Ninety Mile Beach, stretching along the western edge of New Zealand’s Far North peninsula, is in reality closer to 55 miles, or around 88 kilometres, long, a discrepancy popularly attributed to early travellers on horseback misjudging the distance based on how many days the journey took, assuming a full day’s ride covered roughly the same ground on this flat, hard-packed sand as it would on solid ground elsewhere, an estimate that turned out to be significantly overstated. Despite the inaccurate name, the beach remains one of the longest continuous stretches of sand in New Zealand, and is even classified as a public highway, legally permitting vehicle use along sections of it under the right conditions.
The beach forms part of the traditional territory of Maori iwi in the Far North, and the nearby dunes and coastline hold particular spiritual significance in Maori tradition as being close to Cape Reinga, believed to be the point from which spirits depart the physical world.
A Coastline Shaped by Massive Shifting Dunes
The sand dunes bordering Ninety Mile Beach, some rising over 140 metres, are a significant tourist activity in their own right, with sandboarding down the steep dune faces a popular pastime for visitors travelling the length of the beach. These dunes are part of an active, shifting sand system, gradually moving and reshaping over time under the influence of the strong winds that sweep this exposed stretch of New Zealand’s coastline.
The beach’s firm, flat sand made it historically significant as a de facto road connecting isolated Far North communities before modern highways were built inland, a practical transport route as much as a scenic one for much of its earlier history.
Painting a Beach That Stretches to the Horizon
Ninety Mile Beach’s vast flat sand meeting the Tasman Sea gives a watercolourist wide open space and soft coastal light to work with. We’ve captured that setting in our own Ninety Mile Beach Watercolor Print, painted first by hand and printed to order on archival paper, a small piece of New Zealand for a wall at home.
Named by travellers who miscounted the miles, Ninety Mile Beach remains a stretch of coastline whose actual length has never quite managed to catch up with its name.