New Zealanders head into a long weekend on Friday for Matariki, the Māori New Year, and the celebrations stretch from a Northland forest strung with fairy lights to a dawn gathering above the Waitematā Harbour in Auckland.
Matariki falls on Friday 10 July in 2026, and it is one of the newest public holidays on the calendar. The day takes its name from a small cluster of stars that reappears low on the horizon in the pre dawn winter sky. For many iwi that reappearance signals the turn of the year, a time to remember those who have died, to give thanks for the harvest and to look ahead to the season to come. This year the national theme is Matariki herenga waka, which is an open invitation for everyone to gather and mark the occasion together whatever their background.
One of the more unusual events will take place in Puketī ngahere, or Puketī Forest, in Te Tai Tokerau on the evening of Wednesday 9 July. From 4pm to 8pm the forest opens for a free community night that folds together stargazing, conservation and family activities, according to the Department of Conservation. Visitors can take a guided night walk to see glow worms, warm themselves at a campfire while listening to stories, share a barbecue, and ride an old army Unimog truck out to the Manginangina Kauri Walk to see the giant kauri trees lit up after dark. There will also be traditional weaving to learn, a meeting house set up for photographs, and microscope and virtual reality displays for children.
The evening is being run together by the Department of Conservation, the local group Kaitiaki Kauri, the Puketī Forest Trust, Northland Regional Council, Heritage New Zealand and Tiakina Kauri, and the conservation message sits at the heart of it. Puketī is one of the last strongholds of mature kauri in the north, and the trees remain under threat from kauri dieback disease, which is why so many of the groups protecting the forest are involved.
Bronwyn Bauer, the Department of Conservation operations manager for the Bay of Islands, said the night was about connecting people to both the sky and the forest. “This is a truly authentic way to celebrate the heavens and earth, the stars of our ancestors, and the ngahere and species that give us life,” she said. Tania Pene, who leads Kaitiaki Kauri, said the forest was far more than a place for a walk. “The ngahere is more than something to walk through for sport or exercise. It is the essence of our breath, our lives,” she said.
For Gary Bramley, who chairs the Puketī Forest Trust, the appeal of Matariki is the promise of warmer days ahead. “Matariki always gives me hope that the days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and kōanga is on the way,” he said, using the Māori word for spring.
The largest concentration of events is in Auckland, where more than 100 free activities are running across the city as part of the official Matariki festival, the New Zealand Herald reports. The programme takes in markets selling Māori food and craft, live music, art and light shows, all timed around Friday 10 July when the star cluster is at its clearest.
The centrepiece is a dawn ceremony known as a hautapu. On the morning of Friday 10 July, thousands are expected to gather from 5.30am at Bastion Point for the ceremony hosted by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, which this year also carries the national hautapu, the country’s main ceremony for the day. A hautapu is a sacred rite held before sunrise. It includes prayer, a moment to name and remember those who have died over the past year, and an offering of cooked food that rises as steam to feed the stars, with hopes for the year ahead spoken aloud. A smaller community hautapu was held earlier in the festival at Te Atatū, hosted by the local marae committee, with food and conversation to follow, Auckland Council says.
The festival opened with the Vector Lights display returning to the Auckland Harbour Bridge, and organisers have leaned hard on the idea that Matariki belongs to everyone. Radio New Zealand reported that Tāmaki Makaurau has become the heart of the national celebrations, with the theme built around the image of waka, or canoes, drawing together at a common gathering place, according to RNZ.
Matariki has been a public holiday only since 2022, and it remains the sole holiday in the country rooted in Māori tradition and set by the maramataka, the Māori lunar calendar, rather than a fixed date. That means the date shifts each year with the appearance of the stars, landing on 10 July in 2026 and moving again next year. Unlike the imported holidays that bookend the calendar, it is a distinctly local moment, marked in the cold heart of winter with fires, food and the promise that the days are about to lengthen.
Whether it is a forest walk in the north, a dawn karakia on an Auckland headland or simply a sleep in on a Friday off work, Matariki has quickly become a fixture. For many families it is a chance to slow down, remember, and look up.
Are you marking Matariki this year, and how does your family celebrate it? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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