Your Place - Ngatea

Not exactly off the beaten track today, but unless you live in Auckland or Tauranga or the Coromandel, a track that's not beaten as much. Our destination today is a small town on the Hauraki Plains. Lying on the Piako River, and located 18 kilometres southwest of Thames and 70 kilometres southeast of Auckland, the town is known as the halfway stop for people heading north or south on State Highway 2. Welcome to Ngatea, which had a population of just 1167 residents in 2006, but it's New Zealand's fastest-growing rural community.