Beach at Tauranga

[Carey]

Is there a sandy beach good for a walk along at Tauranga itself, rather than The Mount? Looking at the map it shows sand; is that right?

[catt]

If your looking along The Strand.......no beach sorry the water never goes away there so water water all the way. There is Matua, Fergusson Park which does beach when the tides out and is quite nice to walk along and on to Beach Road.

[Carey]

Thanks, am interested because driving to the Mount always seems to take a while to do that last bit and I wondered if we were missing something by going all the way there. Maybe not! I just love being on the beach in this lovely weather and am wishing there was somewhere nearer/shorter to drive to!

[janrzm]

Gotta be worth that extra 10 mins to get to the Mount I reckon! Do you go straight down the toll road? I find that's quicker. You don't even have to go right down to the actual Mount , try parking at Omanu and walking right down to Tay street , nice cafe there!

[PonyGirl]

You could try Papamoa Beach, which is fantastic!! But it is outside Tauranga and may be just a tad farther than the Mount. However, it won't be as crowded and parking is a bit easier. Don't think there are any true beaches in Tauranga itself as it is surrounded by estuaries. But there's tons of beach accesses along the road from the Mount all the way down to Papamoa, so I'm sure you'll find that perfect spot! Enjoy!

[Kanga]

How far along Papamoa Beach road would you have to go to lose the houses PonyGirl? We have rellies we visit often at Papamoa Beach but I'm always a bit lukewarm about the beach there because there are tightly packed houses overlooking the beach, which is only a thin strip of sand but we've never gone that far east.

[Duncan74]

Houses go all the way to the end, but in the middle bit then the houses aren't on the beach side of the road, and there's a high dune that blocks the view of the hosues on the other side of the road to the beach too. Google maps will show you what I mean.

[PonyGirl]

Duncan pretty much summed it up...there are houses along most of the road. But there are a few spots where it is just the dunes, which are usually reserves. If you go down to Papamoa East and go to the beach across from Parton Rd, there's no houses on the beach there. The Papamoa Beach reserve is the open sand dune area of the beach.