Kawakawa is the home of the Bay of Islands Vintage Railway. This is a volunteer type railway, that operates Fri-Sun about 4 trips a day. They have one steam locomotive “Gabriel”, that chugs up the line for a few Kilometres before plodding back. What is fun about this line is that it runs right up the high street of Kawakawa.

Kawakawa is also famous, rather dubiously, for it’s public toilets.  Designed by the Austian painter, architect, and all round groovy type of fella Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who lived his last years in the town