Time: 2.5 hours
Distance: 5.3 km
Start: Tinsy layby near 309 Marine Drive, Kai-o-ruru Church Bay
Finish: Same place, it's there and back
Date: Friday 05 December 2025
Warning: The rocky platform can only be accessed at lowish tide.
The Coastal Cliffs Walkway has been extended in recent years and currently (as at December 2025) encompasses:
1. Purau to Diamond Harbour wharf (blog post here)
2. Diamond Harbour wharf to Kai-o-ruru Church Bay (blog post here)
3. Kai-o-ruru Church Bay to Paradise Beach.
The latter (today's plan) includes Black Point, a geologically interesting peninsular with volcanic sedimentary clast-rich deposits as described in Syn-eruptive alluvial and fluvial volcanogenic systems within an eroding Miocene volcanic complex, Lyttleton Valcano, Banks Peninsular, New Zealand. It's a pithy read.
We parked in a tinsy layby at 309 Marine Drive, just past Black Point Road. A short walk up the hill to number 301, there is a shared driveway which soon becomes a track and descends to Kai-o-ruru Church Bay. We turned left before the bay though - on an unmarked track to the jetty which then branches again towards Black Point. With the recent spring growth, the paths are slighlty overgrown, and we were brushed by geraniums. They have a distinctive smell. Also, an intensely blue agapanthus flower, caught by my backpack, thwacked the person behind me fair and square in the face. It didn't hurt - but still!! Sorry!!
A breeze was blowing through the pines. Another unmarked trail to the right, took us down to the coastal edge. The rocks here comprise the Hays Bay Volcanogenic Sequence (HBVS), one of a bunch of eroding volcanic layers. Each layer comes from a significant volcanic event a gazillion years ago. The bottom layer is Allandale Rhyolite (~12.5 Ma), then Church Basalt (~7.5 Ma). Next up - the HBVS is interbedded with Kaioruru Hawaiite lava flows. Finally, Stoddard Basalt lava flows, cap it all off. Black Point is unusual because, millions of years of erosion have rendered all the layers visible.
We stood on the rocky platform and clocked the wackiness of it all. From there we proceeded west with earnest rockhopping. It's fairly easy-going, but there are multiple options of exiting up onto the track above if you want a more stable experience. The flash houses of the new-ish subdivision loomed down upon us. A tame-ish shag stayed put as we passed, and the going got easier once we rounded the peninsular and Hays Bay came into view.
We clustered at Hays Bay picnic bench chit-chatting for awhile. Then it was a pleasant trudge to the beach end where there is a pou and some walkway signage. From here, the narrow path hugs the coast under shady trees, past the boat sheds and continues on to the
Charteris Bay Yacht Club.
We all needed to pee badly. Luckily, the building was open and a kindly women allowed us the useage of the club loos. Beyond the yacht club, the track became a sea of flowering rengarenga lillies. We dropped down to Paradise Beach and a ngaio grove, bedecked with colourul kayaks. Two kereru swooped past us with a whoosh of wings. More boat sheds to sidle past, then up the wooden steps to Marine Drive, just near the junction to Bay View Road, where there is a small car park and a port-a-loo. I think this is currently the official end (or start) of the Coastal Cliffs Walkway. But I reckon it will be extended at some point in the future, so keep your mincers peeled.
The return was mostly the same way. We paused to get some geranium cuttings (controversial) and chatted about other borderline collections - rocks, fossils, fruit, paua shells (for ashtrays). I have a childhood recollection - a Moeraki boulder (small enough to fit in the boot of the Morris Oxford) that sat at our Dunedin home letterbox for years. Horrors!! Back at Hays Beach we bumped into two marine biologists from
Earth Sciences New Zealand (f.k.a. NIWA). They were undertaking a marine security survey looking for invasive species. I want that job. They showed us
styela clava, an invasive sea squirt (a.k.a. club tunicate, Asian sea squirt, leathery sea squirt, or Pacific rough sea squirt), which is taking hold on the coast. I reckon we should be eating them. Sea squirt salad.
We climbed the stairs to the proper path around Black Point peninsular. The cacti were in flower. We disturbed a family of quails, two parents with five chicks. They can walk comically fast with their wobbling head-sprouts (a.k.a. topknot or plume). At the
Ĺtoromiro Hotel, we ate lunch in the garden. We had turns relaying our "lost and found jewellery" stories. Some involved pipes and plumbing, others involved family members. All were entertaining.
