Woman hoisted from cliff at Whanganui beach after getting swept away by rip

A woman had to be hoisted off a cliff at Kai Iwi Beach on Tuesday afternoon after getting swept away by a rip before clambering to safety.

Emergency services were called to the scene at about 12.30pm after the 22-year-old Australian woman was swimming with other overseas visitors at Whanganui's most popular beach.

"She just slipped away," the woman's friend Bailey Patrick said.

Bailey said her friend was "completely chilled out" through the whole incident and was "used to being in the water and she was relaxed".

A current pulled her around the southern headland of the beach before her friends went out to try to get her back in.

But the current was too strong.

They ran up to the beach and climbed to the hill above where they saw her in the water and weren't sure whether she was breathing.

Then they heard her call out as she got to shore and climbed up a cliff.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand's line rescue crew set up lines at the top of the cliff and were attached to a fire truck and fence posts.

A lines-trained firefighter prepares to go over the edge. Photo / Bevan Conley

Two of them went down the cliff, one to get to the woman and the other to watch and relay information.

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A 22-year-old woman rescued from Kai Iwi Beach cliffs is wrapped in a sheet before walking to an ambulance. Photo / Bevan Conley

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The rescued woman appeared unharmed by her adventure.

Wanganui Surf Lifeguard Service chairman James Newell said it was the third time in a year someone swimming at that end of the beach at high tide had needed a "proper rescue" with police, fire and lifeguards all involved.

It was a serious matter, he said, and advised people not to swim at the pillbox or southern end of the beach at all, unless there were lifeguards there.

"We've been pulling people out from there for 40 years. Even in waist-deep water the rip will just sweep you around."

Newell would like signs put up there, to warn people.