Our Trip to New Zealand's North Island

Two weeks ago, my friend Molly and I came back from our 18-day trip in New Zealand's north island. We managed to make new friendships, try some exhilarating activities, and form memories and experiences that will stay with us for life.

Molly and I flew from Perth and landed in Auckland to begin our journey in New Zealand. It started off rocky with our flight being delayed, our shuttle taking 1.5hrs to drop us off, and struggling to find dinner since most food places were closed due to the floods from the previous days. It was strange being away from home with just two of us travelling together, as we had only been on family trips or in groups before. Nevertheless, we were excited for the adventure ahead of us.

Our second day was when things started to really pick up. We woke up early to start our day and decided to head to The Shelf for breakfast. From there we visited the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki which had a few interesting exhibitions to look at. We started making friends from the hostel we stayed at called Attic Backpackers and ended up going out with them to mini golf and the arcades. For dinner Molly and I went to an Italian restaurant called That's Amore and ordered a pizza to share. The pizza was amazing, and Molly will forever compare every pizza she eats to that one.

On our third day Molly, our new friends and I went to Escape Masters to do an escape room called the Gangster's Bar. Surprisingly we actually managed to escape it with a bit of teamwork. We did a bit more travelling around that day using the bus to take us around Auckland and luckily managed to take it back to the city after a few weather dilemmas. After returning to the central city Molly, our new friend Carson and I went out and got Indian for dinner from a place near our hostel. Molly and I were full of energy and later decided to head out to Island Gelato at 8:30pm because we were craving something sweet. On our way back to the hostel while attempting to sing karaoke badly we managed to see the Sky Tower light up.

Our fourth day ended up being pretty interesting, as we were heading out of Auckland and driving towards Hamilton. Our friend Carson and another one of his mates Seth ended up tagging along in the car with us down to Hamilton. We decided to stop at Te Waihou walkway and walk up to the Blue Springs since we there was not much to do in Hamilton itself. There was a little opening of water from the stream at the start of the walkway that you could swim in, so we decided to jump in and by jump in I mean walk extremely slowly into the water. The water was extremely cold, and I honestly could not feel my legs after a couple minutes, but it was so beautiful that I tried to ignore the feeling of my soul slowly leaving my body. The walk up to Blue Springs was not bad and the weather helped cool us down a bit as we walked along the track. Fun fact about the north island is there are cows absolutely everywhere you look.

On our second day in Hamilton Molly and I woke up early and headed to the Waitomo and Ruakuri glow worm caves. The caves were both amazing however the Waitomo Cave showcased more of the glow worms and had a boat tour in the caves which made it a more magical experience. In the afternoon we decided to head through to Hobbiton, as it is basically a must do item for any LOTR fan visiting New Zealand. We were taken on a tour through the areas where they shot some of the village scenes and were given behind the set information on the amount of effort that was put into creating the scenes.

The following morning, we visited the Hamilton gardens which was a nice activity that luckily for our budget happened to be free. We got to walk around all the different garden exhibitions that they had set up such as the Japanese Garden, Indian garden, and Renaissance Garden. From there we headed to Lake Taupō where we stayed at Lakeland Resort Taupō. We decided to go to Wairekei Terraces and Thermal Health Spa which is essentially a bunch of hot spring pools that range up to 40°C. It was a relaxing experience other than being too short to stand in the deep end with the rest of the adults and drowning whenever I was not on my tippy toes. Despite that I honestly did not want to get out of the water and was utterly devasted when we decided to leave.

Our second day in Taupō was really enjoyable as Molly and I decided to go do bungy jumping at AJ Hackett bungy over the Waikato River. The whole experience was exhilarating however, for the price and the length of the experience I would say it is good to only do it once unless you find a location you really want to repeat it at. We saw a McDonalds that had an airplane attached to it, that you could dine in which was cool although it did obviously reek of fast food. We also decided to go on an Ernest Kemp boat cruise over Lake Taupō to see the Māori rock carvings.

Our next stop was in Rotorua where we stayed at VR Rotorua Lake Resort in a room overlooking the lake. We did a small hike up Tukea Falls into a little cave and decided to head to Polynesian spa which was another thermal hot spring spa. Our noses however could not ignore the egg smell coming from the pools as a result of the high Sulphur levels, so we did not stay very long. The Redwood Tree walk at night time is definitely an experience I recommend to everyone however, make sure to line up early as the line does get very long so it is best not to leave it till last minute. We got to walk high up among the trees while lanterns were scattered through the forest lighting up the way. Some immature grown children (Molly and Carson) decided to jump and make the bridges shake between crossing over as well.

We attempted to do as much of the Tarawera trail on our second day in Rotorua however the full track was 10 hours there and back and we were a bit pressed for time, so we only did a small bit of it. The view along the hike was amazing though and kind of gave me the feeling of being in a tropical rainforest. Our overall favourite experience in Rotorua however was the Skyline Luge rides. We got the 5 ride deal and ended up having so much fun racing down the different tracks as fast as we could, although my phone might beg to differ having gotten into an accident.

Our drive to Tauranga was on Molly's birthday so we made sure she got to choose a nice breakfast spot before we headed to Mount Maunganui to swim. The water was definitely colder than in Perth, but we managed to still get in and swim around for a while. Molly and I decided to stop at an ice-cream spot called Monte Gelato and we treated ourselves to a hot fudge brownie with ice-cream which ended up being absolutely delicious. In Tauranga we decided to stay at the Wanderlust hostel which happened to be quite a great place to stay due to the location and the accommodation itself.

Our second day in Tauranga was pretty relaxed since we decided to go swimming near Mount Maunganui again and then got waffles afterwards at the Polar Dessert Bar. We ended up not finishing our waffles, so we put it in the hostel fridge. Rumour has it they are still in the Wanderlust fridge to this day. We decided to cook our own dinner that night in the hostel kitchen to the best of our ability and luckily the food was edible. My favourite experience from Tauranga happened that night when we decided to go to Crown and Badger which was a pub with a live band playing. There was a little stage where people could dance next to the band and we all decided to head up and dance since we knew most of the songs. When "Down Under" came on Molly and I sang our lungs since it is the an iconic Aussie song.

The next 2 days we weren't able to do much since the cyclone warnings had closed everything and the weather was a bit wet, so we mainly stayed inside playing games and headed out when the rain cleared. We did however happen to finally visit the Auckland Sky Tower which we did not have time to do previously at the start of our trip in Auckland.

We flew from Auckland to Wellington and managed to stay in a really nice room at Oaks Wellington Hotel which was located directly in the city. I got a few tattoos while we stayed in Wellington and ended up feeling like a whole new person by the end of it. We went to the Wellington Museum and also took the Wellington Cable Car to the top of the hill where we explored the area for a bit. We did a trivia night at one of the bars and managed to win something even though we did not do very well since most questions were about New Zealand. On our last night in Wellington, we decided we would go out and celebrate so we walked around to a few different bars and clubs and danced in all the different places to iconic 90’s and 2000’s hits.

Heading home was difficult as we still longed to see more of New Zealand, and it was not easy leaving behind the memories we made and the people we met along the way. We have however decided that we will in fact be heading back to explore more at the end of the year which will be quite an exciting journey to return to. As with all the other trips make sure to head to the Gallery of Completed Goals to see the album for this trip.