New Zealand – WOW!

Auckland and its surroundings

Upon arrived in Auckland I did the standard finding my hostel and ended up in a pretty cool place in a central location. The hostel staff as well as the other people staying there were all really friendly and I quickly felt at home. My first impression of Auckland was not so positive and after asking around quickly decided to rent a car and get out of Auckland for the week that I was in New Zealand (NZ).

Since my time was so short, I figured going north and doing the northern most part of NZ was probably the best thing to do. Within five minutes of meeting my roommates, one of them – Kate – said she would come with me. So now it was going to be a proper road trip! Kate had already organised a car and so we left two day later and headed north.

Whilst I was still in Auckland I saw a bit of the city, which did not speak to me at all – a high street and harbour and that’s about it – at least from what I’ve seen. There probably is more to it than that, but it was not at all my city. I took the ferry across the harbour to a small town called Devenport, where I spent a nice afternoon and walked up to the top of the hill for some stunning views of Auckland and its surroundings.

The next day I took the ferry to Rangitoto, which is a volcanic island and has some nice walks and scenic lookout points. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t too great and the views over the harbour and the NZ countryside were not as pretty as they might have been in nice weather. It was still a nice day trip to do and I quite enjoyed the small hike to the top of the crater.

Road Trip through the North

Kate and I left early the next day to start what would become our wow-trip to the north. Here it is important to note that apparently the north island and Northland are the ugly parts of New Zealand; generally when people go to NZ they head to the south. Since I was short on time and I was already in Auckland the north was the only part that I could do properly in that timeframe.

We took a nice drive towards Paihia in the Bay of Islands, which is where we had organised accommodation for the first two nights. The drive, if driven non-stop, takes about 2.5 hrs; it took us about 7 hrs – just to show how often we stopped for pictures and beautiful scenery. Of course we took the scenic route, which for some reason took us straight to an oil refinery. That was also funny, turning up there at the visitor centre thinking it was tourist information. The woman there was genuinely surprised to see two women turn up asking for tourist information; we did at least have coffee at the plant workers’ canteen.   

We found ourselves driving and after every turn just saying “wow” over and over again. The scenery is breathtaking. There are a million different shades of green and blue and the vegetation is such a beautiful mixture and there are so many untouched beaches! We saw the waterfalls at Whangarei where kids were just playing on the rocks at the top of it, which was slightly disturbing/scary.

Paihia and Russell

We finally arrived in Paihia after a day of wow-ness and were a bit disappointed by it. Paihia is quite cute, but due to its location in the Bay of Islands is quite touristy.

We decided against doing a boat trip around the Bay of Islands and instead took our time in the morning and then headed across the bay with the ferry to Russell. Russell was the first settlement in NZ and for a long time was the capital. Russell was known for rowdy sailors and lots of drinking. There seems to be nothing of that atmosphere left now. Russell is a very cute, quaint and sleepy town. Walking to the top of the island gives stunning views of the bay and we found some wonderful little streets, many of which also had backpacker places. The centre of Russell has a few small stores and some nice waterfront cafes serving great food and coffee, where we sat for a few hours enjoying the weather, food and atmosphere.   

Cape Reinga

The following day our trip up north continued and we drove to the northernmost point of NZ: Cape Reinga. On our way of course we stopped a million times, the wonderful thing being that there is next to no traffic, so stopping in the middle of the road is unproblematic – though I guess not strictly legal. We did have a funny encounter when we stopped at one point and someone was coming in the opposite direction stopped to ask whether everything was alright and he gave us some funny looks when we explained we were just taking some photos – incidentally of sheep. We also had to stop at one point to wait for a herd of cows crossing the road; the cliché would have been complete if it had been sheep, but we did see plenty of those too.

At one point we drove past some road works and through some kind of limestone (I think), and there were signs to say that after driving through we should wash our car on that day; so we of course found the first petrol station and went to wash the car. Now this car wash is not what either of us was used to, it actually involved washing the car ourselves. So that was quite funny too, considering neither of us knew what we were doing.  

