Northern Island of New Zealand
The Northern Island is smaller than the Southern Island so you might take that into account when trying to figure out how many days you need for both islands. We landed in Auckland and didn’t go up north as it was quite some distance to see more beaches and a landscape similar to Comodorel. Even if you have 30 days, you can’t visit everything and have to make choices. But as shared before, since a couple of years we live by the statement “save something for next time”.
Auckland
After a long journey we arrived in Auckland and enjoyed the summer weather with a stroll through the city. Worth your time is the area near the ferry terminal where you can find great ice cream but also plenty of bars and restaurants. A particular special thing for Christmas is the Franklin Road Xmas Lights show. All houses in the street have an extreme number of Christmas lights and decoration which attracts hundres of people. It’s quite busy and kitschy but still a nice walk.
This city isn’t that big and if you are short of time, I do think you can skip it and start your road trip directly from the airport. Especially when you have a motorhome, you could skip it. As we did have the time and wanted to visit a branch of Marie-Claire her work, we spend 2 nights in Auckland. This way we could also acclimatize before starting our real road trip.
Coromandel Forest Park (Kauaerange Kauri Trail)
It is really beautiful to drive so close to the water on a winding road. You are not going fast but the view is often unrealistically beautiful and gives you a good insight into how beautiful New Zealand is. We went to the Coromandel Forest Park to do the Kauaerange Kauri Trail which is a 3 hour out-and-back trail to the Pinnacles Hut. Mainly the last part is very steep and you’ll need to overcome some tricky parts but there are handrails and steps for assistance, so doable for most people in our opinion. When driving back to the main road, you pass the Hofman pools a natural swimming hole and a perfect end of the afternoon. A refreshing dip in the river after a long and intensive hike is so rewarding!
Strava track 15,45 km
Beaches
During our trip on the Northern Island we have seen quite some nice beaches ranges from golden sand beaches to beaches with black sand. The current on the beaches was quite heavy, so not suited for swimming when we were visiting. Nevertheless, it was great to look around, play with the waves, and stroll overlooking the Tasman Sea and the South Pacific Ocean.
Cathedral Cove & Karangahaka Gorge
Cathedral Cove, not to be mixed with Cathedral Cave which is on the Southern Island, is known from the film Chronicles of Narnia and attracts a huge bunch of tourists. It’s a beach where you can enter the water more safely compared to other beaches and plenty of people come here to enjoy the sun during good weather. You can’t park close by and can either walk from the parking lot (which we did) or take a shuttle bus. We think that hiking is the easier option as anyway, the shuttle drops you like 20 minutes walking from the beach. When we came back, we saw a huge queue of people waiting for the small shuttle. We were way faster by just walking back to our motorhome compared to standing in the queue. This out-and-back hike is about 8,5 km. (Strava track)
Karangahaka Gorge is an old mine area where you normally can hike a loop. During our visit in December 2024 the loop was closed due to landslides. It’s a nice short 2,2 km hike where you can go through the old tunnels so make sure you have a flashlight or use the flash of your phone.
Owharoa Falls is not that far away, but due to some road works, we did lose some time. The waterfall is a nice one, and also a perfect swimming hole, but if you are short of time, and this is a detour, you could skip it.
Whakarewarewa Thermal Reserve & Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland
Although similar both have their specific things to see, but if you have to select one, I would go for Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland as there are really some special things to see. The Colour splashed area is different every day and the colour of devil’s bath, with a ph value of 2, is really insane and then the name Devil’s bath truly makes sense. On the other hand, in Whakarewarewa you have boiling mud pools and a geysir. But if you had the chance to see this already in Icleand or somewhere else, you could skip. The Whakarewarewa Thermal Reserve also felt more touristic and exploited compared to the Waiotapu Thermal which only has the visitor center and then you explore the park. Make sure to arrive on time, as it closes quite early. There are 3 loops and they wouldn’t let you start the last loop if you are too late. It was on the limit, but we were luckily able to do all 3 of them and the walk to the back to overlook Lake Ngakoro is worth it.
Three Sisters & The Elephant Rock
When you want to visit the three sisters and the elephant rock you will have to take the tides into account as you can only visit them on low tides. The hike from the parking lot to the beach is quite a journey as it’s muddy and you’ll have to chose between bare feet (slippery!) or shoes (dirty!). We picked the shoes and managed to get through in an acceptable manner. On the beach you will first spot the Elephant Rock through which you can walk! Check out the movie at the bottom of this page to see that. Once through you’ll notice the three sisters. When we got close, the sea already started to come back, so we couldn’t go further than the three sisters, but we do think think that is possible on full low tide. But anyway, please be careful.
