Whānau are leaving their farm trucks in the car park and their gumboots on the doorstep to get Covid-19 vaccinations at the top of the country.
Tāheke Covid-19 vaccine clinic. Photo: RNZ / Sam Olley
After initial lags, the Northland District Health Board is well ahead of its targets and rural health services are upping the numbers with community education sessions, flyers and rotating immunisation clinics.
Northland has one of the highest vaccination targets per capita in the country.
It was criticised for falling behind at first, and DHB staff apologised after the booking system was overwhelmed with demand, but the DHB has made fast progress since.
It is now 13 percent ahead of its target, having administered more than 51,000 jabs to date.
That's nearly 8000 more than MidCentral DHB which has a slightly smaller population.
Now that bookings from Group 3 are flooding in, almost all appointments are full in Te Tai Tokerau this month.
Lyn Foster is overseeing Hauora Hokianga's vaccine rollout, immunising people living in the isolated corners of the harbour.
Hauora Hokianga has never had a problem filling the Pfizer dose appointments.
Soon it will extend hours to evenings and weekends and run minivan trips, to ensure working people and those without transport get their shots.
"[We] average about 100, between 90 and 100 a site [and] we've got five sites going, once a fortnight," she told RNZ.
The team ran an education roadshow before injections began, to ease Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy.
Community health and wellbeing manager Priscilla Van Oorschot was "very pleased" to see the messages taken in.
"Because we are so remote, Covid is something that they talk about in the media but it really has not made its presence here. So there was that talk about 'well here we are out here we are going to be safe'. So we just didn't know how the community was going to respond."
Yesterday, Hauora Hokianga held a vaccination clinic in Tāheke - a small, remote village.
Covid-19 misinformation and hesitancy in Northland has been a challenge for the DHB. Photo: RNZ / Sam Olley
Before and after the vaccinations, visitors were given hot drinks and biscuits and health practitioners would sometimes check on their visiting patients' wider health needs.
Chris, a 55-year-old policeman, got a dose in Tāheke yesterday and gave the clinic a positive review.
"[It was an] easy process. Just come in and do it. I am not a fan of needles, I don't like them, never have, but gone are the days of the big needles. It's very short."
Kevin, 71 , was back for his second dose.
He said it was "a breeze" and he enjoyed socialising in the waiting rooms, where he "caught up with a whole lot of history of the place, all these oldies sitting in a room having a big chat about our olden days".
Te Hiku Hauora is inoculating isolated coastal communities east and west of Kaitāia, in rugby clubs and community halls.
Alison Danielsen has been planning and coordinating the sites for months, while juggling her normal nursing commitments.
At each clinic, staff and volunteers start the day with karakia and waiata and then get to mahi.
"It is just so rewarding, being able to go out into the communities and vaccinate people and they don't have to go through the whole DHB waiting list, waiting for phone calls, trying to get to the site, organising the transport and things like that. We have vaccinated some people in their cars. So it's been great."
Vaccination data so far this month shows the Northland DHB has fully vaccinated 660 people in Group 1 and 11,600 people in Group 2.
In Group 3, at least 11,600 people have had their first dose and at least 3,600 in Group 4.
In a statement, the DHB said it was happy with the progress to date.