The track to Wharariki Beach is about 20 minutes over farm paddocks and through a section of coastal forest, before arriving at the beautiful windswept coast.
The best time to visit is at low tide, when you can walk the length of the beach and take in spectacular coastlines, caverns, islands, and enormous sand dunes along the way.
When you reach the end of the track and over the first sand dune this is the amazing view.
The tide was coming in slowly but as we looked for fossils in the rocks at the left of this photo, a rogue wave came in and suddenly we were standing in ankle deep water!! Bugger wet boots!
We saw one seal but apparently seals and seal pups can often be seen in the pools and creek.
Our boots had almost dried out and one of us (not me) thought there was another track back to the car park from the Hilltop track. We decided to have a look so had to cross the creek….wet boots again!
We started walking the Hilltop track but there was no sign of a side track back to the carpark.
We got up the first couple of hills then one of us decided (me this time) that we should go back the way we came instead of a 1-2 hour walk to Cape Farewell then another 2-3 km of the gravel road back to the carpark, in wet boots and with no water. So back down the hill, through the creek (wet boots again) along the beach and track to the car park. Apparently there is a loop to the carpark if you go South, not North 🙂
Wet boots aside this is a spectacular beach and well worth a visit, next time we will come prepared and do the Hilltop track 🙂
How to get there. Travel North from Collingwood to Puponga, it’s well sign posted from there.
Hi Tony
Thanks so much for your comment, sounds amazing and we will definately will look at that next time. We really should have done a bit more homework before we got there but at least we got a great view from the start of the Hilltop walk, as well as wet boots 🙂 Beautiful area, already looking forward to our next trip up there, hopefully later in the year.
Happy travels 🙂
offthemainroadnz.com 
Hi Tony
Thanks so much for your comment, sounds amazing and we will definately will look at that next time. We really should have done a bit more homework before we got there but at least we got a great view from the start of the Hilltop walk, as well as wet boots 🙂 Beautiful area, already looking forward to our next trip up there, hopefully later in the year.
Happy travels 🙂
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