Karekare Beach

Karekare is Piha's quieter neighbour, a broad black-sand beach at the mouth of a valley with cliffs closing it at both ends and a tidal stream crossing the sand. It is best known abroad as the beach in Jane Campion's The Piano, filmed here in 1992, and the wide bleak expanse in that film is more or less what you get on an overcast day. Behind the car park a five-minute walk leads to Karekare Falls, dropping into a pool in the bush; longer tracks climb into the Waitakere Ranges. The beach is unpatrolled for most of the year and the surf carries the same rips as Piha with fewer people around to notice a problem, which is the important practical difference between the two. There is no shop, no cafe and limited parking - the small settlement here is residential and deliberately undeveloped.

History

Karekare was a major settlement of Te Kawerau ā Maki, known for its kūmara gardens, and in the mid-18th century the rangatira Kowhatu-ki-te-uru built a pā on The Watchman headland. Two kauri mills worked here, one from 1881 to 1886 and a smaller one from 1906, and the Karekare Surf Club was formed in 1935 (Wikipedia, Karekare, New Zealand).

The landscape

• The black-sand expanse - wide, cliff-bound and usually near empty.
• Karekare Falls - five minutes from the car park into the bush.
• The tidal stream - crossing the sand to the sea.
• The film location - the beach from The Piano.

When to go

December to March. Weekdays are near empty even in summer. The road down is steep and narrow - not for a large campervan.

Good to know

Usually unpatrolled, with the same dangerous rips as Piha and far fewer people about. No shop, no cafe, no facilities beyond toilets. Parking is very limited and the settlement asks visitors not to block driveways.

Nearby

Piha is over the hill; Whatipu is south along the coast.