Peaks and Places | Travel and Adventure Blog

Getting to see Cathedral Cove while we are in New Zealand is something that has been on our minds since before we even arrived. Cathedral Cove has been featured in multiple different movies, most notably Narnia (Prince Caspian). Much to our surprise, this famous beach turned out to be a lot more challenging to get to than we expected. Typically, there are two different trails that goes from Hahei Beach allll the way past Gemstone Bay and Stingray Bay, over to Cathedral Cove. Unfortunately, in 2023 there were several massive slips (land slides) along both trails, so there is currently no walking access (although, there were some people definitely not abiding by the “trail closed” signs).

Our first attempt to see Cathedral Cove was just a couple weeks after we arrived in New Zealand, back in April. Due to the trail closures, we booked and paid for a boat tour that would take us all around the area. The day of the tour, when we woke up and started to get ready, I received an email letting us know that due to low attendance for the tour, the boat would not be going out and we would receive a refund in 5-10 days. We both found this to be pretty disappointing, and having worked in the tourism industry, I believe it is good service to go out regardless of booking numbers. On the bright side, the weather was pretty bleak, so we decided it was for the best and we would have to come back and try again another time.

Fast forward several months to August, when my sister and her fiancé came to visit. I had reserved two 2-person sea kayaks for us to all go out together. Unfortunately, once again, the weather was not on our side, and it was extremely windy and gloomy the day of our rentals. I called the rental company, and he said he wouldn’t go out with the weather like it was, so I reluctantly cancelled our reservations for the day. Our second attempt at Cathedral Cove? Failed.

In October, Eric and I went back in the Coromandel for our third and final time, and I was obsessively checking the weather, and determined to get us to Cathedral Cove. We had decided to stay in the area as long as we needed to make it happen. I reserved the kayak for the nicest day of the week, and we planned the rest of our time on the peninsula around this one day. When the day of our tour arrived, all the planning had paid off, the weather couldn’t have been more perfect for the end of winter/start of spring. It was a little chilly, but the sun was shining and the water was very calm. It looked like we were finally going to get to see Cathedral Cove.

We decided to go with Hahei Kayak Rentals, and got our 2-person sea kayak for $150 for 3 hours. After getting our Kayak and a couple of recommendations from the rental shop, we headed down to the beach to launch. We decided to go all the way to Cathedral Cove first thing, and work our way back through some other areas. It was mid tide at the time, which is when it is recommended to see Cathedral Cove, so we wanted to make sure we did everything as perfect as possible. It was a pretty easy paddle all the way over there, and took us around 20 minutes (even though it seemed like Eric was filming more than paddling). This even included a little detour into a cave, which was large enough to paddle in and land the kayak at our own private beach. The cave roof was about 10 feet high and was probably 30 feet wide and at least 50 feet long. We hung out in the cave for a few minutes and we were absolutely shocked that, as far as we could tell, we were the only people to explore this area.

Cathedral Cove, true to its reputation, was incredible. We pulled the kayak up onto the sand and spent some time exploring the cove and the beaches around. We had timed the tide perfectly, and were able to walk through the cove to the other side – at high tide, it can be tough to walk through the cove without getting wet. There were a couple cool sandstone formations jutting out of the ocean that you can see perfectly from within the cove. We spent some time looking at those and taking lots of pictures. Cathedral Cove, being very popular, has a tendency to be crowded. We were very happy that when we went it wasn’t crowded at all, and at times it felt like we had the place all to ourselves. Cathedral Cove was truly beautiful, as with so many other places in New Zealand, it exceeded our expectations and pictures just don’t do it justice. I could have stayed here for hours, but Eric gets antsy and we had 2 hours left in our rental, so we finished up and headed back to the kayak to check out some other things.

Next we headed into the next little cove over, Stingray Bay. True to its name, Stingray Bay is said to be home to lots of rays, specifically Eagle Rays (mostly in the summer). We paddled around in the bay for awhile, looking for caves and stingrays or other aquatic life. Since the water was SOO clear, we did spot a couple fish, but even with the clear water they were still mostly just moving blobs of color and stripes. By this time, we were really bummed we hadn’t scrounged up some snorkeling gear to bring. We decided to do the next best thing, send GoPro down. Since we could only make out the couple blobs of fish, we reluctantly left the bay without seeing any rays.*

*Turns out, when we were going through our GoPro footage, we actually did find a ray! We had no idea we passed right over one until watching the footage weeks later. This was a super exciting discovery for us.

We continued on to Gemstone Bay, the next cove in line back toward Hahei Beach. I have no idea how Gemstone Bay got its name, but it is said to be a great snorkeling spot and a popular area for Crayfish (essentially, New Zealand rock lobster). The bottom of this cove had a lot more rocks and coral, whereas both Cathedral Cove and Stingray Bay were sandy. This made it a lot more difficult to actually see any fish on the bottom. We dragged GoPro along under the water for a little bit and it managed to spot a couple of fish, but nothing too exciting. On our way out, we saw another sea kayak and next to them it looked like there was a frenzy of fish. We quickly paddled over to get a closer look, as we approached, we saw that they were actually feeding the fish. The fish turned out to be Snapper, they looked huge and there were around 30 of them going crazy for the food. We sent GoPro under the water to take another look, and again were disappointed in our lack of snorkeling gear (next time, we’ll make sure to be more prepared with gear and fish food). As we paddled away, a couple Snapper followed us for a while, hoping we would toss some food their way.

After looking at the three coves along the shore, we wanted to check out one last spot that the rental shop had pointed out to us. It was a pretty long paddle away, to one of the large islands that you are able to see from Hahei Beach, to a cave called Whale Cave. It took us forever to get to the island, we were in the middle of the ocean paddling for what seemed like eternity, and we still ended up on the opposite side of where the cave allegedly was. Determined to get to the cave before our rental was up, we started to circumnavigate the island, and as we rounded the tip of the island, the waves picked up right away. It got turbulent and big pretty quickly, and the cave was nowhere in sight, we eventually made the tough decision to turn back around and head back to the calmer side of the island. While we were disappointed in not being able to see the cave, I’m glad we headed back to the other side, because we ended up getting to see a ton of sea urchins and a fur seal. After the fact, both Eric and I agreed that even if we had found the cave, we probably would not have been able to land the kayak with the waves being as rough as they were.

By this time, we had been out on the water for over two hours, and were getting tired and pretty hungry. The little island was actually pretty far from Hahei, so we started the long paddle back. Luckily, the current was in our favor and helped pull us back into shore pretty quickly. All in all, it was an incredible experience, and we both were pretty happy we did it through a self-guided kayak tour rather than a guided tour. Having our own kayak really allowed us the flexibility to go and see what we wanted. It may have taken us multiple tries to make it to Cathedral Cove, but it was worth every failed attempt, and was one of my favorite things that we have done while here in New Zealand.