Wharariki Beach

Wharariki is on the north-west tip of New Zealand's South Island, past Farewell Spit and beyond the last road, reached by a twenty-minute walk over farmland from a car park at Puponga. It faces the Tasman Sea with nothing between it and Australia.

It is known for the Archway Islands — two rock stacks pierced by arches standing offshore, which appear in most photographs of the New Zealand coast and once in a Windows desktop wallpaper, which did more for their fame than any tourism campaign. Behind the beach lie dunes that shift constantly and, at the eastern end, rock pools that hold New Zealand fur seal pups through the summer.

The shore is broad golden sand at low tide and considerably less at high, with heavy Tasman surf and rip currents throughout. The wind is the constant: this corner of the island is exposed on three sides and the sand moves visibly across the beach on an ordinary day. Swimming is not sensible here and there are no patrols.

Nothing is built. A car park, a farm gate, a path across a paddock, and a campsite back at Puponga. The nearest town of any size is Collingwood, half an hour away, and Golden Bay is reached over a mountain pass that is itself part of why so few people come. Farewell Spit, visible to the east, is a thirty-kilometre sand bar and a bird sanctuary closed to unguided access; whales strand on it regularly, which is why the rescue operations there make the news.

Wind, tide and forty minutes of farm track each way. Come at low water or the arches are unreachable and most of the beach is under the sea; bring something windproof, because this corner of the South Island has nothing between it and Australia. The seal pups play in a rock pool at the eastern end and will come to look at you, which is not an invitation to close the distance.