Cape Reinga

Cape Reinga, or Te Rerenga Wairua, sits at the end of a long, thin tail of dune country at the top of the North Island, an hour and a half north of Kaitaia along a road that runs out of towns well before it runs out of tarmac. A paved path drops from the car park to a small white lighthouse on the headland, built in 1941 and long since automated, and from there you look down on the place where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific meet, often visible as a ragged line of churning water a short way offshore. A weathered pohutukawa clings to the rock below. In Maori tradition this is where the spirits of the dead depart, which is why the cape is treated as a sacred place and eating and drinking are asked to stay behind at the car park.

Background

Cape Reinga is the northwesternmost tip of the Aupōuri Peninsula, more than 100 km north of Kaitaia, the nearest small town. The Māori name Te Rerenga Wairua translates as the leaping-off place of spirits, and Reinga is the Māori word for the underworld. According to tradition, the spirits of the dead leap from the headland, climb the roots of an 800-year-old pōhutukawa tree and go down into the underworld, travelling along the spirits' pathway, Te Ara Wairua, to their homeland of Hawaiki; they pause at the Three Kings Islands for a last look back. North Cape's Surville Cliffs, 30 km to the east, reach 3 km further north. State Highway 1 runs to the cape, and its last 19 km were gravel until 2010. Over 500,000 people visit each year.

Source: Wikipedia, "Cape Reinga"

The landscape

• The lighthouse headland - the short paved walk down to the white tower and the much-photographed distance signpost beside it.
• The meeting of two seas - the line of broken water where Tasman and Pacific currents collide.
• Te Werahi and Spirits Bay - long empty beaches visible along the coast on either side.
• Te Paki sand dunes - the giant dunes inland, where people slide down to Te Paki Stream on boards.

When to go

The cape is open all year and the drive is the limiting factor: it is roughly four hours from the Bay of Islands, so most people leave early or take a bus. Late afternoon light suits the headland, and the line of the currents shows most strongly when there is some swell running. Coaches arrive in a block through the middle of the day, so early morning or late afternoon is far quieter. Wind is constant in every season.

Good to know

It is a long drive for a viewpoint, and the site itself takes under an hour. There are toilets and no food, so bring your own. The path back up from the lighthouse is steeper than it looks. Fog and rain can erase the view entirely, the meeting of the seas is not always visible and can look like ordinary chop, and coach parties arrive in clusters through the middle of the day.

Nearby

Te Paki dunes and Ninety Mile Beach lie on the way in, and Kaitaia is the last town of any size.

Key facts