When my friend Allison decided to join me for a week in New Zealand, part of the selling point was Cathedral Cove. She even made it the desktop photo on her computer at work to fully anticipate this beach excursion.

We wake up early to beat the crowds and make the most of our time here. It’s around 8:30am when we arrive in the parking lot, where we are greeted with these picturesque views:

Allison’s desktop dreams are about to become reality!

We enjoy the 30 minute walk to the beach.

We arrive at the entrance to Cathedral Cove and are thrilled to find the place completely empty.

There’s an incredible cave connecting these two (deserted!) beaches.

We jump for joy over the scenery and our luck in finding the beach empty.

Check out my signature jazz hands pose below.

The tide is low enough that we can just squeeze past the edge of the cave to access the next beach. We’re not sure if the tide is coming in or going out, but we’ll deal with that later.

A glorious, empty stretch of sand.

Maybe an hour later a father and his two young girls make a run for it and cross from the cave to the beach. This is our first clue that the tide is coming in and won’t go back down for many more hours.

There’s “graffiti” carved into the rocky hillside.

Awhile later a kayak tour pulls up to the beach. We reluctantly share our stretch of shore.

Time for a swim!

The waves are serious so it’s tough to get a photo of us together in the water; I think this is attempt number five:

Here’s some video footage I capture during our swim:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADdnaZxwHdI

Allison is in her happy place!

After about four hours we’re ready to leave the beach. But first we have to cross back through the cave again, and now the water is much higher. After watching a few others successfully do it, we hold our belongings high over our heads, wait for a break in the waves, and make a run for it. We are fairly soaked as we reach the other side, but our personal items (like my camera!) are thankfully dry.

While the beach isn’t packed, it’s still a far cry from its deserted state this morning.

We are famished and stop in a nearby pizza and ice cream shop. If you can’t tell from my wide-eyed grin, it completely hits the spot.

Allison proclaims Cathedral Cove as the most beautiful beach she’s ever seen. It ranks up there on my list but the Cook Islands have set the bar pretty high for the top spot. What’s your number one beach?