Hukatere is the rough mid-point of Ninety Mile Beach, roughly half an hour up the sand from Waipapakauri. There is essentially nothing here — a single signposted lodge, a few horse pens, and a track back through the dunes to State Highway 1 — and that absence is the appeal. It is the spot where the scale of the beach hits you: stop the car, get out, and the dune line, the surf, and the empty horizon line all run away from you in both directions.
The lodge offers basic backpacker rooms for travellers wanting to break up the drive, plus horse rides on the sand, but most visitors just use the access track as a midway escape route back to the highway if the tide turns. Treat Hukatere as a checkpoint rather than a destination.