The North Island, NZ.

Wellington, Napier, Taupo, Cambridge/Hamilton, Orewa, Whangarei, Russell, Paihia, Muriwai Beach, Auckland.

Today, May 22, 2026, I decided that I must write up the last blog for our NZ trip, partly to have a delightful trip back there through photos and memories, but also because the weather outside here at Lennox is foul, cold, windy and showery. Nice day to retreat to my office.

So, we arrived into Wellington on the Interislander Ferry in the evening. The lights of Wellington sparkled over the harbour. As we disembarked from the bottom of the ferry, we were straight into navigation mode, as we faced multiple lanes of peak hour traffic. Our destination camp was not too far away, thankfully, but together we did a good job getting there without a major argument. Next day, I said we really should go into the capital city of NZ, look around, before we head north, but the discussion of coping with another peak hour of traffic in the van didn’t go well, so Wellington is a trip for another time.

So off we headed along Highway 1 once again, through the middle of the island via Palmerston North across to Napier. Stopping at cute little towns for coffee was mandatory. The mountains and hills were low and rolling now, not as picturesque as the south island, but gentle, full of sheep and cows and hedges, but also the dreaded pampas grass. Someone said it was a weed from Australia. But it is native to southern South America and is an invasive noxious weed in Australia too. Anyway, it was everywhere, at times I saw hillsides with young pine plantations, sprouting pampas grass all through the pines. What an environmental nightmare.

Anyway, got to Napier and thoroughly enjoyed the art deco buildings in the main city area. We went to the Napier Quake museum and saw how devastated the town was in 1931. Quite an inspired move to make all the new buildings fit the same genre.

Taupo was the next stop. It was a calm warm afternoon there so we pitched the camp chairs on the bank of the Lake, got out our afternoon snacks, and watched the birds for ages.

We wanted to touch in to Maori culture. Headed to Rotorua. We chanced on Te Puia, home to the geothermal valley, as well as a Maori arts and crafts institute, where we could see wood carving, weaving, stone and bone carving. There was a Conservation centre where we saw Kiwi birds, a bit sleepy as they are nocturnal. Our excellent guide took us through the arts area and then onto the bubbling mud pools and gushing geysers. I wish I’d had my video camera on when he explained each of the tattooed lines on his face, that answered a question I would never feel comfortable asking a Maori person. After a concert performance and lunch, we pressed on further north.

Just before Cambridge, we found a beautiful free camp spot on the Waikato River. Rowers glided past silently and scoobi doos created a racket!

I wanted to see Hamilton Gardens. So we decided to sacrifice the Coromandel Peninsular for another time. The Gardens “examine the evolution and meaning of gardens throughout history”. There are 18 different displays in either the Fantasy Garden Collection, Productive Garden Collection or the Paradise Garden collection. It began on waste land in the 1960’s. Council land was used to develop the 130 acres into the gardens as they are today. It was interesting but not amazing.

After the gardens we pushed on around the outskirts of Auckland, which was a reasonably easy navigational feat. We went off the highway to Orewa for the night. Lovely town, obviously a resort/holiday destination for New Zealanders, right on the sea.

Whangarei was our next stop. We had fun times trying to pronounce the name as the locals do. Wh becomes F and the g is silent, so it sounds like Fanerei. Anyway, there was a lovely little harbour here and cafes, pubs and galleries, but we’d arrived a bit late in the afternoon to enjoy the local buzz. It was still raining at times and cool, we were grateful for the heater in the van.

We headed off Highway 1 towards Russell, which a number of people had suggested we visit. We climbed up and over steep hills, but it was worth it to reach the small sandy beaches, like Matapouri and Oakura where not many vans like ours would travel. We caught the car ferry across to Russell where we had the most expensive campground experience ever. $100 for the night. No wonder we were the only ones there! We should have stayed at Paihia and done a day trip over on the passenger ferry. Anyway, Russell was delightful although the sunset got lost behind the thick clouds. Dinner and wine on the bank of the beach was very welcome, expensive too!

We travelled to Opua to ferry back across to the other side of the bay. Today we went to Waitangi to learn some history of the signing of the Waitangi Treaty between 500 Maori chiefs and the British Crown, in 1840. The museum was very well resourced, even had sheets of signed documents of the Treaty. The fascinating thing is, one document was written in Maori language, the other a translation into English, but the translation didn’t match the original in some key facts about rights to lands and governance, which caused huge disruption in NZ over many decades. It has to be applauded that a Treaty was written in the first place, unlike in Australia where we still struggle to get a similar document accepted in our government.

We ended up at Paihia in a tiny campsite. The park owner was lovely there. When she heard we’d decided not to drive to the top of the island, she was horrified. So we were booked onto a tour bus for the next day.

It was great fun, but a long day. The driver definitely had his batteries charged, he didn’t stop talking or singing all day. He mentioned he’d been in the circus at one point in his life. He was a real performer. We travelled in a big bus up to a lovely gallery, Ka Uri Unearthed, for morning tea and a perusal of the wonderful gallery with exceptional woodwork. Here was the Kauri stairs, inside a tree stump that was sourced from the swamps after being buried for 40,000 years. We changed buses to a 4WD one which took us along the 90 mile beach. Here you had the option to sandboard down the dunes, not us!, and to hand dig for the abundant pipies. We cracked them open and ate the delicious raw seafood there and then. We continued by road on to Cape Reigna, the “place where spirits depart their long journey back to the homeland.” Here at the lighthouse, the Tasman Sea and the Pacific collide. Our guide continued to talk all the way home, trying to get us to sing karaoke, but it was a long day and most of us were over 60 so a nap was preferred to singing.

It was time to head south. We’d heard about a Kauri museum on the west coast so headed there via Dargaville. The Matakohe museum was brilliant and I’d recommend to anyone. It took us about 3 hours in there before we both decided it was lunch time. The history was vast, in displays of timbers, photos, installations, and so much more. It made me sad to know most of the old growth Kauri had gone. At least the trees still standing would be protected. After a quick lunch we kept going south.

NZ is such a compact country. We knew we had to return the van the next day to Auckland, so we stayed in a tiny surfing town called Muriwai Beach. It was the usual cold and wet, sloppy grass, slippery. And in the morning windy and misty, so I felt we were book-ending our NZ trip with challenging weather.

We handed back the van and Ubered into Auckland. Nice to have a spacious room to properly pack our bags for the homeward flight. We opted not to do the tourist things here, instead just walked and walked – went to the Gallery for lunch and a lovely Italian restaurant for dinner.

Our travels are over but our desire to return to NZ one day will always be there.

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Cheers

Jen & Nick