Four islands make up the group, though calling them islands is generous. The largest, roughly 300 metres across, adjoins the beach at low tide and is rarely cut off from the mainland. The second sits about 150 metres offshore, flat-topped and green with vegetation. The two remaining stacks are what give the group its name: raw pillars of rock, the taller one rising 66 metres above the surf, pierced by two natural arches that the Tasman Sea has spent millennia carving. Wind and salt spray continue the work. Every winter storm removes a little more stone, widening the openings incrementally. The arches will not last forever - erosion is patient but relentless - which only makes them more worth seeing now.

At low tide, the retreating ocean reveals rock pools at the base of the easternmost island, and in these pools, New Zealand fur seal pups play. The colony uses the Archway Islands as a breeding ground, and from late autumn through winter the beach becomes a nursery. The pups tumble over each other in the shallows, practicing the swimming that will eventually take them far out to sea. Adult seals haul out on the rocks above, watchful but unbothered by the humans who keep a respectful distance. Department of Conservation guidelines ask visitors to stay at least 10 metres away, and the seals' comfort with the arrangement suggests the rule is generally followed.

Wharariki Beach lies just west of Cape Farewell, the northernmost point of the South Island. To reach it, you drive from Collingwood through the tiny settlement of Puponga, where the road turns and becomes Wharariki Road. At the car park, the pavement ends and a walking track crosses farmland before dropping to the beach. West of here, there are no more roads along the coast - only tracks and wild shoreline. The beach itself is broad, wind-scoured, and dramatic, with sand dunes backing the strand and the Tasman Sea hammering the shore with a fetch that stretches unbroken to Australia. On a calm day, the wet sand mirrors the sky so perfectly that the Archway Islands appear to float between two heavens. On a rough day, the surf makes the ground shake.

The paradox of Wharariki Beach is that its image has been seen by more people than almost any other natural landscape in New Zealand, yet it remains genuinely uncrowded. There are no cafes, no entrance fees, no gift shops. The 20-minute walk filters out casual visitors, and the remoteness of Golden Bay - an hour's drive over the winding Takaka Hill from the nearest town of any size - keeps the numbers modest. Landscape photographers return season after season, chasing the light that turns the wet sand into a mirror at sunset. The Archway Islands do not need to be promoted. They have been the most-displayed landscape wallpaper in computing history, and they remain quietly, stubbornly wild.