Touring New Zealand - North Island

Continuing our New Zealand touring adventure.......North Island. When it came for us to leave Wellington, we took a different route to the one we had originally planned as we were unable to travel via Napier due to this area being severely affected by Cyclone Gabrielle which had hit North Island a few weeks before we arrived. Our first stop on our own took us via Foxton Beach to Ohakune, a popular stopping off point for people walking the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. After a comfortable overnight stay, we drove the 30 minutes into Tongariro National Park where we enjoyed a lovely 2hr walk to Taramaki Falls before our onward journey to Rotorua for a 2 night stay. As by now we had been away for a good couple of weeks and only half way through our trip, we’d booked an apartment in central Rotorua which came fully equipped with a washing machine and tumble dryer….oh, it was so good to get some laundry done over those couple of days! We filled our full day in Rotorua, heading out early to Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland where we watched the Lady Knox Geyser spurt hot water up to 10/20metres – a daily event at 10:15am. Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland is very interesting with quite a unique and varied landscape…..as well as a strong smell of Sulphur, which I must admit I struggled with at times! We also visited Mud Springs, hot mud bubbling, it was incredible to watch. A lovely leisurely walk through the Redwood Trees at Whakarewarewa Forest was a perfect end to our day. We checked out bright and early the following day excited for our onward journey to Hahei in the Coromandel Peninsular, with a planned detour to the fabulous Hobbiton Movie Set! I will be honest that we’ve watched one or two of the Lord of the Rings movies, but not all and therefore not super-fans, however we still enjoyed every minute of the 1.5hrs experience. It was incredibly well organised, with knowledgeable and fun guides taking you round, an absolute highlight and we recommend the visit. Hahei is a lovely little village with some nice eateries, boutiques and art shops and in times pre-cyclone would have allowed us to walk to Cathedral Cove, but as that was not possible we took a one hour small rib-boat excursion. This took us to visit Cathedral Cove, some other coves, rock formations and various scenic sights. It was not a cheap experience, but we enjoyed it and were really pleased we’d done it. Later that evening we drove out to Hot Water Beach – what a phenomenon! At low tide, there is a patch on the beach where it has bubbling thermal water beneath the surface – you can feel it as you walk across the sand, and you then dig a hole and bathe in the heat of the water – incredible. Our third night in the Coromandel was spent further inland, so it allowed us to visit Whitianga to buy some provisions and take a couple of walks to see Waiau Falls and Waiau Kauri Grove – home to the Kauri Trees which are the biggest trees in NZ, in terms of volume of timber en route. Our overnight stay was in the stunning Wairua River Rainforest Retreat – an absolutely beautiful setting in the rainforest, we didn’t want to leave! From the tranquillity of Wairua - to city life! Our final three nights in New Zealand were spent in Auckland. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t on our side and sadly put a stop to a pre-planned boat excursion to Tiritiri Matangi Island. It was good to spend some time in the city, we enjoyed wandering and doing a bit of shopping! A highlight was a special Wedding Anniversary meal in ‘Orbit’, the revolving restaurant at the top of Sky Tower – it was fabulous seeing the city light up. We walked the city to take in the sights and had a great time travelling by ferry from Auckland Harbour to Davenport – this is a really lovely place, full of independent shops, art galleries, lots of bars and restaurants, etc., Our time had come to prepare ourselves for a 4am departure from the hotel as we were sadly leaving New Zealand…..but the trip was not yet over, one of my bucket-list destinations was our next stop to break up the long journey home……Singapore.