Ninety Mile Beach Travel Guide
Edit This The best resource for sights, hotels, restaurants, bars, what to do and seeSand Boarding At Te Paki Stream
Keith Craig
90 Mile Beach, also known as
Oneroa A Tohe is about 90 k's long and has been gazetted as a road,
although Hire Car Companies will not insure on the road, probably
because of the hazzards!
The best "on ramp" is at Waipapakauri. Head north out of Kaitaia, through Awanui and keep going until you see a sign on pointing to a road on the left saying Waipapakauri and 90 Mile beach. Take that road and after a while you will start to see the ocean peering through sand dunes and trees. Keep going until you get to the car park and STOP!
Get out and go and check the onramp seeing where the tide is and what it is like. This is the west coast and can be wild - seeing a calm day out there is fairly rare, a normal day out there is about 1/2 metre high waves about 20 m apart. This is also the Tasman sea, so straight out is Australia.
It is best to hit the Tohe about 3 hours after the high tide, but just because you know when the high tide was it still pays to check as it could be a High high tide and the water may not have gone out to far. Also, depending on currents and winds and moon pull, the surface can change from one tide to the next.
Te Paki Stream is the northern most ramp - the main one where cars and buses come on or off depending on the tides.
All of the trees out here grow with a lean to the east - and indication of the consistant winds that come in off the sea.
At the end of January is the 90 Mile Beach Fishing Contest. Fish that can be caught out there, depending on the time of year is snapper, kahawai, shark, flounder to name a few. As well as surf casting you can also use a drag net to catch fish.
There is also Tuatua - a shellfish that can be found out there. So if you know what you are doing you can quite easily live out there for weeks. Camp in the dunes making sure that your tent is sheltered from the constant westerlies.
As the sun sets in the west you can see amazing sunsets out here when there is not much cloud cover. The sun forms a huge orange fireball and litterally drops into the ocean!
The best "on ramp" is at Waipapakauri. Head north out of Kaitaia, through Awanui and keep going until you see a sign on pointing to a road on the left saying Waipapakauri and 90 Mile beach. Take that road and after a while you will start to see the ocean peering through sand dunes and trees. Keep going until you get to the car park and STOP!
Get out and go and check the onramp seeing where the tide is and what it is like. This is the west coast and can be wild - seeing a calm day out there is fairly rare, a normal day out there is about 1/2 metre high waves about 20 m apart. This is also the Tasman sea, so straight out is Australia.
It is best to hit the Tohe about 3 hours after the high tide, but just because you know when the high tide was it still pays to check as it could be a High high tide and the water may not have gone out to far. Also, depending on currents and winds and moon pull, the surface can change from one tide to the next.
Te Paki Stream is the northern most ramp - the main one where cars and buses come on or off depending on the tides.
All of the trees out here grow with a lean to the east - and indication of the consistant winds that come in off the sea.
At the end of January is the 90 Mile Beach Fishing Contest. Fish that can be caught out there, depending on the time of year is snapper, kahawai, shark, flounder to name a few. As well as surf casting you can also use a drag net to catch fish.
There is also Tuatua - a shellfish that can be found out there. So if you know what you are doing you can quite easily live out there for weeks. Camp in the dunes making sure that your tent is sheltered from the constant westerlies.
As the sun sets in the west you can see amazing sunsets out here when there is not much cloud cover. The sun forms a huge orange fireball and litterally drops into the ocean!
Additional travel guides are available in ten languages at Wikitravel.org
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