Trucks shipping sought-after Christmas stock are on the road again today... making the journey from Northland to Auckland

Twelve hundred shipping containers were offloaded at Northport because of congestion at Ports of Auckland.

But trucks halted on Saturday afternoon to give Northport staff a break - with forklift drivers reaching the maximum hours allowed under the fatigue management policy.

Operations resumed at 6am today.

A spokesman says they expect all the containers will be moved by the end of the week - depending on the trucks turning up.

They have the capacity to move several hundred containers a day.