Hobbits, Hikes and Cool Sites: New Zealand North Island Itinerary
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We returned from New Zealand a week ago and one of the most interesting things about the trip was the mentality that we encountered while we were there. So many people from back home were shocked that we would be gone for 19 days. We heard “how did you get so much time off?” “wow that’s a long time!” and “what will you even be doing?” (my answer was always “hiking… a lot of hiking”, lol) so many times.
In contrast, when we got to New Zealand, I don’t think we encountered anyone (except unless they were from the US) that was going to be in New Zealand any shorter than two months. And when we said we were there for two and a half weeks the responses were ironically the opposite – “oh, so short?” “wow you are going to have a hard time seeing everything!” and “how did you choose what to do with so little time?”. In this post I am going to cover our New Zealand North Island Itinerary. Stay tuned for a post about our itinerary for the South Island.
The South Island of New Zealand is definitely the more popular destination of the two islands, however there were definitely some things on the North Island that we didn’t want to miss. Here is our New Zealand North Island Itinerary in a map format:
The map estimates a total of 12 hours and 50 minutes of driving with this New Zealand North Island Itinerary, although I suspect it was a bit shorter as we had not yet rented a campervan (we did this on the South Island) and because there was not a significant amount of road construction at the time (unlike the South Island).
Here are the New Zealand North Island Itinerary details:
We landed in Auckland at around 9am. The flight out was not that bad (SLC -> LAX -> AKL) and we were fortunate to be upgraded. After collecting our rental car, we drove around to get a look at Auckland first taking in the city from several different viewpoints: Mt. Eden Overlook and the Cyril Bassett Lookout. There are a few other viewpoints including the Observation Tower. However, we thought the city skyline looked cool with the Observation Tower in the picture rather than taking the picture from the tower (think Seattle).
From the viewpoints, we headed out of the city. I have heard fabulous things about Auckland, however we weren’t coming to New Zealand for the cities so we didn’t stay there long at all.
Our next stop was the Waitomo Glowworm Caves and we did both the Waitomo Glowworm Cave and the Ruakuri Cave tour. The first cave tour (Waitomo) was packed with non-English speaking tourists and their guide was attempting to translate the entirety of what the guide was saying making this tour incredibly difficult and frustrating. However, the boat tour of the Waitomo caves was beautiful and fortunately they make everyone be silent on the boat so no translations are necessary. There is no photography allowed in the Waitomo caves as it can harm the glowworms.
The Ruakuri Cave tour was much more intimate and our guide was so incredibly passionate about the caves. She was local and grew up around them. There are a few glowworms in the Ruakuri cave which allowed us to learn a lot more about them unlike our first tour so these complimented each other well.
From the caves, the next stop on our New Zealand North Island Itinerary was Taupo. We stayed in an Airbnb just one street back from the lake. We got up early in the morning and drove to the trailhead for the Tongariro Alpine Crossing where we parked and took a shuttle to the trailhead. The Tongariro Alpine Crossing was an incredible thru hike and we really enjoyed it. This is the area where “Mt. Doom” and Mordor was filmed from the movies Lord of the Rings.
After the hike through the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, we drove back to Taupo for a meal (BurgerFuel which was good!) and spent time enjoying the lake and the view.
From our afternoon in Taupo, the next stop on our New Zealand North Island Itinerary was Rotorua. We stayed the night at another lovely Airbnb overlooking another lake.
The next morning in Rotorua we stopped at two locations. The first was the Redwood Forest in Rotorua and the second was the Wai-O-Tapu thermal wonderland. In hindsight, we probably should have hit the thermal wonderland on the way to Rotorua the day before. The Rotorua Redwood Forest has trails that you can hike for free but we opted for the tree walk in the air. Also, they do tours at night and the trees light up. This would probably be pretty cool to see as well. If you are looking for the perfect family accommodation in Rotorua, check out this post.
That afternoon we did something that I didn’t realize I was going to like nearly as much as I did – a trip to Hobbiton where they filmed the Shire from Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. We went on a delightful tour of the set and learned a lot of very interesting things about the filming of the movies. Both Austin and I have read the Lord of the Rings books before (and seen all the movies) but we got so into it that we had to re-watch all of the Lord of the Rings movies while we were on our trip.
Seriously Hobbiton was totally cute and I would definitely go back. The next stop on our New Zealand North Island Itinerary was Hahei. This is where we got our “beach time” in but also got to do a sunrise hike to Cathedral Cove as well. Hahei Beach is very close to the very popular “Hot Water Beach” where you can rent shovels and dig your own hot water pool in the sand. We opted against going there but sounds like a fun family activity.
After a day on the beach we returned to Auckland Airport and flew down from Auckland to Queenstown. This New Zealand North Island itinerary was a total time of 4 days and we both really enjoyed this part of the trip (but we also enjoyed the south island as well). A couple of things that we missed in the north island… Wellington, we didn’t go here at all. Mount Taranaki, looks really cool, but we just didn’t have the time to make it there. So next time!
A couple of travel related tips:
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Currently reading: Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva
Currently listening to: Chop Wood Carry Water: How to Fall in Love with the Process of Becoming Great by Joshua Medcalf
Andrea Cannon is a pharmacist, triathlete, gratitude practicer, and avid traveler. For both business and pleasure, she has taken more than 250 flights yearly for the past 3 years. In addition to being a travel hacking enthusiast, Andrea enjoys hiking and spending time with her husband (Austin) and dog (Dex). You can connect with her via her blog www.beaUTAHfulworld.com or on Instagram @andreafcannon .