We got our car super early in the morning, then drove straight to Muriwai Beach (one hour drive) on the west coast for some horseback riding on the beach! The ride started in the woods, then went down to the beach, and looped around back through the woods. We mostly walked with the opportunity to ride faster if we wanted! The beach was all walking. The ride was roughly two hours, and our group consisted of maybe ten people. We definitely enjoyed ourselves, but being two experienced riders we would have liked something more challenging!
After our ride we spent some time on the beach, then drove back to Auckland to pick up a third friend at the airport. We made a spontaneous detour and hike to Fairy Falls on the way!
After picking up our friend we headed over to the University where my friend let us crash on her couches. All of that in one day! The next day we drove to the Coromandel Peninsula where we took a wrong turn (you will notice a theme with my travels...) resulting in a TWO HOUR detour. Oops. Well the peninsula is absolutely stunning, I would highly recommend visiting. It's roughly 2.5 hours east without weird detours from the city. We hiked the 45 minutes into Cathedral Cove and ended up spending the night there on the beach! I slept on a rock (pictured below). Somehow that was more comfortable for me than the sand? I don't know.
Cathedral Cove is a filming location for Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian! The photo above has the Narnia scene on top with us on bottom.
My rock.
The next morning we woke up to the most stunning sunrise I've ever seen.
The next day we hung around the beach and nearby town before driving the 2.5 hours down to Matamata (wher Hobbiton is) in the evening. We were CHEAP as can be so we chose to park at a park and sleep in our car. Please note there were three of us trying to sleep in a car that fits into the "compact" category. Also the other two girls I traveled with were 5'8" and taller!! So that was an awful night's sleep.
We had nothing to do in the morning, so we just came to Hobbiton early and they put us on an earlier tour. We were all in charter busses, and they drive your through the farmer's sheep farm on the way to the movie set. They found the farm while doing an aerial search, and he allowed them to build on his land. They did not, however, use his sheep because the director didn't like their look. He had sheep imported from America to take their places hahaha! Well anyway we had a really nice tour of the movie set (44 hobbit holes?) and took some great pictures, then at the end we all got a free drink from the Green Dragon! I got a cider. The beer and cider served there are unique, they're not sold anywhere else! We paid roughly $80 for the tour which was two hours long.
The iconic "no admittance" sign and hobbit hole!
They had a couple hobbit holes you could walk in and around, most were just decorative!
After Hobbiton we drove the 40 minutes to Hamilton and I sprung for a hotel (hostel were all sold out). I'm just not built for sleeping in cars.
The next morning we left Hamilton for Waitomo (1.5 hours) and did the Waitomo glowworm caves. This tour is pretty awesome, you get to see a network of caves before getting in boats and floating through the glowworms. In the boats you can't take photo or video because the lights disturb the glowworms, and you also can't make any noise! Even the guides pull themselves along rather than paddle to keep the silence! We paid something like $60 each just for the glowworm cave and cave network attached. We thought it was a very cool experience but perhaps a bit overpriced. From here we drove the 2.25 hours to Rotorua which is kind of the Yellowstone of New Zealand. I paid for a hostel here (I think I did YHA Rotorua) which was very hotel meets college dorm. Clean and safe but with less character than other hostels!
The next day my two friends chose to go to the geothermal area while I decided to sleep in and skip paying the $35 or so my friends paid. After they got back we drove the one hour to Lake Taupo where we wanted to skydive but due to stormy weather went for a hike to some hot springs and waterfall adventure instead! We also went to Haka Honey which was a great little side trip where we got to do some free mead and honey tastings!
Our second day in Lake Taupo/Turangi we went white water rafting for something like $150 each and had a lot of fun! We got suited up with wetsuits and these waterproof jacket things, both of which were very necessary because it was freeeezing. We had been planning to do the Tongariro Crossing the next day, but weather looked awful so we made the 3 hour drive to Feilding where one of my friends had a family connection who graciously let us stay with them!
The next day we toured their pig farm. We got to hold piglets, which were SO cute and SO warm, and saw his feed plant thing which was super cool. He gets leftover or expired food products from local companies, and has a program that tells him how much of each he can add to his pig feed. So he cuts his feed costs in half, while also helping these local businesses do something useful which their leftovers! We had lunch with them, then headed BACK up north to Turangi and spent the night there.
The next day (I'm sorry I keep using that sentence) we drove 20 minutes and did the Tongariro Alpine Crossing! This is a 19.4km (~12 mile) hike into Mordor. Well, where they filmed some of the Mordor scenes in Lord of the Rings. It took us about six hours to complete and was a great experience!! Photos down below! Weather was party cloudy/rainy/sunny.
We were scheduled to drop off our car in Wellington at 10:30pm so we drove straight from the hike to airport (4 hours) and spent another night sleeping in an airport. Skip over the next few days because I had a mandatory field tour for a class I was in, and we're back in Wellington with me sleeping in a hostel across from the train station (Hotel Waterloo & Backpackers) which was perfectly adequate. I walked around Wellington a bit by myself before turning in for the night and chatting with my three other roommates. I was the only girl in the bunch which was kind of weird for me, but they were REALLY cool people and I enjoyed talking with them. I took a flight the next morning to Queenstown to finish up my break, but that's South Island so it's included in my other post!
And that sums up my experience on the North Island! This was DEFINITELY our most touristy adventure but we had so much fun. Advice and thoughts to come, but New Zealand is so full of cool things to do it's ridiculous. We got to see a decent amount of the North Island, but didn't really explore anything north of Auckland.
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