World Country Guide

North Island

Auckland is the country’s largest urban and suburban area with a population of over 1.5 million. Even so, it is surrounded by varied and exquisite scenery with attractive harbours and beaches to the east and the rugged Waitakere Ranges, the thundering, undeveloped surf beaches and burgeoning vineyards to the west. Known as the ‘City of Sails’, with more boats per capita than any other city in the world, these days Auckland’s reputation as a sailor’s Mecca is cemented by repeated successful defences of the America’s Cup. The city offers excellent shopping, galleries and museums; it has a university and provides a multicultural environment characterised by a blend of European, Asian and Polynesian cultures, particularly on the busy and atmospheric Karangahape Road. There is also the distinctive Sky Tower, a casino with a glorious circular, glass viewing gallery at its bulbous summit. The views of the city, its beaches and the mountains, the coast and sea beyond are stunning. It is also possible for the particularly brave tourist to abseil down the side of the building to the street, a drop of over 100m (328ft).
An exploration of at least one of the stunning golden-sand islands of the Hauraki Gulf, accessible by ferries from Waitamata Harbour and also visible from the Sky Tower, is highly recommended. Most of the city centre is walkable but the outlying suburbs of Devonport, Herne Bay, Parnell and Ponsonby (with their attractive eateries and well-reputed fashion industry) are brought within easy reach by a reliable public bus network and taxi system.
The narrow, predominantly Maori stronghold of Northland, the ‘Winterless North’ pushes out 350km (217 miles) from Auckland and separates the Pacific Ocean from the Tasman Sea. It provides the sub-tropical element in the New Zealand equation and is famed for its palms, citrus fruit, avocados, bananas and myriad gorgeous, sandy unspoiled beaches. It also gives tourists the opportunity to begin to understand Maori culture, art and history. On the east coast, the beaches exist between straggling peninsulas and headlands, offering calm bays that are safe for swimming. Perhaps the most famous area is the Bay of Islands, intricately sculpted and renowned for excellent diving, boating/sailing and game fishing. The west coast offers enormous dune-backed black-sand beaches that are lashed almost constantly by Tasman breakers, rip tides and biting winds (there is no safe swimming here). The views are fantastic and, just inland, the forests of the Northland Forest Park, contain some of the world’s oldest trees, including the famous kauri, many of which date back centuries. Cape Karikari, overlooking Doubtless Bay was one of the locations for films such as From Here to Eternity and The Piano, and offers access to wide, rugged, moody beaches surrounded by steep hills and cliffs, while Cape Reinga overlooks the spectacular meeting of the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea and the narrow extension of Ninety-mile Beach down the west coast back toward Auckland.
A spectacular coastal road runs parallel with the intricate filigree of small inlets and beaches around the Coromandel Peninsula and the long sweeping bays of the east coast. The journey begins with the ferry from Auckland to Coromandel, where the road weaves along the side of the peninsula’s tiny, sun-trap inlets before opening out on the long run down from Hot Water Beach towards Tauranga. The warm water bubbles from beneath the sands overlooking the surf providing a perfect spot from which to watch the tide come in at sunset from your own personally dug hot pool.
The volcanic hills of the Coromandel Peninsula retain much of their original rainforest and the Coromandel Forest Park Reserve contains large numbers of giant kauri trees which are famous for their tall straight trunks.
A popular holiday destination in the Bay of Plenty is Tauranga, with all the amenities of a major tourist city including all levels of accommodation and some wonderful restaurants. The climate here is essentially benign and the sandy beaches attract many visitors while inland there is an abundance of orchards, particularly citrus and kiwi fruit. In Poverty Bay lies the city of Gisborne, which sits adjacent to Hawke’s Bay, a wine growing region of international renown. Around 70 wineries (ranging from large commercial estates to small boutiques) are open for free wine tasting. This area is best known for its red wines, particularly Pinot Noir. The reason for the wonderful wine is the high annual sunshine hours which benefit the grapes and visiting tourists to both Hastings and Napier. Napier was razed by an earthquake in 1931 and subsequently rebuilt in the art deco style of the time. Today it boasts one of the world’s finest collections of lovingly preserved art deco buildings.
