Victory Beach is located on the Pacific Ocean coast of the Otago Peninsula, in the South Island of New Zealand, 24 kilometres (15 mi) by road from Dunedin city centre. The longest beach on the peninsula, Victory Beach is located northeast of the entrance to Papanui Inlet and stretches for 3.5 kilometres. It is backed by a series of high sand dunes. The beach's name derives from the wreck of the SS Victory on the beach in 1861. The beach and headlands to the north and south form Wickliffe Bay.
Administered partly by the Otago Peninsula Trust, the beach is a habitat for many rare species, notably yellow-eyed penguins. Other notable birds found in the area include spoonbills, and the beach is located close to the Royal Albatross breeding colony at Taiaroa Head. Both Hooker's sealions and New Zealand fur seals are also found in the area.
Access to the beach is via a narrow metalled road which links to Portobello on the Otago Harbour coast and also, via further narrow roads, with the Highcliff Road which runs along the spine of the peninsula. At the end of the road, a 2 kilometre walking track leads to the beach past two large outcrops of columnar basalt known as The Pyramids. The southern, smaller outcrop is called Little Pyramid, or Te Matai O Kia.
The beach was used as a location for the television movie Out of Ashes, starring Elisabeth Lanz.
Read more about Victory Beach: Victory Wreck
Famous quotes containing the words victory and/or beach:
“One point in my public life: I did all I could for the reform of the civil service, for the building up of the South, for a sound currency, etc., etc., but I never forgot my party.... I knew that all good measures would suffer if my Administration was followed by the defeat of my party. Result, a great victory in 1880. Executive and legislature both completely Republican.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Your last words as you led the charge up the beach were, “Okay, men, let’s show ‘em whose beach this is!””
—Paddy Chayefsky (1923–1981)