A land of beaches

New Zealand is packed with beaches. Even if you take the most high-stressed corporate job in Auckland, you still work within 15 minutes of the beach and you will likely live directly ON the beach in one of the cool suburbs. Even if you live inland, you can reach a beach within an hour’s drive. You can reach many of them by gravel road, but you can also drive on most of them, which is why kiwis love their 4x4s. There is a massive range of character, manifested by the colour and grain size of the sand, dunes, trees, birds, surf, rocks, algae, shells, water colour and temperature, shape. Every one feels different and is a new surprise for the eyes and the soul. And many have wind and waves for us to play in.  It appears to be a useless task to rank beaches as they each feel different to different visitors. We all look for slightly different things in a perfect beach, and in fact we search for different types depending on what we feel like and what we want to do. In any case, here are two of my favourites, both on the East Coast of the long spit that goes out to Cape Reinga, where 90 mile beach is on the West, these are the jewels of the East Coast:

Henderson is usually empty and has some of the best surf in the country. Rawawa is long and beautiful and lined by cool sand dunes with the finest sand; this is also the only place you can camp, on a DOC campground.

Henderson Beach

Rawawa Beach

Categories: New Zealand