The Forgotten World Highway 43
When you decide to go to New Plymouth, you could take the Forgotten World Highway, which as it states will literaly bring you to a forgotten world. It’s about 150 km and you only see maybe 2 or 3 very small villages. For the rest the views are insane beautiful, winding roads, lots of sheep (as usual) and for us it was a good option as the weather wasn’t great. A second reason why I wanted to do so was because I wanted to ride through the Moki Tunnel which is a single lane hand carved tunnel. It was doable with our motorhome, and luckily it’s a straight tunnel, but take into account I only had like 10 centimers at each side of the mirrors. There are no traffic lights, so if you can see through the tunnel, go for it, and get to the other side. Check the picture at the end, where the tunnel was already slighty wider. Also check the videos section at the bottom as there we have a video of riding through that tunnel!
Various
Mount Taranaki
On the cover of the Lonely Planet (2023 edition) you can see Mount Taranaki in the area of New Plymouth. You have to be lucky to see the summit and if you really want to, you should plan to stay a couple of days in the area. With the route we had in mind we couldn’t spend longer than 1 day and decided to take our chance. There was a slight chance that the clouds would disappear by the time we came to the view point where you can see the reflection in the lakes. No luch for us this time. When we reached the lakes, we couldn’t even tell where the summit was. Then some clouds moved and we saw the lower part of the mountain, but then clouds were back. We decided to go back the endless set of stairs which got us up there. Really, they keep coming and coming. Going up those stairs is one thing, but going back down is also hard as none is equal and you need to stay concentraded. Let us know in the comments if you were lucky enough to see the summit! Stairs, stairs & stairs (12,7 km and 800 elevation meters)
Tongariro National Park
We planned to do the Tongariro crossing which is an extended day hike but the weather was bad and even our shuttle got cancelled. We later met someone that still did the hike on that day and told us it was cold, windy and that he didn’t see much. When you travel you have to stay flexible and we did a smaller hike to the Taranaki Falls but when we went higher up the fog prevented us to see much so we called it a day quite soon and moved out to a lower area where the weather was good again. Still we hiked about 7,8 km but we were happy to feel the sun again on our skin and we were rewarded with the insane beautiful Aramoana viewpoint. As often, the picture doesn’t do justice to reality. It was so beautiful!
Rotokare Scenic Reserve
In the visitor center of Mount Taranaki we learnt about the Rotokare Scenic Reserve which is a double gated area where they want to restore authentic New Zealand wildlife. The want to keep out rats, weasels and others because they attack the kiwis breading there. Also dogs are strickly forbidden in the area, not even in your car. We did however misunderstood their explanation as we thought we would see them in the reserve like you would see in a zoo, but they live in freedom in the area, and as it are night creatures, we didn’t see any kiwis.
Putangirua Pinnacles
In the area of Lake Ferry you have the Putangirua Pinnacles which you could maybe compare with Bryce canyon. There is an option to do a loop, which we did, but we weren’t 100% sure if that track was officially open. So make sure to check it out for yourself if you could do it or not.
Wellington
We didn’t get a click with Wellington. There is that small shopping street, but it didn’t feel that cosy to us. We were lucky we had a flexibel ferry ticket and could move out a day earlier as staying a day longer in Wellington would have felt like a lost day to us, which is obviously very subjective. We did enjoy the steep hike up Mount Victoria and strolled around the beach area, but we started our BBQ quite early and enjoyed the sun near our motorhome. There isn’t that much more to say about Wellington according to us. Our 11,5 km hike on Strava.
Wine tasting in Martinborough
In our opinion one can’t go to New Zealand without doing a wine tour. We selected Martinborough where you have plenty of vineyard in the centre of the town and you can rent bikes in order to visit them. Some have open doors, but others request a reservation for a tasting. As we were there close to Christmas period, some of them were closed for holidays. So make sure to plan your trip well up front. We booked a tasting at Ata Rangi which is one of the bigger vineyards and has a new taste room with great views on the vineyard. When you decide to buy something after the tasting, they will wave your entrance fee. We booked our bikes with Green Jersey Explorer tours and they offer bottle pick up which means they collect your bottles at the end of the day and bring them to your hotel or the bike drop off location. For lunch we went to Moy Hall which have a very cosy terrace with live performance. We took the tasting wine option with our delicious lunch and were lucky enough to sit almost in the vineyard. This moment was one of the best of our trip.
In the afternoon we decided to go to Blue Earth Estate which is about 10 km outside the city center. If you stick to vineyards in the center you probably don’t even need a bike, so we decided to pick the one a little further, so we could actually use our bikes. We did however underestimate it a bit, as it was hilly, we had city bikes and despite the nice weather there was quite some wind. We learned from the friendly property owners we were the first visitors that came and left by bike. Like this we ended up with quite some kilometers, but we enjoyed our time. 34 km wine tour ride
