Visit to Maraeti beach along the stunning Pohutukawa Coast, East Auckland

One of the highlights of moving to Auckland, New Zealand has been the close proximity to the big blue ocean! At the beginning of this year I wrote about all the things we were looking forward to in 2015 when we move here from England and being by the sea was one of the top things on our bucketlist. 5 months onwards, happy to say we are living that dream 🙂

We love the gentle family beaches near where we live – Mission Bay, St Heliers and Kohimaramara, we are in awe of the raw power of the wild beaches, such as Piha beach, west of Auckland, and the beaches up in the Northland region are just paradise. Seriously, you should see what I mean in these previous posts links!

Last week we decided to check out the beaches of east Auckland. We went to Maraeti beach and Omana regional park which are next to each other and only 45 minutes drive from central Auckland. The drive itself  along the Pohutukawa coast was beautiful. We first drove to Omana beach from which you had stunning views of the Hauraki gulf. There were grassy picnic spots but nowhere to grab food so we drove to Maraeti beach which had a pier front and restaurants. “Maraetai” means “meeting place by the sea” and in the summer many families come here to swim in the safe beaches, have a picnic and go for walks. It being late winter now, there were not too many people when we went. We seem to find that in most of the beaches in New Zealand!

We grabbed some food by the pier at Maraeti beach, selection was limited but the few that we saw looked really nice with lovely views of the sea. We ate at Bach’n Cafe, the grilled squid salad was amazing! As were the other dishes we had – burgers and fish and chips.

Views of the beach from the Restaurants opposite the pier

Then we drove back to Omana beach and walked along the beach to Omana esplanade passing through lots of fun trees great for climbing. There was a cute little play area which both kids enjoyed while we relaxed by the shade of the trees. Even though it was really nice and sunny, and the water looked very blue and inviting, we found it too cold still for swimming. We watched few other brave kids in the water, jumping in from the piers at Maraeti beach.

Omana regional park was one of the first farms in this region. It has a camp ground, barbecue sites overlooking the sea, 40 acres of farmland to stroll through, pet animals to feed and a children’s playground. But we didn’t even need to venture out that far. The many trees, rockpools and relaxing by the beach kept our sunday afternoon happily occupied 🙂

I am loving these quiet and relaxing local travels near Auckland the past few weeks, a bit of peace before the storm hits! In two weeks we go skiing, followed by hot water beaches and Whitianga Scallop Festival at Coromondel island, followed by 10 days campervan trip around the South Island…and soon to follow that my solo travels to Italy and UK again. All very exciting but also will be lovely to look back at these leisure weekends of peaceful travels around Auckland once it all starts in 2 weeks time!

<div align="center"><a href="http://selimfamily.com" title="The Selim Family Raasta"><img src="http://www.travelnotesandbeyond.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/wekpost1-e1432530947416.jpg" alt="The Selim Family Raasta" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

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