Taharoa Domain (Kai Iwi Lakes)

Just 1.5 hours from Whangarei, north of Dargeville Kai Iwi lakes offers an alternate easy access dive site on days when you just can’t get into the sea. Lake Taharoa’s Promenade Point offers a toilet facility, parking and easy access to both shallow water (less than 3m) and drop off entries (5m+).

Our heated indoor training pool is located on site and is around 24 degrees C warm. It is 1.4m deep in the shallows with a deep area that is 6m x 6m and 3.5m deep.

Shore dive down a maximum of 10m to explore the old mooring blocks and boulders on the sand, then come back up into the oyster covered boulders and then back across the seagrass to the exit point.

30 Minutes from Dive Now, Whangarei. One of our popular shallow training sites for Open Water courses. A shallow site, but busy with boat traffic.

Limited car parking as this is by the start of a popular walking site that has toilets and a drinking fountain. Stairs down to the beach and then a long walk through shallow water with a slippery bottom until you find deeper water. Alternately divers travel here by boat and dive a little further from shore.

A 30 Minute drive from Dive Now if you are doing a shore dive down Kauri Mountain Road. For boats, launch from Whangarei Harbour, Pautua or Tutukaka.

5 minutes from the main road that leads to Tutukaka you can find the bays. 4m to 8m can easily be found from the northern end. 10m can be found if heading around the rocks. Kayak diving is a great tool here.

30 minutes from Dive Now, Whangarei is this fantastic shore dive. Average depth of 5m with a max of 12m at the mouth of the bay. Fingers of encrusted reef run along the edge of the bay, with pockets of rocky reef scattered throughout the bay.

Accessible when there is little to no swell. Enter this narrow channel situated down a short hill from the road and navigate past the shallow rocks before entering the 7m deep Gut and enjouy the colourful wall on the right. Keep swimming and you will emerge onto a 5m sandy area that is scattered with rock reef.

The Avenues is a series of channels and guts that make up a shallow reef network. The deepest this reef gets is 20m, making it a great site for Open Water to Advanced divers.