I’m lucky enough to have been to New Zealand twice and so I thought it was only fair I shared some of my favourite spots of the North Island!
Wellington
If you’re heading across the water between the North and South Islands, at some point you’ve got to pass through Wellington and that’s great because I recommend taking a couple days here to explore the city!
I’ll definitely have to do a much bigger what to do in Wellington, but for now the highlights are The Te Papa Museum, all the delicious food spots, Cuba Street, Welling Cable Car and Mount Victoria Lookout.
Hamilton Botanical Gardens
Hamilton is a lovely town with lots to offer, but my favourite part are the botanical gardens. The gardens feature different styles from traditional Mâori elements to Chinese or Indian influence style designs and more.
Heading to the gardens early is definitely recommended, it can get quite busy as it lovely place to visit and its free!!
I could spend hours in the garden, I found them so relaxing and they were even better the second time round. If you get a chance to visit Hamilton, it’s definitely worth a stop.
Tongariro Alpine Crossing
An absolute essential part of a trip to New Zealand! If you are fancying taking on a challenge then completing the Tongariro Alpine Crossing is the one. The trek is around 19km and is regarded as the best one-day trek in New Zealand and in the top 10 best one-day trek’s in the world!
To complete the walk itself, you will need to park at the end of the hike (Ketetahi Car Park) and have pre-booked a ticket for the shuttle bus & for this car park. I have used Tongariro Crossing Shuttles and Tongariro Expeditions. Both are good, and offer an early start time which are better for getting on with the trek as you want to be back before it’s dark. Both times I have been on the 7:15am bus and this has had us completing the trek in the late afternoon. The shuttle bus will take you to the start of the trek, and then you complete the hike by walking back across the volcano and valleys to the car park.
I do strongly recommend the trek, but please do pay attention to the weather and your own abilities. There are points that you can climb to which allow you to see the volcano (Mount Tongariro) on fairly flat ground, before turning back to the start and of course, if the weather worsens, don’t power on.
Volcanic Loop Highway
This highway is a huge loop that can be done on the North Island, but the favourite bit of mine is round the Tongariro National Park. The highways right around the park are 4, 47, 46, 49 and 1. If you follow these around, you can see the the volcano and the other peaks from every single side. The part of highway 1 is actually called Desert Road and it offers some of the most impressive scenic driving that we had seen, I’d absolutely recommend completing at least this part of the route. Take your time here to stop off at the lookouts and viewpoints to see it all. I really enjoyed driving this part of the loop and look forward to returning to redo this part of the highway.
Wakapapa Campsite in Tongariro National Park Village
I think Wakapapa was my favourite campsite of the North Island. It was a beautiful location; set up high in the Tongariro National Park, with views of snowy capped mountains and the volcano. It’s actually situated just behind a hotel that is popular for skier’s in the winter months, so it’s a good area to visit even if you’re not visiting in the summer.
The campsite itself was really lovely. All the pitches were private, surrounded by trees with picnic benches and the communal kitchen and shower facilities were really clean and well maintained too. The WiFi was probably the best campsite WiFi we had in our whole time in New Zealand too.
The views were just the most impressive and it was such a lovely relaxing spot with loads of trails starting around the site. We had a wander but didn’t complete an actual trail, so next time we will be including enough time to stay here for at least 2 nights and completing some of the trails.
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