Sentinel Beach Reserve. Photo / Dean Purcell.
Looking for a good beach to spend your time in the city this summer? Here is a subjective list of Auckland’s 10 best, reviewed by Greg Bruce.
To have your say on Auckland and New Zealand’s best beaches, get ready for the Herald’s annual Best Beach campaign, starting tomorrow (Saturday Jan 4). See the New Zealand Herald in print tomorrow or go to nzherald.co.nz/best-beaches to find out how to cast your nominations.
Everything about Piha is too much. The violent rips, angry waves, burning sand, and puke-inducing drive out and back. So why does our love affair with the place persist? For exactly those reasons. It’s the coolest beach we have. Lion Rock is nice too.
Notable eating/drinking: Murray.
Relaxing? No, not even slightly.
Good for kids? No, but they’ll love that you find it so stressful.
Access: Puke-inducing.
Noise: Full noise.
Views: Epic.
Sand: Vicious - temperatures have reportedly reached nearly 80C and people regularly suffer burns to their feet.
A sort of anti-Piha. Quiet and pleasant. Cheltenham evokes images of iced lollies, parasols, boater hats and striped one-piece gentlemen’s swimming garments. It’s the city’s best beach on which to lie all day with a book or a dream and nothing to do and nowhere to be.
Notable eating/drinking: Cheltenham Milk Bar, Vauxhall Cafe, McHugh’s of Cheltenham.
Relaxing? Very.
Good for kids? They’ll probably be bored, although it does have a (quite dull) playground.
Access: A frustratingly long way to drive for somewhere so close to the city.
Noise: Quiet as.
Views: Great view of Rangitoto and the Eastern Gulf.
Sand: Good and golden.
The sandy heart and summer epicentre of the North Shore, it’s less a beach and more an institution. Too hectic for relaxing, it’s a good place for those of us with low sun tolerance to get a gelato from the beach cafe and have a few minutes on the sand before retreating safely back indoors.
Notable eating/drinking: Takapuna Beach Cafe.
Relaxing? No.
Good for kids? Yeah, but it’ll be hard to get away with not buying them icecream. Then again, once they’re done, they’ll probably spend ages on the world-class playground.
Access: Parking in Takapuna sucks, as does driving through it.
Noise: Noisy – cars, general hustle and bustle and unruly tourists.
Views: Not the greatest in Auckland but still quite nice.
Sand: Pretty good, but sand levels have dropped in recent years, sometimes exposing rocks.
The closest thing Auckland has to a self-contained beach city and a true melting pot of cultures. What really sets it apart is its enormously broad green space between the carpark and beach. So much grass, so many toilets, so many spots to play, picnic and barbecue. This is Auckland’s best beach for all-day recreation, sport, music and the observation of humanity.
Notable eating/drinking: Whatever you’ve brought.
Relaxing? Not really. More action-oriented.
Good for kids? Yes, plenty to do and, crucially, lots of toilets.
Access: It’s a bit further than the others on this list and the parking area can get chaotic on hot weekends.
Noise: Only from all the people, who admittedly can sometimes get a bit intense.
Views: Pretty nice out to sea, and lots of green behind you.
Sand: Very nice.
Beloved for the fountain, for its place as the epicentre of Auckland beach life for a hundred years, for the overstuffed row of eating places good, bad and average, for the excellent range of icecream and desserts, for the beer bars overlooking the beach, for being the spiritual home of fish and chips on the beach. An icon. THE icon.
Notable eating/drinking: Azabu, Good George, Island Gelato.
Relaxing: Only if your idea of relaxing is being surrounded by 10,000 people and roughly the same number of passing cars.
Good for kids? Yes, but you’ll spend a fortune on food or pay the price in whining.
Access: Plenty of street parking back from the beach.
Noise: Obviously.
Views: Truly spectacular, world-class.
Sand: Fine, but famously not its own, after it had a 30,000 cubic metre sand transplant in 1996.
