Te-Oneroa-a-Tōhē / Ninety Mile Beach
Deed Of Settlement, Ngati Kuri and the Crown. Retrieved 10 February 2014 is on the western coast of the Far North District, far north of the

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-larges ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

. The beach is actually long. Its southern end is close to the headland of Tauroa Point, to the west of

Ahipara Bay Ahipara is a town and locality in Northland, New Zealand at the southern end of Ninety Mile Beach, with the Tauroa Peninsula to the west and Herekino Forest to the east. Ahipara Bay is to the north west. Kaitaia is 14 km to the north east, ...

, near

Kaitaia Kaitaia ( mi, Kaitāia) is a town in the Far North District of New Zealand, at the base of the Aupouri Peninsula, about 160 km northwest of Whangārei. It is the last major settlement on State Highway 1. Ahipara Bay, the southern end of ...

. From there it sweeps briefly northeast before running northwest along the

Aupouri Peninsula The Aupouri Peninsula is a tombolo at the northern tip of the North Island of New Zealand. It projects between the Tasman Sea to the west and the Pacific Ocean to the east. It constitutes the northern part of the Far North District, incorpora ...

for the majority of its length. It ends at Tiriparepa / Scott Point, south of

Cape Maria van Diemen Cape Maria van Diemen is the westernmost point of the North Island of New Zealand. A tombolo, it was originally an island composed mainly of basaltic-andesitic lava flows and dykes. Drifting sands joined it to the rest of the North Island during ...

and about south of

Cape Reinga / Te Rerenga Wairua , type =Cape , photo = Cape Reinga, Northland, New Zealand, October 2007.jpg , photo_width = 270px , photo_alt = , photo_caption = , map = New Zealand , map_width = 270px ...

. The beach is officially a public highway and is used as an alternative to State Highway 1 north of Kaitaia, though mainly for tourist trips, or when the main road is closed due to landslides or floods. The beach and the dunes at Te Paki in the north are a tourist destination. The Te Paki dunes, which look much like a desert landscape, are used for sandboarding.

History

In the days of sailing ships a number of vessels were wrecked on the beach. In 1932 the beach was used as the

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concrete ...

for some of the earliest

airmail Airmail (or air mail) is a mail transport service branded and sold on the basis of at least one leg of its journey being by air. Airmail items typically arrive more quickly than surface mail, and usually cost more to send. Airmail may be t ...

services between Australia and New Zealand. Ninety Mile Beach was included as part of

Te Araroa Te Araroa (The Long Pathway) is New Zealand's long distance tramping route, stretching circa along the length of the country's two main islands from Cape Reinga to Bluff. Officially opened in 2011, it is made up of a mixture of previously mad ...

when it officially opened in 2011. In a 2013 feature for the British television motoring programme ''

Top Gear Top Gear may refer to: * "Top gear", the highest gear available in a vehicle's manual transmission Television * ''Top Gear'' (1977 TV series), a British motoring magazine programme * ''Top Gear'' (2002 TV series), a relaunched version of the or ...

'',

Jeremy Clarkson Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born 11 April 1960) is an English broadcaster, journalist, game show host and writer who specialises in motoring. He is best known for the motoring programmes '' Top Gear'' and '' The Grand Tour'' alongside R ...

drove the length of the beach in a

Toyota Corolla The is a series of compact cars (formerly subcompact) manufactured and marketed globally by the Toyota Motor Corporation. Introduced in 1966, the Corolla was the best-selling car worldwide by 1974 and has been one of the best-selling cars in ...

as part of a race against an AC45 racing yacht crewed by British Olympic sailor

Sir Ben Ainslie Sir Charles Benedict Ainslie (born 5 February 1977) is a British competitive sailor. Ainslie is the most successful sailor in Olympic history. He won medals at five consecutive Olympics from 1996 onwards, including gold at the four consecutiv ...

and the winning crew of the

2010 America's Cup The 33rd America's Cup between Société Nautique de Genève defending with team Alinghi against Golden Gate Yacht Club, and their racing team BMW Oracle Racing was the subject of extensive court action and litigation, surpassing in acrimony even ...

, with

James May James Daniel May (born 16 January 1963) is an English television presenter and journalist. He is best known as a co-presenter of the motoring programme '' Top Gear'' alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond from 2003 until 2015. He also ...

also on board.

Name

Te-Oneroa-a-Tōhē / Ninety Mile Beach is one of many places in New Zealand to have a dual name, consisting of both its former English name and its

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

name. This dual name was adopted in 2014 as a result of a

Treaty of Waitangi The Treaty of Waitangi ( mi, Te Tiriti o Waitangi) is a document of central importance to the History of New Zealand, history, to the political constitution of the state, and to the national mythos of New Zealand. It has played a major role in ...

settlement Settlement may refer to: * Human settlement, a community where people live *Settlement (structural), the distortion or disruption of parts of a building *Closing (real estate), the final step in executing a real estate transaction *Settlement (fin ...

between the New Zealand government and

Ngāti Kuri Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, an ...

, an iwi based in the area around the beach. The Māori name for the beach translates as "the long beach of Tōhē", referencing an early ancestor of Ngāti Kuri. The English portion of the dual name has unclear origins and is often the source of confusion, given that the beach is only long not ninety. A common story for the name holds that early Europeans took three days to traverse the beach, with their horses typically able to cover thirty miles per day. According to the legend, the Europeans took this to mean that the beach was 90 miles long, failing to account for their slower speed due to the sand. Despite the popularity of this story, it is unclear whether there is any historical basis for this story, however.

References

{{Commons, Ninety Mile Beach, New Zealand, Te-Oneroa-a-Tōhē / Ninety Mile Beach Far North District Beaches of the Northland Region Roads in New Zealand Longest beaches

History

Name

See also

References