Port Albert is situated on the shores of the Kaipara Harbour, approximately 8 kilometres west of Wellsford, in the Auckland Region of New Zealand.

They included farmers, carpenters, servants, butchers, joiners, cabinetmakers, millers, drapers, sawyers, clerks and many other trades.

[9] The Albertlanders set sail for New Zealand on 29 May 1862, aboard numerous ships including the Matilda Wattenbach, Hanover and William Miles.

The group landed late that afternoon at Wade (now Silverdale) where they stayed the night before setting off the next day on foot up the Waiwera Valley having to cross several creeks on the way.

This block was so overgrown that the explorers struggled to walk through the dense bush and it would require too much work to bring it back to productive farming land.

After surveying the majority of the Okahukura Peninsula the explorers gained information from residents who lived on the Ōruawharo River and decided to create the Albertland settlement a few kilometres up where there was good scrubland and bush with kauri for building,[7] using an Auckland Provincial Council scheme which "...provided 40 acres [16 hectares] each for a man and his wife, and 20 acres [8 ha] for each child between five and 18 years old – provided they paid their own fare and stayed on the land for five years, built a house, and began farming...".

The results were 92.5% European (Pākehā); 15.0% Māori; and 2.5% Middle Eastern, Latin American and African New Zealanders (MELAA).