90 Mile Beach & Te Paki San Dunes

We heard tale of epic sand boarding on giant sand dunes way up north on the North Island. Turns out the tales are true, situated 20km south of the Cape Reinga, the Northmost point on The North Island, and towering over 100m above 90 Mile Beach, lies the Te Paki sand dunes. Fine white sand stretched far and wide, and mountainously tall, punctated with herds of tourists all toting rented boogie boards.

We started our day in Ahipara, a small town at the south end of 90-mile beach, and drove north. Oh. 90 mile beach is a white sand beach that may or may not be 90 miles long, regardless it is actually a state road and you can drive on it. So thats pretty much what we did for a 20 km stretch of it. The trick is to ignore the 4wd signs and gun it. 2 hours of driving took us to the giant infamous sand dunes.

"The trick to it is to find an smooth slope, with a gentle runout, then see which one of you slides further", we were told by the chill as brah, who ran a monopoly on boogie board rentals in the area ($15 to rent a $50 board). We followed his advice and were met with endless opportunity of high speed boogie boarding.

I don't like tourists. That is, with exeption to Lisa and myself, i dont like them. We (tourists) have a herdlike mentality, where we see one person having fun, and we imitate exactly what they were doing in exactly the same way. I think this makes our experiences less genuine or something. This is pretentious, but i wanna make my own memories dammit! This place emphasised the tourist herdlike mentality with a lineup of families and 20 year old contiki tourists boarding on the slope nearest to the parking lot. Lisa and i spotted the highest sand mountain we had ever seen about 2 km away , and immediately decided to carry our boards to the top of it. And how we were rewarded by vistas, not another tourist in site, and some sweet as boogie board lines.

From the top of the sand mountain, Magic Carpet Mountain as was the name we provided, we could see the north tip of the island, cool sandstone features, the entire length of 90 mile beach, a natural arch island just of the coast, and a good look at potential boogieboard lines. We did not choose the longest or steepest , but rather opted for the one which did not end in sharp jagged rocks. It was still awesome, so I went twice .

It Ended up being an awesome day. I would recommend our activities to all, just walk a bit further than everyone else.Read more