One tradition suggests an ancestral canoe was lead by a big shark (mango nui) giving the harbour and the town its Mangonui name.
Doubtless Bay was named by Captain James Cook who, in sighting it, is reputed to have said 'Doubtless a bay.'
The bay west of Mangonui is
claimed as the site where the Polynesian explorer, Kupe, first landed and a monument at Taipa marks this spot and from which Maori migration and settlement commenced many years later.
The area extends from Taupo Bay in the east to the Karikari Peninsula in the west and includes the settlements of Hihi, Coopers Beach, Cable Bay, Taipa and Whatuwhiwhi and, at its centre, Mangonui.
Both the French explorer, Jean Francois Marie de Surville and Captain Cook visited the area in December 1769 at the same time but unbeknown to each other. Surville's violent encounter with Maori resulted in his vessel St Jean Baptiste losing three anchors off the peninsular. One is now in Kaitaia's museum.
The Mangonui township grew as a trading port where kauri logs were milled and prepared for export. Farming in the area had begun too and by the early 1800s it became known as a favourite haven for whalers. By 1860 it became the administrative centre for the Far North with government offices, hotels, a hospital and coastal shipping links with Auckland.
