Ohawe Beach is a most fascinating beach, south of Taranaki Mount, on New Zealand’s North Island. 

Here is a map of Ohawe Beach:

It’s a dramatic beach:

Not many people would think the beach beautiful, if you’re used to clean fine white-yellow beach sand, scattered with lovely pearly washed up seashells. 

Why? Well, because the sand is grey- black!  

The sand and cliff faces are like that, due to volcanic eruptions many years ago. The black beach sand is found only on the West side of New Zealand, because the volcanic mountains are mainly on that side of New Zealand. 

But I thought it was beautiful!

If you’re actually there, standing on the sand, the sand shimmers, like trillions and trillions of tiny diamonds! Disbelievingly, photos don’t do any justice to the dramatic sparkling effect. 

The glistening specks are caused by minuscule flecks of silica quarts, which at some time or other were spurted up by the volcanic eruptions. Even, the rocks on the seashore look like they were sprayed all over the beach too by eruptions. 

And lying washed-up high on the beach, are huge dry twisted trucks and branches. Like they were meant to decorate the beach and supply natural picnic `benches’! They make fantastic photogenic props, especially if they are symbolically stacked up by the Maori! 

The cliffs tower majestically high up above the beach, so dramatic in all their glory…  

But sadly, the cliff-faces are dangerous! 

You never know when they will come sliding down. Whole families, enjoying their day out at the beach, have been known to be entirely covered and killed by the falling cliff-faces! So we were told, not to walk or take shelter close to the cliff-faces. 

The reason the cliffs slide like that is because it isn’t made of sheer solid rock. Matter of fact, most sand on North Island is very fine and loose. New Zealanders call landslides, `slips’. 

Venturing along the beach:

We took quite a time to stroll and scramble along the beach, weaving in and out between the odd shaped round rocks and pebbles. Along the way we came across a road and boat slide nestled in the dip of the cliff-face. It seems this is a popular area in summer time. 

Swimming activities:

When you park your car at the end of Rangatapu Street, you can look down on Waingongoro River and its mouth. In the summer people really enjoy swimming in this part river. In one of the photos you can see how some people climb the cliff side and from there dive or jump into the river for fun. 

The river was is quite warm lovely place to swim. But astonished to see Maori swimming in the surf, when the seawater is so cold! Apparently they were taking a chance. Because the sea on that side and part of New Zealand, has strong currents and quite a few people have already been drowned there. 

Fishing:

If you look careful, in one of the photos you can see a small thin fishing rod propped up in the grey sand at the mouth of the river. A little girl had been running around there, so I supposed it must have been her rod. 

And in another photo you can see a khaki coloured hat ‘floating’ above some logs. The hat isn’t floating. It’s actually a person sitting on the other side of the logs, fishing at the mouth of the Waingongoro River! 

Here is an oil painting of Ohawe Beach I painted: 

Notice the green moss on some of the rocks. When walking along the beach, you begin to notice each rock has its own individual composite and beauty.