At the southern entrance to Middle Arch on the left is Bernie's Cave, a small cave with a sandy bottom at 13 metres and an air bubble at the top, about 7 metres. The cave has a ledge at the back where a statue of a frog and one of a teddy bear have been placed.

Middle Arch itself is a large, fairly well lit large archway that ranges from 10-16 metres deep drops off on either side through ecklonia forest with the reef dropping down to 40 metres. A swim through starts inside the archway at 16 metres and comes out at about 22 metres just outside the northern entrance.

Aquatic Life:

Fish species at this site include demoiselles, blue maomao, leatherjackets, red moki, porae, koheru, red pigfish, bigeyes, sandaggers wrasse, scorpionfish, trevally, yellow moray eels and short-tailed stingray. Lord Howe coralfish are tropical visitors in the warmer months.

Inverts include anemones, nudibranchs, zooanthids, firebrick starfish, sponges.

In Bernie's Cave you can see gorgonian fans, anenomes, big-eyes, porae and scorpionfish.

Directions:

Boat charters leave for the Poor Knights from Tutukaka. From Auckland head north on State Highway 1 to Whangarei (approx 2 and a half hours). From Whangarei head out of town following Ngunguru Road, keep driving through Ngunguru for another five minutes and you hit Tutukaka (about half an hour from Whangarei). There's a good campground (Tutukaka Holiday Park) here with a lockable drying cage for your gear.

Middle Arch is situated on the west side of Tawhiti Rahi Island, the main island in the Poor Knights group about half way down the island where there is a small peninsula.