During our first two weeks in New Zealand, we road tripped all around the North and South Islands of the country. This gave us a fantastic opportunity to see a lot of the country in a short amount of time. Below I outline where we stopped on our first New Zealand road trip and what we did along the way.
North Island
Auckland (Point A on the map)
When we first arrived in New Zealand at the Auckland airport, we grabbed our bags and got a taxi so that we could go pick up our campervan rental, which we found on this NZ website where locals rent out their campervans. We actually skipped our connecting flight to Queenstown in order to buy our own campervan, since Auckland had a larger selection to choose from.
On our first night, we drove an hour and a half to the coast, where we stayed at Hamilton’s Gap in our campervan rental. It was sooo beautiful!
Our first week was spent mostly figuring out van life and then driving around searching for our new home. We didn’t really do much else in Auckland (big lame city, whatever), but we did hike a small volcano crater that towered over the city. (There are 53 such volcanic remnants in Auckland, many of them grassy hills with old craters at the top!)
Taupo and Rotorua (Points B and C)
After buying a van, we really started our first New Zealand road trip. We headed first to Rotorua and Taupo – the land of rushing rivers, beautiful lakes, tropical rainforests and the heart of all volcanic activity in New Zealand. We absolutely LOVED this area and are planning on spending more time here in the summer.
We visited the many active rivers and waterfalls in the area, one of which was the Kaituna River – home to the largest commercially rafted waterfall in the world.
We also explored a forest of California Redwoods and Sequoias in Whakarewarewa Forest. At first we were super surprised by the presence of these trees, as they are native to California, but then we learned that this forest was planted as a commercial experiment in the early 1900s. Now, they are legally protected within the forest preserve.
I’ve never seen the California Redwoods before – only the Sequioas – so this was super special. We did a short hike and it was honestly so majestic.
We couldn’t leave Taupo without going to see one of the many geothermal features in the area, such as geysers, natural hot springs, bubbling mud pools, volcanic craters and geothermal vents. We decided to go on a geothermal walk that brought us through a maze of steaming cracks in the earth, hot bubbly mud pools, and some old volcanic craters.
Wellington (Point D)
We did not spend much time in Wellington, but it seemed like any other cool city. Our main highlights were getting some very! delicious fish and chips from a seafood market in the city and taking the ferry from Wellington to Picton. This ferry is the only way of transportation between the North and South Islands if you are traveling by car. It takes about 3.5 hours, and onboard there are restaurants, a bar, and even a movie theatre. We found seats by the windows so we could have a view of us departing from Wellington.
South Island
Kaikoura (Point F)
Our ferry brought us to Picton (Point E), the port town on the South Island where ferries depart to and return from Wellington. It was dark when we arrived, so I can’t say much about the town. We drove south and found a place to camp for the night before continuing our journey the next day.
Going to Kaikoura was more or less an accident. During our road trip, we were kind of deciding where to go as we traveled; one of us would drive the van and the other would look up cool places we might want to stop. In the car one day while Niko was driving, I happened to see a post from Conde Nast Traveler on Instagram called “The 50 Most Beautiful Small Towns in the World.” I watched the video to see if any were from New Zealand. The only one listed was Kaikoura. I looked it up on Google, and it seemed to be pretty close to our route so we decided to stop there. We were surprisingly delighted. There were wild seals everywhere, gorgeous cliffside coasts, tide pools, and huge mountains towering over the sea. We even went to a little shack that sold fresh crayfish (a local specialty), which we ate just before sunset while sitting next to the shore.
Arthur’s Pass (Point G)
After Kaikoura, we refueled in the Christchurch area and then headed to Arthur’s Pass – which is apparently one of the most scenic drives in all of New Zealand. There were some really pretty mountain views throughout, and supposedly some cave and waterfall hikes. There is also an alpine parrot (the only one in the world) called a kea that lives here. Unfortunately it rained the entire night and day we spent up there, so we didn’t do much except drive. We sadly didn’t see any keas either. We will for sure be returning in the summertime!
West Coast of the South Island (Kumara to Haast) (Point H and halfway to Point I)
Once we finished traversing Arthur’s Pass, we arrived on the west coast of the Southern Island. We drove from Kumara to Haast following the coastline, until we turned east into Mount Aspiring National Park. It rained the entire time we spent over here, so we spent less time than we might have otherwise. From what we saw, this part of the South Island is incredibly remote – with tiny towns dotting the coast and very few facilities outside of the tourist towns (which seemed to be sleepy at that time and must be busier only in the summer months).
One highlight along this section was Hokitika. There, we finally got to see real life glow worms (bioluminescent larvae that glow like blue glitter in caves and other dark, moist places around New Zealand). There is one small cave-like area on a trail that is just off the road in Hokitika, which is where we saw them. I’ve always wanted to see bioluminescence in nature, so they were sooooo cool to see!!
While Hokitika is right on the western coast, we drove a little bit inland to visit Hokitika Gorge, where we walked along a trail in light rain through tropical rainforest and over a wooden bridge.
While we were at the gorge, we also met one of the many types of flightless birds that are endemic to New Zealand. The one we met is called a “weka.”
Another cool part about this coast is that it’s home to a few glaciers. Tourists can take helicopter or trekking tours to see the glaciers. We want to save that for the summer time when the weather is better, but we did get to see some right from the road.
Mount Aspiring National Park (Just after Haast on the map)
We drove through the entirety of Mount Aspiring National Park, which at the time was a misty haven of tropical forest. We saw dozens of waterfalls, and if it hadn’t been cold and rainy, I imagine is bursting with plentiful hikes and river activities.
Wanaka and Queenstown (Points I and J)
Once we passed through the gorgeous Mount Aspiring National Park, we finally made our way to the Queenstown-Lakes area. First we passed through Wanaka – an adorable little mountain town, and then we drove an hour down steep mountain passes towards Queenstown. On the way, we passed by some stunning lake and mountain vistas.
This last picture was our final epic view before making the (very steep!) descent into Queenstown. When we finally made it, we were absolutely blown away by Queenstown’s beauty.
Mountains everywhere! A bustling downtown! A gorgeous lakefront! Alas, we finally made it to our final destination of Queenstown. Our first New Zealand road trip in our new van was absolutely amazing, and we can’t wait to do more in the future. After seeing a good chunk of beautiful New Zealand in about 2 weeks, we settled into Queenstown for the winter. More road trips TBD. 🙂
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