Visiting Castle Point Beach and Lighthouse on the second day of 2023

Welcome back, every and I hope 2023 is giving you a great start!

Again, wishing you nothing but the best for the new year, and may your days be filled with happiness, joy, great memories, and love.

My family and I were enjoying a short trip to Masterton area, around 2.5 hours drive from Wellington. We visited Castle Point Beach and Lighthouse on the second day of 2023. This place is quite famous and many people come and visit it on various occasions.

Before I spill the complete story, here are some pictures my family and I took along the trip. 

Our first family picture in 2023

It was a beautiful day indeed. As you know, even though it is summer in New Zealand at this moment, we do have wet, rainy, dan cold days. So when that particular weekend has wonderful weather, we headed to the beach. We have explored some other beaches in NZ as well, enjoying the breeze and stopping by at some cafes along the bay.

READ: Enjoying Lunch at Beach House and Kiosk at Taputeranga, New Zealand

This time, we would like to take you to Castlepoint beach and lighthouse.

This is the second lighthouse in the North Island, New Zealand that we have visited. Before that, we stopped by at Cape Palliser, as well as Putangirua, the famous pinnacles that became one of the movie sets of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

READ: Cape Palliser Lighthouse at a glimpse.

This is the second lighthouse on the North Island, New Zealand that we have visited. Before that, we stopped by Cape Palliser, as well as Putangirua, the famous pinnacles that became one of the movie sets of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

READ: Cape Palliser Lighthouse at a glimpse. 

As we did the trip on the second day of the new year, we were actually planning to go camping again. On Christmas break, we went camping at Kaitoke Regional Park (will share the story later, folks) and the kids did enjoy it. Now that we had another 3-day break, we were thinking of going camping in a different place. But apparently, picnic is lovelier and there we went.

We stopped by different cities along the way to get some food for the picnic. We passed Grey town and Masterton when we decided to get some fast food as I didn't cook for this occasion. Since the weather was lovely and it was still new year's eve holiday, the kids' favorite restaurant was packed and we got to line up a bit. 

As we arrived at the beach, we found our spot and joined our friends on the picnic. It's lovely to have some relaxing time on the beach with good food, great friends, and wonderful weather. It didn't take long for the kids to run around and get to the beach to play with the water. We didn't really swim as the water is still freezing, at least for us, but the kids sure loved chasing the waves. We saw some Kiwi kids surfing in this area as well. I spoke to their parents and apparantly this is their favorite spot for surfing, especially when the weather is conducive.

I took the video of the beach as well as the lighthouse and feel free to check it out.

Once the kids were done playing in the water, we moved to a different part of the beach and walked up to the lighthouse.

Different from Cape Palliser lighthouse which has hundreds of stairs and quite a steep hike, here in Castle Point we have the ramp. There are stairs on top of the hill but it's very manageable. This makes the hike easier as well. It took us around 10 minutes to reach the top of the hill and the view is amazing. The lighthouse itself is locked so we cannot climb up to the lighthouse. It's only open for the designated official.

Check out my video to get better information about this place.

Well... That's our little adventure at Castle Point Beach and Lighthouse on the second day of 2023.

Cheers to more lovely trips in this new year. Share your stories with me in the comments and let me know if you have visited some lighthouses as well.