When we arrived at Cape Reinga we took a small walk to the actual tip of the island. It is difficult to put in words the feeling you get when standing at this tip of NZ and there is nothing but sea in front of you – barring the Three Kings Islands in the distance. From this point it is actually possible to see the earth-curve. It is truly incredible! Cape Reinga is also where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean and it is actually possible to see where the two meet. The feeling standing here is truly one as if you were standing at the end of the world.  

After we finally managed to tear ourselves away from the end of the world, we realised that it was getting quite late already and decided to find a hostel somewhere up at the very north. We followed to signs to a backpackers at Henderson Bay. The road to this place was all gravel and seemed to be never ending, but eventually we found it and were so happy that we did not decide to turn back. It is owned by a very friendly couple and is a huge house surrounded by greenery and is a short walk to the bay itself. We decided to go for a walk to the bay and experienced the sunset as we were walking, it was truly magnificent.

The next morning after breakfast I did my first bit of driving on the gravel road and found it actually not too bad driving on the wrong side of the road! So after our first stop to see Henderson Bay in the light, we were off for another day of adventure in the North of NZ.

90 Mile Beach

Across the island from Henderson Bay, there is the infamous 90 Mile Beach, which isn’t actually 90 miles long, but is 46 miles long – long enough I guess. 90 Mile Beach can be driven down by car – which the rental agreement explicitly forbids, so we figured we’d give it a miss and go walk it. So we stopped somewhere along the middle of it and when we got onto the beach it was quite a beautiful sight with the sand dunes and nothing but an endless sandy beach to the left and right.

We then continued driving towards the beginning of the beach and found another gravel path up a mountain which had some stunning views of the beach just stretching out endlessly in front of us. So yea, there were definitely some more “WOW” moments.

Kauri Trees

Our drive – with my driving – continued on towards the famous Kauri Tree forest and the large Kauri trees on the eastern coast of the North Island. The landscape on the drive was again very scenic and different from the western coast and the very north. We even took a car ferry across a lake surrounded by mountains, some of which apparently were covered in snow this winter (something that happened last time maybe 30 years ago).

We arrived at the Kauri Tree forest safely, after a scenic drive, making it quite hard to keep eyes on the road! There was also a close incident involving a farmer chilling on the side of the road on his tractor and letting his dogs play in the middle of the road; of course it’s my luck that the stupid thing jumps out in front of my car just as a nice old timer is coming the other way. So yea, I did manage to break before running over this dog, but honestly I was not amused – and Mr. Farmer doesn’t even apologise!

In any case, there seemed to be an old timer event for charity going on, so we must have passed about a hundred old cars. Somehow they just fit perfectly into the scenery and added to the serenity of NZ.  

The Kauri Trees are hundred year old trees and are massive! The God of the forest is about 3 metres in diameter and I have no idea how many metres high! I could just about get the tree on camera, but the picture does not accurately portray the size of the tree.

It seems that the Kauri trees are really sensitive trees and are easily destroyed, so when we went to walk in the forest and towards the trees, there were special walkways and everybody had to clean and disinfect their shoes before and after entering the Kauri forest! Apparently it’s because the roots of the tree are so close to the ground that walking there and spreading other soil or bacteria very easily affects the trees. We spent quite some time just taking in the size and beauty of these trees and then went on our way trying to find a hostel somewhere to spend the night.

We hoped to find a farm stay somewhere in the countryside, which luckily we did and we spent a night at a farm where we got free range eggs and the whole farm experience before setting off back to Auckland the next day. When we arrived in Auckland we went straight back to the hostel that we stayed in and caught up with friends there and just spent the night chatting until I had to leave to catch my flight to Fiji! I really didn’t want to leave NZ, but I guess having to leave was made more bearable by the thought that Fiji was my next stop!