We spent 5 days on the North Island of New Zealand in February, to celebrate our friends’ wedding in the Bay of Plenty. It was a short trip, but awe & wonder was waiting for us around every corner. We built our itinerary for 5 days in the North Island around the wedding, with a night in Auckland, and stops in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions. Our highlights, apart from the wedding itself, were the Hobbiton Movie Set Experience, the Hamilton Gardens, Mt Manganui and the Wai-O-Tapu geothermal park in Rotorua. It was my first time on the North Island, and in New Zealand as an adult – my previous trip was a family holiday in the South Island when I was 12. I can’t quite believe it took me 19 years to come back!
5 Days in New Zealand’s North Island
For most of our 5 days on the North Island of New Zealand, we stayed in Pukehina Beach in the Bay of Plenty. We stayed in a bach, which is a New Zealand term for beach house, close to the gorgeous wedding venue, the Old Forest School.
The wedding was absolutely magical, and it was so special to be able to celebrate with them! Secondary to the wedding, which was spectacular, was the lovely reminder of how much awe and beauty and wonder can be found, almost wherever you are. We enjoyed so many beautiful places that would not have been on my radar if it weren’t for the wedding. I didn’t expect to experience as much awe as we did, in such a short time and in a relatively small area.
We’d initially planned to take a longer trip, but I am DEEP in negative annual leave. We’d wanted to make a side trip to the Coromandel, but it was lucky that we didn’t – I fractured my ankle one month before the trip, and was still in a moon boot on this trip. I’d barely left the house for 3 weeks before the trip, as the only cure for a fracture is lots of rest, and I was so grateful that I was able to manage the wedding and some low intensity sightseeing either side. I can’t stand for too long, or do too much walking, but we found enough to do where I didn’t have to walk for more than a couple of minutes at a time, and could elevate my leg in between activities.
The first day was spent flying to Auckland. We stayed overnight, and drove to Pukehina Beach in the Bay of Plenty on the second day, with stops at Hamilton Gardens and the Hobbiton Movie Experience. We arrived in Pukehina in the evening, and had a quiet morning the next day before the wedding in the afternoon. On the day after the wedding, we went to Rotorua and Wai-O-Tapu, before a post-wedding recovery session at Becs & Tom’s bach in the late afternoon. Sunday was mostly a travel day, but we stopped in Mount Manganui and briefly in Hamilton, before flying out of Auckland.
How to get to North Island New Zealand?
Auckland is the largest city in New Zealand, and will be the most convenient airport for most. Wellington, the capital in the south of the island, has a small airport and flights are extermely exepsnive. For our itinerary, it made the most sense to fly into Auckland.
Day 1: Auckland
Flying into Auckland is beautiful, I didn’t realise the city was in such a beautiful setting. In some ways, it reminded me of Sydney! Definitely try and get a window seat when you fly to Auckland.
I am SO glad that we stayed overnight in Auckland. While the flight is only 3 hours 50 minutes, plus an hour’s delay, it was after 5pm when we landed and we were exhausted by the time we reached the hotel. Even the 50 minute drive from the airport to the hotel in the Auckland CBD felt long! We decided that we’d like to stay overnight wherever we fly into as much as possible in future.
We had a quiet night, we just went for dinner on the Auckland Viaduct at a bar called Saint Alice, which has lovely water views. The food was delicious! We particularly loved the kumara with fish caramel sauce, which sounds odd but we were both obsessed with. Kumara is a variety of sweet potato, native to New Zealand.
Because of my ankle injury, we didn’t explore like we usually would, but David did an evening and a morning run around the city. I wish I could have joined him!
I didn’t spend much time in Auckland at all, but from the little I saw, and the extensive research I did into things to do (before I fractured my ankle), I didn’t find lots of reasons to make a dedicated visit. I’d happily stay overnight again as part of a flight into New Zealand, and I’d consider a day trip or overnighter to nearby Waiheke Island, which is accessible by ferry from Auckland and has a number of wineries and luxury accommodation options.
We stayed at Ramada Suites Victoria Street West, which has an apartment suite with kitchenette, and really affordable – it was the cheapest accommodation in Auckland that I could find that wasn’t a hostel. Would stay there again!
Day 2: Hamilton, Hobbiton & Pukehina
We had an early start, for a big day of driving and sightseeing. Before we left, we got a takeaway coffee from Scratch Bakers, which was next door to our hotel. The bakery cabinet here is incredible!
It took a lot longer to drive from Auckland to Pukehina than I expected. The hire car company did say it would take longer than you’d expect to drive around NZ. I’m glad we made a full day of it!
Hamilton Gardens
Our first stop was at the Hamilton Gardens. Hamilton is the largest city in the Waikato, a region of New Zealand’s North Island. The Waikato includes Hamilton, Taupo, parts of Rotorua and the Coromandel, and is predominantly agricultural.
