North Taranaki Bight

…miles (158 km) to enter North Taranaki Bight of the Tasman Sea. The Mōkau River drains a basin of 550 square miles (1,425 square km). Its lower valley is a dairying area subject to periodic flooding. Despite a sandbar at its mouth, the Mōkau is navigable to a falls 23…

The North Taranaki Bight is lined by coastal cliffs rising to several hundred feet in the north. The bight’s good natural harbours are blocked by drifting sand, and the only adequate port is artificial (at New Plymouth). South Taranaki Bight, similarly handicapped by drifting sand, is…