You would think 3 trips to New Zealand would be enough to feel like you had seen it all.

Nope.

On those three trips, we kept to tight loops – one on North Island, two on South Island.  This left plenty of country left to see on the far ends of each island.  The inspiration for our trip.  It did require two days of domestic air travel and three one-way car rentals.  It wouldn’t be a trip I would suggest for a first-time visit.

On previous trips, we self-catered.  This trip was no different.  Much of our accommodation was privately owned baches (cottages). Would I do it again? Absolutely! It was a very positive experience, great value for money, we had above average facilities to cook, and the places were awesome! We made sure that linen and cleaning was included or available at an agreeable additional charge. It is a bit more back and forth with emails to the hosts. Some would accept online credit card payment, some wanted money wired, some would accept cash when we got there.  Our average for accommodation was less than $150 per night (about $112 USD).

Auckland at sunrise, View from plane

February 10

Skytower

We started our drive from Auckland in our almost brand-new Toyota Corolla from Avis fairly early. A bit of cloud cover and plenty of traffic just trying to get on the motorway. Once on SH1, things went much smoother. We were approaching the Harbour Bridge and Fred quickly hands me his iPhone and ask me to take a picture. So I snapped away at the road ahead. No – he wanted a picture of Sky Tower!   Which was now behind us and I struggled to snap photos between passing vehicles.

It had been over an hour on the road and I suggested we stop at Warkworth for a cup of coffee. We parked the car and headed down an alleyway to the main street of town. I had made two notes of coffee places there and we couldn’t find either one of them. How big can Warkworth be? So we started walking up the hill and spotted Chocolate Browns across the street.

I really only marked this as a coffee stop and not for chocolate. What chocolate shop is going to be open before lunch? We ordered two Long Blacks (which I mis-ordered as Tall Blacks and completely confused the server) and enjoyed the sunshine, which had just come out. Then we ventured through the doors to a beautifully laid-out chocolate shop.  Seemed like a great way to start the trip!

Mangawhai Beach

View from Mangawhai Clifftop Walk

We continued north and veered off the motorway to head to a coastal walk I had read about at Mangawhai: Mangawhai Clifftop Walk.  We started from the parking area for the Mangwhai Head Surf Lifesaving Club. You have to walk north on the beach for about 20 minutes before you see the green DOC sign indicating the track up the hill. Looking north from the parking lot, it looked like the beach ended at a rocky point that was impassable. We took the chance and as you got closer to the point, the ocean didn’t look as menacing. So we continued on and found the track’s starting point.

Rocks and island off Mangawhai Beach

From there, the track went up the hill with lots of steps. (Lots of steps seemed to be common on this trip, stay tuned.)  Since it was high tide, we had to do the track as an out-and-back. At low tide it can be done as a loop by walking the shoreline back. A nice series of geocaches were along the top track, egging us on to go a bit further. We retrieved 9 geocaches in all.

Traveling back to the town of Mangawhai, we stopped at Bennett’s Chocolates of Mangawhai. Another very nicely laid out chocolate shop. It seemed to be a popular stop. It had an associated café where we purchased a sandwich.  Back to the motorway we went and continued to Whangarei.
Just before entering the city of Whangerei, we stopped at Longview Estate Wines. We did like the Malbec/Merlot they had. But the rest of the wine selection and general experience was so-so. We told the girl neither one of us liked sweet white wines but she was so adamant that we try their signature “White Diamonds” wine. It tasted like drinking perfume. From what I gather, they produce this every year, so it must have its fans. The tasting room lacked atmosphere and is in need of some major updating. We’ve had such great experiences with wineries in New Zealand; this was a disappointment.

Whangarei is probably the only real city in Northland.  It has New Zealand’s only oil refinery and is a port city.  We drove further on, to what is known as Whangarei Heads for our accommodation for the next two nights.  We arrived in the village of Parua Bay and I had very detailed directions from the owner of the bach I had rented. After going down a very narrow dirt driveway, our little house appeared. When Fred saw it, he was impressed. I think the first thing he said was, “Is that all for us?” This really was a great place. If I were building a vacation house for ourselves, this would be it. It’s very secluded, light and airy, had loft ceilings, and a great kitchen. In some ways, it felt like a treehouse. The bar was set high for future accommodation!

The Brown House

Our kitchen in the Brown House

February 11

Mount Manaia, view from carpark

I told Fred we had a hill to climb, a waterfall to see, and caves to explore. Then I gave him the option of which to do first. He wanted to get the hill climbing out of the way. The Mangawhai Clifftop Walk was a quite a workout and I teased him that it was only the warm-up.

Steps at Mount Manaia

Volcanic formation, Mount Manaia

The terrain of Whangarei Heads was formed by volcanic activity.  Hills are steep and have unusual exposed volcanic rock formations at the top.
Up until 2011, Mount Manaia was an unimproved track and you had to scramble over rocks and tree roots to make it to the top. DOC has done a superb job of creating steps in the hillside, making this accessible to many more than the extremely fit. But it’s still over 400 meters high and there are 1000’s of steps. 1000’s, literally 1000’s of steps. I can’t imagine the number of man-hours DOC put into building them. Let alone how much effort it took to get all that gravel and lumber to the top by foot. You had glimpses of the harbour and refinery in the beginning and I’ve kind of blocked out what lay in between. But at the top is a platform and a 360 degree view of this beautiful area!

