Travel Forum / Destinations / Australia and NZ / July 2008

Well, you've all said you are sick of spammers and idiots, so cut your teeth
on this serious question ...

We are planning to go to North Island, NZ, for 3-4 weeks in November for a
fly-drive holiday staying in motels or B&Bs, hoping to be gone before the
school holidays start (when exactly is that?)

We are a middle-aged Australian couple and we have been to NZ a few times
before for a mixture of work/play, but mostly to the South Island, although
we have previously visited Auckland, Rotorua and Wellington for a couple of
days each (and driven through but not really explored places between them).
So, we figure this trip should focus on exploring the North Island. We are
happy to revisit Auckland etc but hoping to see different things rather than
the "big name" tourist attractions that we've previously visited.

To provide some context about us ...We are of ordinary fitness, so not
looking for arduous tramping (short ones are OK especially if rewarded by
fabulous scenery) or engaging in extreme sports (although I guess we'd be
happy to watch others risk their lives!). Our interests are otherwise fairly
eclectic, keen to see fabulous scenery, interested in food and wine,
interested in history and culture and art and architecture. Not really into
shopping, but generally willing to visit markets especially with regional
produce or locally-made crafts (spare us from the tourist traps with tacky
made-in-China souvenirs). We're not particularly constrained by budget, but
equally not keen to be ripped off. We don't mind using the services of local
tour operators for day trips in preference to driving ourselves around an
area if the experience would be better that way (better information, doing
wine tasting so there's no drink driving issue, access to places
inaccessible to independent tourists, etc), but otherwise prefer to be
independent. We aren't planning on self-catering (maybe some bread/cereal
for a quick breakfast occasionally) so would tend to prefer to stay in towns
or facilities able to provide us with decent coffee and some choice of
cafes/restaurants for our meals. We are rather partial to NZ films,  by
which I mean ones like Smash Palace, Goodbye Pork Pie, World's Fastest
Indian etc rather than Lord of the Rings (not that there was anything wrong
with LOTR), so if you know of any North Island places that featured in any
NZ films, that would interest us.

I've looked at a few NZ tourism WWW sites for some itinerary suggestions but
for North Island nobody seems to think you might want to spend more than a
week there and so the typical itinerary seems to take in the fairly obvious
places (Auckland, Bay of Islands, Rotorua, Lake Taupo, Wellington). Is this
some kind of hint that there is nothing else worth bothering with? I hope
not as we could spend up to 4 weeks if there was enough to see to make it
worthwhile.

So, I'd like any serious thoughts on anything you'd recommend in North
Island and why. Also any thoughts on an itinerary (we are not particularly
concerned about driving long distances but prefer not to retrace our steps
if there's an alternate route that will take in different scenery). We
usually travel with one or more guide books (usually at least a Lonely
Planet), road atlases, etc, so we aren't asking for details (except for
things that won't make the guide books) but more on ideas. But if you have
any suggestions for particularly good guidebooks or other resources for
planning the trip, feel free to mention them.

I'd vaguely thought of doing a "Goodbye Pork Pie" holiday retracing the
route of the film, but much of the film was in South Island so I don't think
that's really going to work out as a basis for the itinerary. As we will
most likely fly to/from Auckland, we may spend a few days there without a
rental car at the start or end of the trip and I was vaguely wondering about
spending a few days on some of the islands just off Auckland. Any
recommendations/advice on those?

Kerry