Bowentown

So You Think You’ve Been To Paradise?

You really haven’t been to paradise until you have been to Bowentown, New Zealand. It has incredible views, some of the most beautiful and longest beaches in New Zealand but most importantly, it has the best camping! Especially if you go with the crew from Tauranga Boys’ College. We set ourselves up in the far corner of the campsite, closest to the beach of course, and in the shade of the trees as there was not a cloud in the sky.

When I first arrived I thought I had already seen everything that there was to see and that Bowentown wasn’t much of the breath-taking paradise that the teachers had described it as. And when they said that we were going to the beach I thought “So what? It’s just a beach, I’ve seen plenty of those in my life.”. But man was I wrong! When we went to the sheltered beach of Anzac Bay there was flat water as far as the eye could see, perfect for kayaking and paddleboarding! Once we had set up a game of beach cricket and groups of kayakers were going out around the cove, we were taken to a little hidden treasure. Just around the corner, there was a stone jetty, just the right height, and depth for bombing and diving.

After that incredible experience, I thought it couldn’t get any better, at least that’s what I thought until we discovered Bowentown beach on the other side of the campsite. The beach is so long that it almost vanishes into the distance even on a clear day. That waves broke at just the right height and distance for supreme surfing and closer to the shore were sets of smaller waves for boogie-boarding. The beach was also nice and flat for games of beach volleyball and beach cricket.

And yet it could still get better! On the third side of the campsite and down a steep hill was a cove called cave bay. But before we could rush down to the daunting caves we were told a story of how a local man went down to these caves and was digging in the sand when he found some important Māori relics and that the Te Papa Museum in Wellington paid him one hundred thousand dollars to look after the relics. After this, we were all pumped to explore these mysterious caves and to try and find something. Although we didn't find anything in the sand we did find that the caves went for dozens of meters into the cliffs. And if you were small enough you could even venture into some of the bigger tunnels!

So you think you have been to paradise? Well, I can tell you you really haven’t been to paradise until you have been to Bowentown.