After taking in the view and chatting with a couple of backpackers, we decided against tracking down the geocache that took a bit of rock climbing to retrieve and headed down.  The descent was almost as difficult as the climb. When I would stop, my legs were shaking. So were Fred’s. He had brought his full pack of camera gear.   On future hikes, he became a bit more selective.

Once safely back at our car, we drove to Whangarei Falls. There’s a nice loop to view the falls and return to the carpark. We’ve seen a lot of waterfalls in New Zealand, but this was the first time we saw one with a city park built around it. There were manicured lawns and paved walkways. It felt like Golden Gate Park. It was a bit of a disappointment to me to have something so naturally beautiful in such sterile surroundings.

Whangarei Falls

At Abbey Caves, we gathered our headlamps and extra batteries.  There are three caves here.  After walking through field, we came to the first, Organ Cave.  It was a very steep descent and you wade through water.  There was a group of three people coming the other way, only one had a headlamp.  There were lots of interesting formations and glow worms were overhead.  But once the water got thigh-high and we couldn’t see the bottom, we decided to head out.

The next cave was Middle Cave.  It was reported to be a through cave, unlike Organ Cave.  It was steep with large rocks to navigate at the entrance.  Another couple was ahead of us and suggested we go ahead of them. They only had one torch and the batteries had died! So we offered them some batteries so they wouldn’t be heading into the cave completely blind! (Do these folks not prepare?) As it happened, we arrived at an area we couldn’t figure out how to navigate. There was an opening to the outside world above, but it seemed too steep of a climb. We let the other couple pass, and they went down and across and we never saw them again. So we stumbled and crouched and figured out how to get through and out the other end.

Along the Mount Manaia Track

There was one last cave, Ivy Cave, and by the time we reached the opening and saw it was steep and rocky, we decided we had had enough of an adventure for the day. So we took the track through the pasture out of the area and back to our car.

February 12

View north, from Tutukaka Lighthouse

View south, from Tutukaka Lighthouse

We packed up our belongings and said goodbye to our little house. Low tide was at 8am and our destination was the lighthouse at Tutukaka.  You have to do this hike at half tide or lower. There’s an isthmus to cross to the “island” the lighthouse is located on and it’s underwater at high tide.

The weather was a bit windy and seemed on the verge of rain any moment. We made a dry crossing of the isthmus and hiked around the island to the lighthouse area. It’s not a photogenic lighthouse but the views from there are outstanding. The sun shone on us and there was no wind!

Gray skies at Tutukaka

When we returned to the isthmus, there was a group of three ladies, contemplating if they had enough tide left to make it to the lighthouse. As we were talking to them, it started raining and I think that made the decision for them. We got back to the car and drove up to Matapouri.

View at Whale Bay

There are several options for walks around the peninsula at Matapouri.  The weather was so dreary, we opted to do the short walk to Whale Bay instead. If it should start raining, we wouldn’t be far from the car. Whale Bay was an easy walk and a very nice beach. It was protected from the ocean (no waves) and seemed like it would be a great place to take young children. We watched in amusement as a seagull seemed to do a dance as he churned up the sand looking for food.

Kawakawa Toilets

Our next stop was the Kawakawa toilets. If you are like Fred, by now you are wondering why we would plan a stop at some town’s toilets if there were no need. Just do it, trust me. Seems that Frederick Hundertwasser was an artist from Austria who made the area his second home. The town commissioned him to design the public toilets and the entire community pitched in to help. The result is highly unique. The entire town got into the spirit of the design and even public benches and streetlamps are works of art.

Mahoe Cheese

So now we came to Fred’s favorite part of the day – tasting! First up was Mahoe Cheese. It was located off the main road on a gravel road and not really part of any town, just off to itself. You drive through a real farm to get to the small building where they operate the cheese shop. The gentleman there was very helpful and allowed us to taste a few cheeses.

Marsden Estate Winery

Further up the road and opposite the turnoff to Kerikeri, was Marsden Estate Winery. This was a really nice wine tasting experience – a far cry from our first day.  The wine was excellent and we had fun talking to a couple of Canadians, exchanging stories about our New Zealand travels.

Then we drove to the other side of the motorway and stopped at Makana Chocolates! (If you are counting, this is our third chocolate shop.)  We had visited Makana in Blenheim, South Island, in a previous trip and knew what to expect. This shop is set up in the same way. You can see the chocolate being made through a wall of windows and they give out samples! We purchased a box of toffee and a box of truffles.

St. Paul’s Rock

We continued north to the town of Whangaroa and found a place to park close to the St. Paul’s Rock Track. St. Paul’s Rock is the eroded core of an ancient volcano.   You can drive halfway up the hill before you need to get out and walk. At the very end is a short section of chain you will want to hang onto as you climb the bare rock. The payoff is a 360 degree view at the top.

We headed back to the car and down the hill to our accommodation at Whangaroa Lodge Motel.

View of harbor from Whangaroa Lodge Motel

The Adventure Continues>>>