Taranaki Beaches - Part One

While we were parked up in Inglewood, we decided to do a road trip around Mount Taranaki and visit some of the beaches along the way. We started south of Hawera at Ohawe Beach.

Lots of stones on this beach, but it's still beautiful. It was windy and cold today, but we wrapped up and went for a walk to see what we could see  . . .

Near the river mouth there were a couple sitting waiting for the tide to turn and hoping for some whitebait.

And some children out closer to the surf.

Next stop was Kaupokonui where there were a lot of motorhomers. There were signs everywhere saying dogs were not welcome, so we didn’t stop.

Opunake Beach was the next beach we came across.

This beach is really popular in the summer, with a dairy (hot chips were nice on this cold day), a campground (no dogs allowed) and a children’s playground. As you can see, the tide's out today, but it's a great beach for swimming.

It was getting late in the day, so we decided to head for home, then come back and see the rest another day. As always, Mt Egmont/Taranaki dominates the landscape.

A couple of days later, we headed back to Opunake, keen to complete the circuit. We drove along the top of the cliffs this time where I took some photos looking back at the main beach.

 And directly below us . . .

A bit further along in the next bay was the Opunake Boat Club. No shops here, but it’s a lovely sandy beach.

 

There were lots of freedom camping places along the top here—one of them had a handy walkway down to the beach.

As we leave Opunake, we’re reminded that we’re travelling along Surf Highway 45.

We turned off down Kina Road and at the end there was beach access. Not much space to turn around or park—another stony beach.

Taranaki beaches, being on the West Coast, are all black sand. The surf and windsurfing  is, arguably, some of the best in New Zealand. [For surfers, FourCorners website explains the Taranaki beach surf breaks in a language that is way over my head.]

Cape Egmont Lighthouse is at the most western point of Taranaki—on Cape Road, Pungarehu. That’s the mountain behind it, but today it’s shrouded in cloud. I'm sure it would make a stunning photo on a clear day.

As we drove through Okato, we stopped outside this old dairy factory. There are a lot of old dairy factories sprinkled around Taranaki; many of them have been repurposed, like this one. Even the Tawhiti Museum used to be an old Dairy Factory.

To be continued . . . (the map below shows where the beaches are)