Kiwi North

Kiwi North is the operating name for Whangārei Museum, Kiwi House and Heritage Park, an indoor and outdoor museum complex at 500 State Highway 14 in Maunu, a short drive west of central Whangārei. The site covers around 25 hectares of former farmland and combines museum galleries, a nocturnal kiwi house and a collection of relocated and original heritage buildings set among native bush.

The offer

The museum interprets Northland's natural and human history through taonga Māori, early settler material, and natural history displays covering local rivers and forests. Among the collection items are moa remains around 2,000 years old, recovered from a local cave. The nocturnal kiwi house is Northland's only facility of its kind. Heritage Park buildings include the 1886 Clarke family kauri homestead "Glorat", standing on its original site, the 1859 Oruaiti Chapel, a 1900s Riponui Pah schoolroom, original jail cells used for Whangārei women, and the Jane Mander study. There is a gift store on site.

Meetings and events

Venue hire is modest in scale and pitched at small groups. The Jean Dufty Room suits up to 30 people and is used for informal meetings, workshops, team-building activities and children's parties. It is provided with a kitchenette, tables and chairs. Heritage Park itself can be used for events, offering a setting of historic buildings and native bush that is unusual for a Northland function. Heritage rides can be arranged as an add-on, including train rides, tractor rides and the miniature railway.

There is no in-house restaurant or bar, so catering needs to be arranged, and the site does not offer accommodation.

Suitability

Kiwi North is not a conference venue in the conventional sense. Its value to MICE planners lies in small off-site meetings and workshops, and more particularly as an incentive or partner-programme element — a guided museum and kiwi house visit, a heritage ride, or a themed function in the park — attached to a larger programme based in Whangārei.