The Hamilton Gardens is one of the most unique gardens I’ve ever visited, and is a must-visit if you’re in the region! Incredibly, entry is free, but there are talks of introducing a $10 ticket later this year. I would buy a ticket in a heartbeat. We could have easily spent two hours here, but we were on limited time and I was a bit limited by how much walking I could do.
The Hamilton Gardens is a 54 hectare park on the Waikato River, with a a collection of themed gardens.. My favourite gardens were in the Paradise collection, which include the Italian Renaissance Garden and the Indian Char Bagh garden. I also loved the Surrealist Garden and the Tudor Garden in the Fantasy Garden collection.
I tried to go back on the return journey to Auckland a few days later, but we ran out of time. I wanted to visit the American Modernist Garden, the Chinese Scholars Garden, the Picturesque Garden and the Egyptian Garden – make time for these if you visit!
Duck Island Ice Cream
We made a quick stop at Duck Island Ice Cream, a locally beloved ice creamery which has a couple of stores around the Waikato. I had toasted marshmallow, which is even better than it sounds! They also have a range of dairy free, gluten free, vegan, and other dietary friendly ice creams.
Hobbiton Movie Experience, Matamata
The Hobbiton Movie Set Experience was so much more amazing than I expected. I’ve seen the Lord of the Rings movies, but I mostly wanted to visit because David is such a big LOTR fan. I thought it would be lovely, but it is magical.
You have to buy tickets in advance – weeks or months in advance depending on the time of year you’re visiting. I got a bit of sticker shock when I bought them, as they’re $129 per person, but it’s absolutely worth it. Not only is it lovely to spend a few hours somewhere as enchanting as the rolling hills of Hobbiton, but it’s so inspiring to see what hundreds of creative minds have brought to life. The attention to detail is incredible.
I thought we’d see one or two hobbit holes, and expected them to be crowded with other tourists the whole time. We saw 43, and everyone is guided through the experience in tour groups, which means it’s easy to see, and take photos of, the set without a mass of tourists crawling all over it.
I’d read on another travel blog that if you don’t get on the first tour of the day, you’ll not get any shots without tourists in them – not true. We went on the 1pm tour, on a very busy day in the middle of summer, and it was easy to get shots without tourists in them. No complaints about the experience.
Part of the tour includes walking through a hobbit hole, which is a hobbit home. I was surprised that we could roam freely inside, sitting on furniture and in many cases, picking up props like fake food, in the kitchen. Touring the hobbit hole was incredible, the level of detail in the production design is so inspiring!
I did underestimate how much walking would be on the tour, so I found it a bit challenging and tiring in my moon boot, but I managed! And it was so worth it.
Overall I was surprised by how much awe I encountered today, at two man-made attractions. I tend to think of awe as something that you find in pristine nature or wilderness, or in ancient sites, but not in a botanic garden or a movie set.
Once we arrived in Pukehina, we dropped off our things at our bach, before heading to a park overlooking the ocean for wedding welcome drinks, which was so nice for being able to see Becs & Tom before the big day!
Day 3: Wedding at Old Forest School
The wedding was hosted at Old Forest School, a gorgeous event venue hidden away in the countryside, about 30 minutes’ drive inland from the beach. It was a perfect venue, and such a beautiful, joyful wedding. Becs, the bride, was radiant and the groom, Tom, looked like the happiest man on earth. It is so special to be able to celebrate love, not only between the couple but also for all of the love in the room, between family and friends who love Becs & Tom. There’s no cell phone reception at the venue, so everyone was very present – perfect for a wedding!
I wasn’t drinking at the wedding, because I was eager to do everything I could to speed up my ankle recovery and stay healthy and positive along the way. I was a little nervous about a “sober wedding” as you hear about it being such a milestone for people taking a break (or quitting) drinking, but it was actually the absolute best! I didn’t feel left out at all, and the sodas that Becs had arranged were lovely, with a few different flavours.
The energy and enthusiasm at a wedding is infectious, I definitely didn’t feel like I was missing out by not having a glass of champagne. It was so much fun, that it inspired me to continue alcohol-free living beyond my ankle recovery, and I’m still rolling with it. So far, so good!
Day 4: Rotorua & Wai O Tapu
I was hoping to wake up early the next morning, but we had quite a bad sleep – the bedroom facing the ocean had no fan or A/C, but with the window open even a crack, I was getting eaten alive by mosquitos. It was a four bedroom house, so at 2am we moved to the main bedroom which had aircon (which we’d not chosen because it faced onto the street instead of the ocean), but in the middle of the night couldn’t find the air con remote, which wasn’t in the bedroom. Which is all to say, we had a much later start than I’d hoped, given that we weren’t hungover!
