I think he must mean the area of low pressure moved across the 'far north' of NZ on Tue/Wed night, rather than the 'Far North', i.e. the pressure was much higher in the Far North district than it was in the North Akld region.
the wind field was spread out though...often its just the Hauraki gulf that gets the wind only...but the gales were more widespread this time...branches blown off trees and or trees uprooted in the Franklin district with alot of power cuts too...
Winds were also strongest around the low's SE quarter, and with the White Island WS being 310m asl (almost as high as the Sky Tower), meant no land interaction and little in the way of surface friction.
A couple of other MS sites worthy of note on the eastern side of the Coromandel were Golden Valley (near Waihi) with gusts to 120 km/h and Slipper Island with gusts to 115 km/h.
I had always regarded White Island as just a little pimple on the horizon, as it were: it is indeed quite elevated and, I notice, much more of it below the sea - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whakaari_/_White_Island
Thanks for your informative post, Nev.