Bay of Plenty

Bay of Plenty accommodation lines one of the North Island’s sunniest coastlines, with baches and beach houses from Tauranga east to Pukehina. This is kiwifruit country, and the sand runs in a near-continuous line for most of the way east.

Pāpāmoa works for families, with dunes, flat sand and space to spread out. Pukehina sits on a thin spit with the estuary behind it and surf out front, godwits picking over the mudflats at low tide.

Just over the inland boundary, Rotorua’s geothermal country sits under an hour from the coast, while Tauranga holds a working port, good eating and the climb up Mauao at the harbour entrance.