Koekohe Beach to Hampden Beach
Moeraki · Otago · Point to Point
This walk was suggested by the community and checked against the authority quoted above before it was published. The route line comes from official track data. Waitaki District Council’s own wording: “All public access areas of the Waitaki District should be treated as on-lead only areas, except those areas identified as off-lead exercise areas in schedule 2 and prohibited areas in schedule 3. (Waitaki District Council, Dog Control Bylaw 2024, Schedule 1 clause 1.) Neither Koekohe Beach nor Hampden Beach is named in any schedule, and a point check against the council’s own bylaw polygons returns nothing at either end of this walk or at the boulders, so the on lead default is the rule for the whole length. Schedule 3 also bans dogs within 10 metres of any identified protected wildlife colony throughout the district, which is the one to watch on this coast, and it bans them outright in the Moeraki coastal area between Okahau Point and Katiki Point, about 4 km south of the boulders on the seaward side of the peninsula”. Evidence: the rule-setter’s own published wording. How we check dog rules.
Good to know
Dogs are allowed here. Keep them on the lead, watch for ground-nesting birds and stock, and read the signs at the gate.
About Koekohe Beach to Hampden Beach
Near Moeraki in Otago, Koekohe Beach to Hampden Beach runs 2.8 km as a point-to-point.
Inge sent this one in and she is right that it is a beautiful walk. It is 2.8 km of open grey sand from the Moeraki Boulders public carpark north to Hampden, with the boulders in the first few hundred metres and then nothing but beach, cliff and sea for the rest of it. Allow about 45 minutes each way at a walking pace, or make it a two car trip, because as she says there is parking at both ends: the public carpark at the Moeraki Boulders end, and the street end at Carlisle and Chelmsford by Hampden Beach. The start is the best bit and the reason most people come. Walking up from the public carpark means you meet the boulders from the sand rather than from above, and they are more impressive that way. Go at low tide. At high tide the sea reaches the cliff in places along this stretch and the walk gets awkward or wet, and the boulders themselves are mostly under water. Check a tide table before you commit to the full length, and give yourself room at both ends of the window. Once past the boulders it empties out fast. The cliffs on your left are the same soft mudstone the concretions weather out of, and there is usually driftwood, kelp and the occasional sea lion hauled up on the sand. Give any sea lion a very wide berth with a dog, at least 20 metres, and go around behind it rather than between it and the water. Hampden Beach at the north end has the motor camp and the village just behind the dunes, so it is an easy place to finish. Dogs are on lead the whole way. Waitaki District Council treats every public place in the district as on lead unless it has specifically named it as an off lead area, and it has named nothing at Moeraki or Hampden, so that default is the rule here. We checked it against the council's own bylaw map as well as the wording, at both ends and at the boulders, and nothing came back. The serious closures on this coast are south of here, on the seaward side of the Moeraki peninsula between Okahau Point and Katiki Point, where dogs are banned outright because it is the biggest hoiho breeding site in North Otago and the main fur seal breeding area. That is a different beach and a separate drive. The rule that can catch you out on this walk is the district wide one: no dogs within 10 metres of any identified protected wildlife colony, so if something is roped or signed on the sand, walk well around it.
Expect easy going, with around 18 m of climb, and takes about 34 min to walk.
Dogs are allowed here, on the lead. This walk is on the map because Inge & Pip suggested it, and we checked it against the source above.
