Cape Reinga Gateway to the Spirit World
Te Paki Reserves are an important conservation refuge for numerous rare and threatened native plants and animals. Some of the
snails, lizards,
insects, shrubland and regenerating forest are found nowhere else in the world. The reason for this can be found in the
regions ecological history. It shows that between two and three million years ago the Cape Reinga-North Cape region was a group of
islands separated
from the mainland by a shallow sea. About one million years ago this sea, which stretched between these Far North reserves and Kaitaia, was
gradually filled with sand being swept northwards by coastal submarine currents.
