Warrington Beach

This short walk follows 0.6 km, near Warrington in Otago.

Open ocean sand twenty minutes north of Dunedin, and one of the few beaches on this coast where a dog can properly run. Dunedin City Council grants it in writing rather than by custom: Schedule C of the Dog Control Policy 2024 names Warrington Beach and Warrington Recreation Reserve along to the Spit as an off leash place. Start at the Warrington Domain at the end of the Esplanade, where there is a car park, toilets and the campground, and take the sand track east through the dunes to the beach. Now the part that matters most, and it is a boundary rather than a caution. Warrington Spit and Rabbit Island, the low sandy tail running south into Blueskin Bay, are a total dog prohibition under Schedule A of the same policy, from the first break water point from the north, listed for protection of reserve and wildlife. No dogs at all, at any time of year, on any part of the Spit or the island. That is the inlet side of this place, and it is the side people most often assume is fine because it looks like more of the same beach. It is not. The council describes where that closure begins two different ways, the first break water point from the north in the schedule and the dunes at the south end of the point on its dog walking page, and those are not obviously the same line on the ground. We will not draw a boundary we cannot stand behind, so we have mapped this walk the other way. The line here runs north from the domain access along the sand to where the beach pinches out at the rocks below the village, about 570 metres, so a bit over a kilometre there and back. It stays close to half a kilometre clear of the Spit interpretation board and it never points that way. There is no walking track mapped along the sand, so the beach line is simply drawn down the middle of the beach a little seaward of the dune edge: read it as the shape of the sand, not a route, because the walkable ground moves with the tide. The beach does carry on south for about two kilometres and the off leash grant carries on with it, up to wherever the Spit begins. If you walk that way, go by the signs on the ground and turn back well before the Spit, not at it. The lead is not off from the car park. Dunedin changed this on 5 May 2025: dogs must be leashed in all coastal dune areas including the access paths, to protect wildlife. So the lead is on out through the dunes, comes off on the open sand, and goes back on for the dunes on the way home. Roads, footpaths and tracks are on leash by default here too, which covers the Esplanade and the domain. Then there is what lives here. DOC names Warrington by name for both New Zealand fur seals, kekeno, and New Zealand sea lions, pakake. Inge, who sent this one in, flagged the seals, and DOC backs her up and adds the sea lions. They like sandy beaches and dune environments and they turn up anywhere along this coast, so do not treat any stretch of it as the clear bit. A resting seal looks a lot like a log or a piece of driftwood from a distance, and your dog will smell one long before you see it. If you spot wildlife ahead, put the lead on and pass at least 20 metres away. That 20 metres is not advice: Schedule B puts a Dunedin dog on leash within 20 metres of protected wildlife, and DOC asks the same, 10 metres on your own and 20 with a dog, always on lead. A dog owner whose dog attacks a seal could face prosecution. Walk the wet sand. It is DOC advice for exactly this coast, and it keeps you clear of both the shorebird nests up in the dry sand, dunes and driftwood and a sea lion asleep against the toe of a dune. One last thing to hold loosely. The council can put a temporary prohibition in place whenever it judges there is a risk of harm, and it works with DOC to do that when animals are nesting. DOC puts its own signs up when there is a native animal about. While those signs are there, they beat this page, so read them at the gate and do what they say.

Expect easy, near-level going, and takes about 6 min to walk.

Dogs are welcome here. This walk is on the map because Inge & Pip suggested it, and we checked it against the source above.