What bar? I have been staying at Whannaki North camping ground for years. The only problem with this place is the river depth. I launch a 4.6mt Sea Nymph there and get out to Elizabeth reef and beyond, no worries. Watch the channel markers and stay on the correct side of them coming in and out and you should have no problems. Also watch out for the 'rise/bump' in the river bed not very far past the launching ramp.   

Cheers for the help guys. 

approx route that we took (some one please correct if i'm leading him wrong)
from memory there are markers around where i have the purple dots, couple of subsurface rocks around there
used to putt around without making a wake until past the markers
take your time and have someone up the front looking out for shallow spots/rocks

That track looks about right to me. It is pretty obvious when you are there and, as Herby says, if you are having trouble getting out because of the conditions then I would not go out. I have played round there a lot in small boats as a kid.

From memory there is access to the estuary roughly below the "whananaki" in whananaki north rd label.

Thousands of YEMs last time I was there (xmas 2011) the kids in our group caught a bucket full off the wharf on sabikis.

Hi Guys,

triggerhappy wrote: Just wondering if there has been any changes to launching at Whananaki since this thread was last updated in 2013. Much obliged.

Naki is pretty safe. Seems to only ever sort of change between 2 different channel paths.

Main thing is to avoid the rocks marked in the enterance and there is also two sneaky buggers that get covered / uncovered with sand time to time. Will flick you a PM tonight with the nastys circled on google earth

triggerhappy wrote: JustAnotherSpearo wrote:   Naki is pretty safe. Seems to only ever sort of change between 2 different channel paths. Main thing is to avoid the rocks marked in the enterance and there is also two sneaky buggers that get covered / uncovered with sand time to time. Will flick you a PM tonight with the nastys circled on google earth Awesome thanks for that, the same 2 hours either side of low tide for launching window applies I assume.

I just walk the boat up and down at low tide. You can pull boats out at the old wharf and generally can motor up to there at all tides.

5.2m lazercraft all tides no worries but like I said. I do tie a rope to the bow and physically walk it up when its too low to motor but enough to float the boat.