A great family beach. Just far enough from the madness of the lower North Shore to give non-Shoreites a sense of getting away from it all, without having to go through the hassle of actually getting away from it all.
Notable eating/drinking: Cindy’s Cookies.
Relaxing: Mid-range relaxation.
Good for kids: Yes. Has an excellent playground and good trees and rock formations.
Access: Don’t try and drive along the beachfront road at busy times and you’ll be fine.
Noise: Not bad. A green swathe provides a buffer between the road and the beach.
Views: Mostly open water.
Sand: Fine golden powder, minimal shells.
This might be Auckland’s best evening beach, perfect for suburban socialising over fish and chips. Blessedly free of adjoining commercial enterprises, it feels like a throwback to a time none of us can remember, but which we assume to be better.
Notable eating/drinking: The Pt Chev Beach Cafe.
Relaxing? Surprisingly so, given its proximity to the city and dense local population of loud media types. Made better by the absence of easy car access.
Good for kids? They probably won’t think so, but they might like the trees.
Access: A little walk down from the car/back up.
Noise: Surprisingly little for a beach in a densely populated suburb, helped by the thick grove of trees between the road and beach.
Views: Looks directly at Te Atatū.
Sand: Surprisingly good.
The ideal contrast with its neighbours Mission Bay and St Heliers. Kohi retains a sense of quiet dignity and restraint, along with a distinct lack of overpriced eateries, while all around it the eastern suburbs are in full commercial bloom.
Notable eating/drinking: Kohi Corner (Cafe on Kohi, Bar on Kohi, The Store on Kohi).
Relaxing? Compared to its nearest neighbours, yes. Compared to everything else, not really.
Good for kids? Not really. They’d prefer the large and impressive playgrounds and multiple icecream options at either St Heliers or Mission Bay.
Access: Good, with ample beachfront parking, unlike its nearest neighbours.
Noise: Yes.
Views: Truly spectacular. World-class.
Sand: Mostly imported, like its neighbours, but pretty nice.
One of the series of tiny Herne Bay beaches to be found at the end of the suburb’s leafy and ferociously wealthy residential streets, and arguably the best. It has a spectacular view of the harbour bridge and permanent sun-loungers, and if you’re lucky enough to be there when it’s quiet, you feel like you’re one of the richest people in the world, and if you live nearby, you probably are.
Notable eating/drinking: FishSmith.
Relaxing? Extremely. Unless it’s high tide on a hot weekend day in midsummer, then definitely not.
Good for kids? They’ll probably hate it for being so small. And other unburdened adults will hate that you brought them.
Access: There aren’t many parks, so it’s fortunate there also isn’t much beach.
Noise: The sound of extraordinary wealth. Otherwise, silence.
Views: Incredible, cinematic view of the harbour bridge.
It’s not nearly as lovely as the others, but it has two things they don’t: The views out to Motuihe and Waiheke offer a totally different experience from the others’ mostly Rangitoto-centric outlooks and the short trail at the Southern end is one of the city’s hidden treasures. It wends through beautiful regenerating bush of Macleans Park and up to a promontory where the views are beyond spectacular.
Notable eating/drinking: The Barracuda Restaurant.
Relaxing? Not really. Too many cars, but this can be mitigated by going to either end of the beach.
Good for kids? Yes. They’ll rightly tell you the playground on the beach is mid, but once they see the spectacular flying fox in Macleans Park, they’ll forgive you.
Access: The deep Eastern suburbs are a notoriously long drive from anywhere and the traffic can be dire. Parking’s pretty easy though.
Noise: Quite a lot of cars.
Views: Unique.
Sand: Heavily shelled.
To have your say on Auckland and New Zealand’s best beaches, get ready for the Herald’s annual Best Beach campaign, starting tomorrow (Saturday Jan 4). See the New Zealand Herald in print tomorrow or go to nzherald.co.nz/best-beaches to find out how to cast your nominations.
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