February 25, 2026
In the morning we decided to take a one-way water taxi to Cathedral Cove and then walk back to Hahei via the trail and road. The water taxi departed from Hahei Beach, so it was just a short walk from our room. We were told to look for the flags on the beach for the water taxi. But when we went out to the beach, the only flags we saw were for the kayaks. We were early, so we waited. And waited... finally I saw at the other end of the beach some people setting up flags, and a boat was being launched. So we scrambled over there (half running, it was about 2 tenths of a mile) only to discover that this was again the wrong company. And then suddenly at the other end of the beach, where we just were a few minutes before, I saw another boat arrive. This was about 10 minutes after the supposed departure time of 9 AM. So we scrambled back and managed to get there in time. There were only 2 other people waiting there to get on the boat.
The water taxi was a short 8-minute ride to Cathedral Cove. It was nice timing since it was about an hour after low tide and we were on the first boat, so all of the crowds of people had not yet arrived.
There were sea caves on the south side of the cove. One was still barely reachable before the tide came in, so I walked over to explore the inside.
I noticed a small waterfall on the south side of the cove. It was flowing a steady stream. Neither of us remember seeing it when we last visited in 2019. I think it probably was not flowing then since 2019 was a very dry year, unlike 2026 which has had plenty of rain.
Next we walked over to the main attraction: the Cathedral Cove arch. It was nice and uncrowded. We walked through the arch to the beach on the other side and observed Te Hoho Rock.
We spent about an hour at the cove and departed at about the time when a steady stream of people started to arrive. The trail from the cove was an uphill climb through a pretty forest. We took the side trail to the Cathedral Cove lookout which had great views of the cove and nearby McHands Bay.
We walked back to the main trail and continued on to the trail head and bus parking area. From there we walked down the road back to the town of Hahei. In 2019 we had been able to follow a trail that went from the bus parking area to Hahei Beach, but it has been closed for a while due to washouts. It was a total of about 1.5 hours of walking from the cove back to Hahei, quite a bit longer than the 8-minute water taxi ride.
Back in town, we stopped at the Hahei Eatery and Ice Cream to have lunch, and ice cream afterwards. Then it was just a short walk back to our room.
For our afternoon adventure we took a 15-minute drive to Cooks Beach and the Shakespeare Cliff Lookout. This was an area we had walked to in 2019 when we stayed in the nearby town of Whitianga and took the passenger ferry. Having the car gave us more time to explore the area.
We drove down to the ferry landing area, and I took a walk up to Whitianga Rock which had nice views of the town of Whitianga and the ferry area.
We drove back to our room and used the grill to fix dinner.
