these prized weapons, he set in motion plans to conquer other Māori tribes, enemies of his own Ngapuhi people. The return of his raiding parties over five years, with many slaves and gruesome trophies of conquest, put considerable strain between Hongi Hika and the missionaries. Eventually his warring ways were Hongi's undoing. He was shot in 1827 and died from complications from the wound a year later.

The 1838 Māngungu Mission House is an overlooked stop on the tourist trail. Although Waitangi is the most famous site of New Zealand's founding document, this unassuming spot, which looks out over Hokianga Harbour, was the scene of the second treaty signing. Here, on February 12, 1840, the largest gathering of Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi (73 chiefs, compared with about 40 at the signing in Waitangi). The house is now a museum, furnished with pre-treaty missionary items, including portraits, photographs, and furniture.

New Zealand's oldest industrial building, the Pompallier Mission, at the southern end of the Strand, was named after the first Catholic bishop of the South Pacific. Marist missionaries built the original structure out of rammed earth, because they lacked the funds to buy timber. For several years the priests and brothers operated a press here, printing Bibles in the Māori language. From December through April you can visit independently, but from May to November the mission organizes tours at set times. The gardens are beautiful.

On the main street of Kawakawa, a nondescript town just off State Highway 1 south of Paihia, stand surely the most outlandish public toilets in the country—a must-go even if you don't need to. Built by Austrian artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser in 1997, the toilets are fronted by brightly colored ceramic columns supporting an arched portico, which in turn supports a garden of grasses. There are no straight lines in the building, which is furnished inside with mostly white tiles, punctuated with primary colors, and set in black grout (something like a Mondrian after a few drinks). Plants sprout from the roof. If you sit in one of the cafés across the road you can watch the tourist buses stop so the visitors can take pictures of the facilities.