Cape Reinga Things to Do

This place shows the history of the gum diggers and the kauri forest. There's a gumdiggers hut and holes where kauri trees are buried and gum was dugged up. There's a shop where you can buy products and the walk around the park is really nice.

Except for enjoying the great view, you can do several walks from this place. You can walk to Cape maria from Diemen along Te Werahi Beach, it's 5 hours return. There's a two hour walk to Tapotupotu Bay, east of Cape Reinga. From there you can walk to Kapowairua at the eastern end of Spirits Bay in 8 hours.

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It is always fun to drive along the beach but check with your insurance company and be very careful not only about the tides but also other vehicles and also beach goers. You drive along the beach you will come across warning signs of the hazards of driving on the sands, vehicles buried in sands up to the roof.

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A short drive down some pretty steep gravel road from Cape Reinga you will find Tapotupotu Bay . Their is a nice grassy park area with good toilet facility for you to rest , have lunch and go for a swim. If it has been raining, I imagine it will be quite a challenge getting up to the main road from the bay, so be careful.

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This settlement is located about halfway between Awanui and Cape Reinga. It's a good stop on a hot day to get yourself the biggest cone of ice cream I have ever paid for just a dollar. The Te Kao Local Store is sited along the main road to the Cape. Stop and you won't be disappointed.

Spirits Bay is a 15/20km drive from Cape Reinga, again along unsealed road. And once you get there, you will fall helplessley in love with this beautiful place!

A wide bay where the crystal waters of the Pacific wash against the shore. From a distance, the beach looks as though it is all fine white sand, and there is certainly plenty of it. But once you get to walk on it, you find it is the most delicate rose pink, made up from millions of fragments of pale pink shells.

It is worth noting that there is a very basic Department of Conservation camp site here, set back from the beach itself.

The Cape Reinga lighthouse! You don't get to go inside the lighthouse, which, as most of them are nowadays, is fully automated, but you do get beautiful views. Built on this exposed headland back in the early 1940's it looks out over the worlds greatest ocean, the mighty Pacific and must as a consequence take a thorough battering from the weather at times!

I think lighthouses are special, largely because of the places you find them and the vast view they generally afford, and the one at Cape Reinga is no exception.

You will see this beach and headland before you reach Cape Reinga itself, and a track will take you down to Cape Maria and loop back to the road along the prettily named Twilight Beach.