We wanted to go to Rotorua before the Wedding Recovery Drinks in the afternoon. Rotorua is around an hour from Pukehina, and is one of the few regions I’d heard of in North Island before our visit. Rotorua is known for its geothermal hot springs and spas, and mud baths. I wasn’t all that keen to do the mud baths, but we did want to see some of the beautiful geothermal springs.
Which Geothermal Springs to Visit in Rotorua?
We drove to Rotorua, and had breakfast at the Arts Village Cafe, which was lovely. Over breakfast, I decided to do a bit of extra research into the geothermal parks we could visit.
There are a handful of options in the region, but given we had a bit less time, and I couldn’t do loads of walking, we nearly booked what looked like the easiest albeit most expensive option, Te Puia. Te Puia is in the heart of Rotorua, but tickets are $90 per person and I didn’t have a very clear idea of what we’d get for the entry price, so I decided to do something I never usually do: check TripAdvisor reviews. I am SO glad I did!
The latest reviews were all 2 stars and generally terrible, with consistent feedback about the tour feeling like a rushed, sales pitch for the gift shop at the end. We decided not to go and to instead to try Wai-O-Tapu, which in contrast, had all 4 or 5 star reviews from recent visitors, who described it as surreal and exceeding expectations. Wai-O-Tapu was an extra 35 minute drive, but it was so worth it – a truly awe-inspiring place! Tickets are also nearly half the price, at $40, and it’s self-guided which I much prefer to being in a big group.
Rachel Hot Spring, Rotorua
Before we left Rotorua, we stopped by the Rachel Hot Spring which is free to visit, inside the Rotorua Gardens. It’s small, and enclosed, but was still beautiful – and smelly! The town of Rotorua smells of sulphur, from all of the geothermal sites. It’s mild enough that it’s not unbearable, it’s just noticeable. If you don’t have time to visit a proper geothermal park, swing by Rachel Hot Springs – although if you can spare an hour, absolutely add Wai-O-Tapu to your itinerary.
Waiotapu
I am SO glad we visited Waiotapu, it is one of the most unique and beautiful natural places I’ve seen in a long time. Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland is an active geothermal area in the Rotorua region, which is part of the Taupo Volcanic Zone.
It is worth noting, and this is something I only am learning as I am writing this, that the Taupo Volcano is a supervolcano, which last erupted 1800 years ago, but could erupt again. For context, if Taupo erupted again, it would have a catastrophic impact on the entire North Island of New Zealand. Obviously, millions of people live in the North Island and travel there is widely considered safe, but it is worth knowing this before you go. From Pukehina, we could see White Island, which was the site of the deadly volcano eruption that killed 20 people, day tripping to the island in 2019. This part of New Zealand is awe-inspiring in the truest sense, in that it is beautiful but also a reminder of the terrible power of nature.
There are three walking routes at Waiotapu. You start with Route 1, with the other 2 routes as extensions. If you do all 3 routes, it’s 4.5km, or if you only do Route 1, it’s 1.5km. We only did Route 1 & 2, because I was in the moon boot, but if otherwise we’d have done all three. I think the most amazing spots were on Route 1, which is also the only track which is wheelchair and pram accessible.
There are so many different things to see at Waiotapu, but the standout is the Champagne Pools, which were vibrant shades of red, yellow, aqua and green. I also loved the fluorescent green pool near the end of the loop, which truly needed no filter.
In the afternoon, we went to the post-wedding recovery party at the bride & groom’s bach – a charming 70’s surf shack, with cute design details and a killer view off the deck that directly overlooked the ocean.
Day 5: Pukehina to Auckland
Our last day in New Zealand was mostly spent driving from Pukehina to Auckland International Airport, but we had two nice stops along the way.
Mount Maunganui
Our first stop was Mount Maunganui, which is just 30 minutes north of Pukehina. We picked up a takeaway coffee & a scone for me at the very cute Elspeth Bakery, which was buzzing
We drove down the main street afterwards, which was very busy, and then admired some views over the ocena,and then on the other side in the harbour, looking towards Tauranga
I’d definitely recommend coming to Mt Maunganui for cafes, bars, restaurants or holiday accommodation in the Bay of Plenty, it was very lively. Before I fractured my ankle I was planning to hike Mt Maunganui one morning with David, the views look stunning. However, not to be on this trip!
Hamilton
Our second stop was back in Hamilton. I was really hoping we’d have enough time to visit a few more of the gardens in the Hamilton Gardens, but we were running a bit short on time. Instead, we had a picnic lunch by the river. We put the Ferry Landing into Google Maps which takes you to a nice spot overlooking the river. Then we stopped at Duck Island again, for one last ice cream!
We didn’t make any other stops, and drove straight to Auckland airport for our flight home. We were both so inspired by our few days exploring the North Island of New Zealand, that we’ve got a renewed enthusiasm for planning a South Island road trip in the next year or so. The North Island isn’t as famous a tourist destination as the South Island, but I love how much awe and wonder there is to discover, nearly wherever you go.