Scottish Country Dance of the Day

New Zealand’s beaches offer far more than sand and sea. For luminous colour, the coves of Abel Tasman National Park combine golden sand, clear turquoise water, granite headlands and forest descending almost to the shore. Maitai Bay in Northland offers a softer palette of white sand and remarkably clear water, while the beaches of the Tūtūkākā Coast lie between rocky headlands, sheltered bays and pōhutukawa-fringed bush.

For dramatic scenery, Piha is difficult to surpass. Its iron-rich black sand, heavy Tasman Sea surf and great mass of Lion Rock make it feel quite unlike New Zealand’s gentler eastern beaches. Nearby Karekare, Te Henga and Muriwai share the wild, dark character of Auckland’s western coast, with cliffs, dunes and broad expanses of volcanic sand. These are beaches for watching the sea as much as entering it.

Mautohe Cathedral Cove on the Coromandel Peninsula is best known for its enormous natural archway, which frames creamy sand and emerald water almost too neatly to appear accidental. Nearby Hot Water Beach offers a different geological curiosity: naturally heated mineral water rises through the sand, allowing pools to be dug near low tide. Cathedral Cove’s cliffs and arch are naturally unstable, however, so current weather, tide and access conditions should always be checked before visiting.

At the northern edge of the South Island, Wharariki Beach provides the grander sort of isolation. Reached by walking across farmland, it has immense dunes, caves, rock pools, wildlife and wave-carved offshore arches. Farther south, Koekohe Beach is scattered with the almost perfectly rounded Moeraki Boulders, enormous stone spheres that look as though they have rolled ashore from a legend. On the West Coast, Punakaiki offers still stranger geology in its layered Pancake Rocks and blowholes, especially dramatic when the tide forces seawater upward through the limestone.

For sunsets and found objects, Hokitika Beach is strewn with driftwood and faces the restless Tasman Sea. For long coastal walks and changing views, Abel Tasman brings together beaches, forest, headlands and sheltered coves along a 60-kilometre coastal track. New Zealand’s finest beaches are therefore not necessarily those made for lying still: they may be places to examine strange rocks, cross dunes, watch seals and seabirds, follow the changing tide—or simply see how many completely different landscapes the word “beach” can contain.

For more on New Zealand's beaches, click the beach which inspired the dance!