Surf Highway 45 Camping Guide: New Plymouth to Hāwera

The route and how long it takes

State Highway 45 leaves New Plymouth to the south-west, runs past the airport turn-off and follows the coast through Ōākura, Warea, Pungarehu and Ōpunake before turning inland to Hāwera. The mountain is on your left the whole way going south, and on a clear day it fills the windscreen, which is why the drive is best made in the morning when the cloud on the cone is least likely to have built.

Allow a half day for the plain drive, and a full day or a night out if you want to stop for the surf and the lighthouse. The road is mostly sealed with passing opportunities, but trucks and milk tankers share it, so keep to a relaxed pace and use the pull-offs.

Stops along the highway

Ōākura is the first beach town, with a long black-sand beach, a surf club and a holiday park on the shore. Further south the signed road at Pungarehu runs about 5 km to Cape Egmont lighthouse, a short detour with open views and a few road-end spots beyond it. Ōpunake is the true surf town, with a beach, a campground, a lake walk and a lookout at the north end of town.

Between the larger places, side roads run to unmarked beaches such as Stent Road, Kina and Ohawe, popular with surfers. They are often beyond council lines, so read the signs, and remember that driving on the sand is its own subject, which the guide to driving on the beach in New Zealand covers.

Fuel, food and phones

Fill up in New Plymouth or Hāwera, and treat Ōpunake as the only dependable stop in between, with fuel, a supermarket and cafes. The smaller villages offer a dairy at best, so carry lunch and water, and buy groceries in a larger town. The guide to food and fuel on a road trip covers resupply.

Mobile coverage is generally good on the highway but drops on the side roads to the coast, which is the same for most of the cape and the mountain's lower slopes. Download directions before you turn off and tell someone where you are headed.

Where to camp

Holiday parks and motor camps at Ōākura, Ōpunake and in New Plymouth take tents and campervans, with powered sites and cabins, and they fill from Christmas to the end of January. Council freedom camping follows the rules of New Plymouth District and South Taranaki, and the guide to freedom camping in New Plymouth explains the first half, while on the south side you must read the South Taranaki District Council page.

For a night closer to the mountain, Egmont National Park has DOC campsites and huts on the mountain's flanks, and the Forgotten World Highway guide covers the inland loop. KiwiCamping's DOC data (11 August 2026) lists Taranaki huts from $10 to $25 a night, with Holly Hut the largest with 32 beds.

Planning Surf Highway 45 in KiwiCamping

KiwiCamping shows DOC campsites and huts around Taranaki, holiday parks with their facilities and dump stations, and lets you add them to a trip as ordered stops. It shows the distance and drive time between stops and a forecast for each place, which helps when the mountain's weather turns.

Save a New Plymouth night and an Ōpunake night, and read the leg between them. Saved places and guides stay on the phone, while map tiles, routing, weather and photos need signal, which is thin at the end of the coast roads. Free to download, with in-app purchases.

Places along the way