Tongapōrutu

The one guarantee is that it will be spectacular. What you see, though? That’s more of an unknown.

For a start, the Three Sisters, originally Four, are now Two: spiky islets standing free of the crumbling sandstone cliff. And the locally-famous Elephant Rock, which to be brutally frank always looked more like an ant eater, has lost its trunk to become an archway island: but it’s still striking, still well worth seeing.

The Tasman Sea is continuously busy, sculpting and shaping, and no-one can predict what will be next to emerge from the soft rock of these layered cliffs. There are caves, tunnels, arches both single and double, sea stacks and, to the north of the river, Moeraki boulder-type spheres on the beach.

History: “The Tongapōrutu river is seven miles from Puke-aruhe. Here, on the south bank stands Pa-tangata,* the great island pa of Taringa-kuri, and said to have been the scene of the treacherous murder of Rangi-hapainga, a Ngati-Maniapoto chieftainess of high rank; which was afterwards fully avenged at the taking of Tihi-manuka.