Best Beach Suburbs

New Zealand sells itself as a beach nation, then spends most of the summer in a calm harbour cove with brown sand and a fish and chip shop. Which is exactly what this list rewards. These are swimming beaches, picnic beaches, walk-the-dog-before-work beaches. The wild surf coast that ends up on the tourism posters is mostly somewhere else.

A word about number two. Queenstown has no beach. Queenstown has a lake, an alpine view, and a queue for a burger. Its presence here suggests the algorithm took a South Island holiday and came back slightly confused about the definition of coast. We have left it in. The lakefront does the job, and nobody swims at the actual beaches anyway.

About that. New Zealand water is spectacular to look at and will reorganise your internal organs on entry. Saint Clair in Dunedin, ranked eleventh, is a properly good surf beach attached to a sea that treats June and January as roughly the same proposition. Bring a wetsuit, or bring optimism.

The rest is the predictable Auckland water-view aristocracy. Saint Heliers, Devonport, Takapuna, doing what they always do. Go for a swim. Reassess your priorities afterwards.