The Whangarei district boasts a variety of beaches and coastal areas. This page contains information about some of the popular beaches and where boat ramps and other facilities are located.
Updated:
24/04/2013 12:14 p.m.
The east coast scenery in Northland is one of a rocky coastline interspersed with white sandy beaches.
Whangarei has a reputation as the city with 100 beaches, and offers a range of picturesque and safe places to swim, from the grand scale ocean beaches to small sandy bays along both edges of the harbour.
The district is also well known for the striking sight of pohutukawa trees (NZ's Christmas tree) in full bloom through early summer all along the coastline.
The Northland Regional Council conducts water quality tests through the summer at some of our popular beaches. Follow the link below for further information.
Swimming Water Quality (Northland Regional Council website) Opens in a new window.
Two of the popular surfing beaches are patrolled by Surf Life Saving NZ at weekends during the summer months, generally from the end of October until early April and throughout the week during the summer school holiday in December and January.
For details follow the link below.
Surf Lifesaving NZ website Opens in a new window.
Freedom camping
We support freedom camping in the district by visitors in self-contained campervans. We encourage visitors using tents or campervans that aren't self contained, to use camping grounds instead.
Follow the link below to view our guidelines.
Freedom Camping
The harbour
The harbour offers good fishing and scallop diving is a popular pastime during the open season.
Two marine reserves have been established in the harbour. One at Motukaroro Island near the harbour entrance at Reotahi is very popular as a snorkelling spot in the summer. The other is further up the harbour at Waikaraka.
Both are well marked and all marine life in them is protected. Please respect the no fishing rule.
Whangarei Harbour Marine Reserves (Department of Conservation website) Opens in a new window.
Recreational fishing
The waters along the coastline are known for good catches of fish, especially snapper and kingfish in season, but also kawhai, trevally, john dory and other species in addition to crayfish and kina.
When James Cook sailed through the area in 1769, the crew caught so many snapper, that they called the area Bream Bay.
We maintain a number of boat ramps in the district which are suitable for launching recreational fishing boats.
The main beaches and boatramp facilities in the district are shown on the map below.