Inland, between Hawke’s Bay and the Bay of Plenty, is the UNESCO-listed Te Urewera National Park, the largest native forest on the North Island and home of the lovely Lake Waikaremoana, 585m (1919ft) above sea level, with its strenuous but rewarding (three to four day) circular trail.
The centre of the North Island is dominated by the geothermal city of Rotorua, the extraordinarily picturesque Lake Taupo and the UNESCO-listed Tongariro National Park. The park is a spectacular mountain area dominated by three peaks, Ngauruhoe, Tongariro and, the tallest, Mount Ruapehu 2797m (9177ft), still an active volcano, and a major ski resort. When Ruapehu erupted in 1996, many people took the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ski the slopes of a live volcano. Lake Taupo presents the less adventurous with an opportunity to enjoy unrivalled brown-trout fishing and a serene expanse of water fed by glacial streams and rivers. Rotorua is a good base for exploring the geysers and the large thermal zone of the North Island. It is a lively city full of all the usual tourist prerequisites and has the distinctive sulphurous smell of the surrounding boiling-mud pools. Rotorua is also a major centre for accessible Maori culture – there is an arts centre where young Maori learn the skills of traditional bone, wood and greenstone carving. There is also the opportunity to visit a Marae (a Maori meeting house usually forbidden to pakeha, foreigners) and enjoy a concert of traditional songs, the haka (a Maori challenge usually witnessed before All Black rugby matches) and a hangi (a delicious feast cooked in an earth oven).
Another area dominated by Maori culture and history which along with Northland provides the best opportunity to pick up authentic souvenirs. This is an atmospheric area with black-sand beaches, rich farm land, natural kaarst limestone architecture, national parks and a spectacular extinct volcano, Taranaki. Perhaps one of the most magical areas is the famous water-sculptured limestone caves of Waitamo with their glow-worm grottoes. The caves can be explored by punt or by donning a wet-suit and heading underground with an inflated car tyre. This unique New Zealand activity is called ‘cave rafting’ and provides an opportunity to float through the caverns staring at unusual rock formations and ceilings packed with glow worms, that resemble a star-strewn night sky.
Wanganui, on the west coast of the North Island, lies near the mouth of the Whanganui River, New Zealand’s longest navigable waterway. Visitors can travel upriver by jetboat or paddle steamer and downriver by kayak or canoe. The UNESCO World Heritage Site Whanganui National Park is a green vision of unspoiled native bush where there remains the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’, a relic of the failed attempt at settlement in the glorious wilderness.
The Egmont National Park is also a UNESCO-listed World Heritage area, and provides an excellent though strenuous opportunity, even for the less adventurous, to climb a mountain (Taranaki) in a little over eight hours (return). Mount Taranaki, at the centre of the national park, is an extinct volcano standing majestically amidst flat areas of lush green dairy farmland. The city of New Plymouth (population 50,000) is well known for its parks and gardens and, in particular, its colourful display of rhododendrons and azaleas in the spring.
In the south of the North Island, Wellington, New Zealand’s capital, occupies the flat area surrounding the harbour basin and climbs the surrounding steep hillsides overlooking the water. This makes it a compact metropolis with a thriving and lively heart. The city is a centre of culture, arts, restaurants, theatre, fashion and nightlife. Shopping facilities are excellent and hotels offer splendid views of the bay. Every two years, Wellington hosts the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts, the country’s main cultural event including street theatre, comedy, music and film festivals, all going under the same umbrella. The spectacular Te Papa Museum of New Zealand, on the city’s pretty waterfront, combines cultural and historical exhibitions with education, entertainment and leisure activities, including a virtual bungy jump. Wellington is also the departure point for ferries across Cook Strait to the South Island.
Popular destinations for excursions from Wellington include the Wairarapa wine region, Cape Palliser (whose wild coastline provides a habitat for a large colony of seals) and Kapiti Island, home to a bird sanctuary free of introduced predators where weka, bellbird and tui, to name but a few, show little or no fear and provide photo opportunities of fantastic quality.