New Zealand was an absolute dream and I especially recommend it to any adventurous nature lovers. Our trip started on the North Island— we spent three days exploring the island in our rental car with Auckland as home base.
Something that really stood out to me was the diverse landscapes across North Island which certainly kept our long drives interesting. Every ten minutes, it felt as though we were somewhere completely new -- some parts reminded me of Hawaii, others looked more like Seattle and some of the endless fields resembled the midwest. Although, it feels wrong to compare New Zealand to any of those places, because it truly has its own uniqueness to it.
Day 1: Settling into Auckland
Our flight landed in the morning, and since we were quite tired from the long haul we planned to keep this as a lowkey day exploring in and around Auckland. We stayed at the Movenpick, which was a convenient location in the CBD. To save money, we decided not to park our car at the hotel and found that a nearby paid parking lot was a much better deal. There seemed to be several scattered around the CBD area, so it could be worth looking into this option if you plan to rent a car.
After settling in, we started the day walking over to the Auckland Fish Market for lunch. Harris and I shared a lobster roll from Lobster & Tap and battered fish from The Fish Market Grill. There was live music in their outdoor seating area and it was totally a vibe to just sit and enjoy the good weather, eat fish, and listen to music. After getting settled, fed, and familiarized with Auckland, we jumped in the car and began to explore some local beaches. We first went to Muriwai Beach (45 min drive) — there wasn't much laying out to do because it was very windy, but we hiked up a short, easy trail to go watch the famous gannet colony on the cliffs (beware of getting pooped on)! The next beach we went to was Cheltenham Beach (1hr drive from Muriwai Beach, but back in the direction of Auckland), which was a quieter beach that was a more ideal location for laying out or swimming depending on how tolerant you are to cold water. We didn't have a chance to go to the third beach on our list, but Long Bay beach is another option. For dinner, we went to Le Chef which was a cute French restaurant in Auckland CBD with a great steak. Another thing we didn't get to, but had on the itinerary, was the Mt Eden hike for sunset (35 min loop hike).
Day 2: Rotorua White Water Rafting & Waitomo Caves Black Water Rafting
We started Day 2 early with a 3.5 hr drive to Rotorua to make it to our white water rafting activity on Kaituna River. We checked in at 10:30 AM at Rotorua Rafting and had a really great experience with this rafting company. The staff and crew were all friendly and cheeky, but they were also very knowledgeable and made us feel completely safe! There were a few waterfalls (including a grade 5 waterfall!) and several rapids throughout. After the activity, we popped over next door for lunch at Okere Falls Store. Their toasties were really delicious here, and apparently they've even won a couple of times at The Great New Zealand Toastie Takeover. Their 2024 winning toastie was "Figgy in the Middle", which was also the best thing we ate there. It did take about 40 minutes for our food to come out, so I would make sure to leave yourself plenty of time before the next activity if you plan to stop by.
After lunch, we drove 2 hrs for our second activity of the day -- a 4 PM glow worm tour in the Waitomo Caves. The tour company had a couple of different options to explore the caves, and we chose their Black Labyrinth Tour which was roughly 3 hrs. Our guides were two really sweet girls, who were also quite funny (I think the biggest thing we learned on this trip was that Kiwis are very funny with the same brand of dry humor). Where our white water rafting was warm and sunny, our black water rafting activity was quite cold. The wetsuits they gave us definitely helped, and overall it was definitely worth it to see the glowworms, but this aspect is something to mentally prepare for. My sister is pretty claustrophobic, and had a few rough patches in some especially tight parts of the cave, but we were able to go through those parts pretty quickly so I think it can be doable for most. After the tour, once you're officially very very cold, they give you an opportunity to take a really hot shower followed by a hot bowl of tomato soup. And of course in the moment it felt like the best shower and best bowl of soup we'd ever had. Once we were all warmed up, we made another 2.5 hr drive back to Auckland where we immediately passed out in our beds.
Day 3: Wine Tasting on Waiheke Island
After a clearly exhausting day of water sports, we spent our third day wine tasting on the beautiful Waiheke Island. We grabbed some breakfast to-go at Daily Bread before heading to our 8:30 AM ferry from Hamer St. We brought our car with us onto the ferry mainly because my sister and brother-in-law aren't big drinkers and we all agreed that either one of them would be fine as the designated driver. It actually was really nice having our car, but I'm sure there are other options if you didn't want to do that (I will note that it would be tough to do this day without a reliable form of transportation). If you do bring a car though, be sure to book your ferry well in advance. We split our time on the 1 hr ferry ride enjoying the views of Auckland from the roof of the ferry and playing card games inside.
We got to our first winery Mudbrick at 10 AM, which sounds incredibly early but actually allowed us to get a really good spot before the tour buses started coming in one after another. They have various wine tasting experiences, and they also allow you to split your tasting. Harris and I split our tasting here since it was so early, so that's a good option for people who want to pace themselves throughout the day. I will say of the wineries we went to on this day, Mudbrick was our favorite by far. The views were incredible and we enjoyed walking around and exploring the property. In general, Waiheke Island was a cool experience for us Californians as our wineries are all inland and we're not used to having beautiful views of the water from the winery!
Before our second tasting, we explored Oneroa Beach and had lunch at Ki Maha. We had an early reservation which allowed us to get seated outside with gorgeous views of the beach ahead of us. Not only was the venue great, but the food at Ki Maha was really good too! I recommend their scallops, fresh tomatoes, and their daily fish.
Our next tasting was at Tantalus Estate which we got a reservation for in advance, but since it started to rain we mainly stayed indoors for this tasting. We did their reserve tasting which included some interesting red wines, and the ladies there did a really great job of guiding us through the tasting (and even gave us some bonus pours too). After our tasting, we made a brief stop at Onetangi Beach and then made our way to Batch Winery. We also had made a reservation ahead of time for Batch. Apparently they have the best views on the island, but there was a wedding that rented out a majority of the property so we weren't able to catch a glimpse of the famous views. My least favorite wine was we tasted was at Batch, but I'm sure it's still worth a stop for the great views (assuming there isn't a wedding!) - Harris did like the dessert wine he tried though. After this tasting, we went to our 5:15 PM reservation at The Oyster Inn. I would suggest trying to call in advance to get a table outside on their balcony, as it was pretty busy and we didn't have luck getting a table out there. I recommend everything we ordered: the foccacia, crudo, oysters, oyster rolls, salmon, and mac n cheese. After dinner, we got on the last ferry out at 7 PM which took us to Half Moon Bay (30 min drive from our hotel). If I were to go back, I would try to stay the night on Waiheke Island.
The next day we flew to South Island, or the "nature island", you can read more about that part of our trip in the next blogpost!
Love it ALL