The Arch

Cathedral Cove sits at the northern end of New Zealand's Coromandel Peninsula, reached by a 45-minute walk down from Hahei or by boat in summer. The arch is what most people come for — a hollowed-out passage between two beaches, cut into volcanic ignimbrite by the Pacific over millions of years. Te Hoho Rock, the sea stack out front, is what completes the frame. Ben got there at first light, when the cove still belongs to whoever woke earliest and the amber catches on the stone.