North Island NZ Road Trip: Day 1-6

After quite the trek from Bali, I had made it to Auckland. Several hours later I saw the familiar face I was waiting for coming out of International arrivals. It was my best friend Maddie, fresh off her flights from Dallas and ready for our North Island New Zealand adventure. We had 12 full days to explore what the North Island had to offer, and I can tell you now it wasn’t enough. There is just so much to see and do that you could spend years, decades even, exploring just the North Island and still have more to do. Luckily, Maddie had done her research and planned an epic road trip to see all of the highlights. A HUGE thanks to her for putting all of the time in for that!

To start, we picked up our Go Rentals car and prepped ourselves to tackle that whole left-side-of-the-road-driving thing. Turns out it wasn't so bad. And now onto the adventure. Here is a very brief synopsis of our trip on days 1 through 6…

Day 1: Arrival and Hahei/Whitianga
Drive from Auckland: 2 hours and 30 minutes

Although exhausted from our travels, we made the hour and half trek to Hahei. On the way we grabbed lunch at a cool beach-looking town called Tairua. 

Hahei had even more beaches in store, though we only stopped briefly. Cathedral Cove was around the corner, but we were wiped and decided to check in to the motel and enjoy a delicious Indian dinner at That Curry Place in town.

Night 1: Peninsula Motel (clean and convenient for a walk to the local shops/restaurants)


Day 2: Rotorua
Drive: 3 hours and 20 minutes via a detour to Mt. Maunganui (took a hike up to the summit)

There are so many adventure things to do here that we had a time trying to choose we to do. We decided on the Cable Car and luging for $45 that included 5 luge rides. It was way more fun than I thought it was going to be.

Next up was the Treetop Walk that was, in my mind, a bit of a rip off at $20USD. Luckily, we got a 2-for-1 because we did the walk twice. We arrived just before sunset and were able to experience it during the day and at night all lit up. Technically, probably not allowed.

Night 2: Rotorua Top 10 Holiday Park (clean and within driving distance to everything)

Day 3: Rotorua and Hobbiton!

Hell’s Gate Geothermal Park and Mud Bath Spa was our last stop for this area. It was 15 minutes outside of the city, but we had read it was the best. We paid ~$60USD for unlimited use of the sulfur spas and a 20 minute mud spa. It certainly wasn’t glamorous, but it was a fun thing to do.

Drive: 1 hour

This was one of the absolute highlights of our 12 days. Hobbiton has two tours to choose from, the regular day tour and the evening banquet tour. Well, we HAD to do the evening banquet tour. There’s so much to cover that I think I’ll do it in a separate post. Needless to say, we had almost four hours at The Shire and it included a banquet to fit a hobbit.

Night 3: Huntington Stables Retreat (quiet, quaint and in the country, was my favorite and close to a nice bush walk, 30 minutes from Hobbiton)

Day 4: Lake Taupo
Drive: 1 hour and 40 minutes

We ventured to Huka Falls for a lovely walk/hike around. The waters were pretty muddy but they normally are a pretty blue. We could see what they normally are like a bit up the river.

Back in Lake Taupo we grabbed burgers at BurgerFuel, settled into our hotel, and booked a last minute sailing tour on Sail Barbary. We really wanted to see the Maori carvings and sailing there with pizza and a drink in hand seemed like the best way to go. It was.

Night 4: The Cove Taupo (nice but a bit of a walk to town)

Day 5: Lake Taupo and Tongariro Nat’l Park

We wanted to do something adventure-some while in this area and decided on a jet boat tour. Jet boats were invented in New Zealand and are an adrenaline-inducing boat experience. We enjoyed an hour of speed and springs

Drive: 1 hour and 15 minutes

We went straight to the Whakapapa Visitor Center to get an idea of what to expect for the next day’s Tongariro Alpine Crossing. And we were told about the 2 hour Taranaki Falls Track loop. It was an excellent intro to the park and helped us stretch our legs. Plus we had some awesome views of Mt. Doom (Mt. Ngauruhoe).

Night 5: Tongariro Crossing Lodge (outdated rooms but a great place to prep for the alpine crossing)

Day 6: Tongariro Alpine Crossing

Today was the whole reason we wanted to come to this park. The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is an awesome 20 km trek across a volcanic alpine landscape. It started off with some serious inclines and then turned into a cloud forest above. Visibility was low but that didn’t stop the smiles. Our hotel had provided a packed lunch for us, and we enjoyed that quite a bit after hours of walking.

This whole day was devoted to the crossing, and rightfully so. It was tiring, but not so tiring that we couldn’t enjoy some beverages at Schnapps Bar.

Night 6: Tongariro Cross Lodge (again, because who wants to drive somewhere after a 7 hour hike?)

And to think that is only 6 days of our adventure. Hobbiton and the crossing were certainly the highlights of the first half of our trip. But don’t worry, there’s more to this North Island adventure and I’ll cover it here.