New Zealand
Ninety Mile Beach
Called Ninety Mile Beach but only fifty-five — still vast enough to land aircraft on.
The beach stretches to a vanishing point in both directions. Despite its name, Ninety Mile Beach is only fifty-five miles long — but standing on it, the error feels generous rather than wrong. Tour buses drive its length as an official highway at low tide.
Te Oneroa-a-Tōhē, its Māori name, runs along the west coast of the Aupōuri Peninsula in New Zealand's Far North. The hard-packed sand is firm enough for vehicles, and the beach functions as a gazetted road during low tide. At the southern end, the Te Paki sand dunes rise to over 150 metres — New Zealand's largest active dune system. Toheroa, a once-abundant shellfish, was harvested here until overfishing closed the fishery in the 1980s. The beach faces the Tasman Sea, receiving unbroken swells that have travelled from Australia.
Solo
Running or walking the sand at dawn delivers an emptiness that recalibrates perspective. No footprints ahead of you, no sound but surf.
Friends
Sandboarding the Te Paki dunes on boogie boards is a competitive, adrenaline-fuelled group activity with no skill required and guaranteed wipeouts.
- The beach stretches so far that tour buses drive its length as a highway at low tide.
- Te Paki sand dunes at the southern end rise high enough for boogie-board sandboarding at speed.
- Shell-collectors walk for hours without seeing another person — the scale dwarfs everything human.
- Surf fishing here means casting from an empty shoreline where the only competition is gannets diving offshore.
Toheroa soup — once famous, now rare — from the shellfish buried beneath these sands.
Fresh tuatua clams gathered at low tide and cooked in a beach fire.
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