Oh hi there. Welcome. Kia ora.

It’s been a minute since we’ve been on the road, and there’s nothing like a nice long vacation to make us eager to divulge all the details while they’re still fresh.

New Zealand has the kind of epic reputation that inspires multi-month journeys, once-in-a-lifetime adventures and outsized expectations. The sheer distance from pretty much everywhere in the world, and therefore the cost and time required to visit, really puts the pressure on visitors to DO. IT. RIGHT. Now, don’t get me wrong. A leisurely three-month RV trip around the country exploring every nook and cranny sounds delightful, but time is money and we have two weeks, total, to see everything we can.

Thus, expectations in check, here’s how we spent a very reasonable and not too insane week in New Zealand’s North Island.

Our arrival in Auckland early in the morning was a delight. Kudos to the Auckland airport for figuring out how to get hundreds of tourists through customs at 6am with nary a queue in sight. We got our rental car and headed out to breakfast in the highly recommended neighborhood of Ponsonby. At Ponsonby Central, we wiled away a couple hours at Foxtrot Parlour, waiting for our Airbnb to be ready. (We later returned for lunch at Chop Chop Noodle House for warming bowls of ramen which was equally excellent.)

Our first several days in New Zealand were spent north of Auckland, near the tiny town of Kumeu. Used mostly as a jumping off point for various activities, Kumeu is also home to one of the country’s popular breweries and a well-known winery. We visited both.

One highly anticipated activity in the North Island was snorkeling at the Goat Island Marine Reserve. We rented wetsuits, got the lay of the land from a knowledgeable local and froze our fannies off in the water. Actually, our 5mm wetsuits kept us quite warm, but our hands were exposed which meant that after a couple hours in the water, our joints were aching. At this time of year, the number of snorkelers and divers is pretty minimal, but based on photos we’ve seen, this area gets nutty as summer comes around. Drew’s highlight of our entire vacation was following a sting ray as it swam through the kelp fields. I mostly gawked at the massive snappers (up to a meter in length!) that hung around us hoping to be fed, a total no-no of course.

After a weekend north of Auckland, we journeyed south. First stop was the airport where we picked up my sister, Alice, who joined us for the rest of the trip, and is the extra person in all our photos. On our way south to Tauranga, we stopped at a cafe worth a mention, the Cafe Melbourne in Thames. Total aside: I kinda love it when small cafes and eateries don’t bother having a website. That way you know they’re busy making, you know, food. If you poke around online you’ll see plenty of rave reviews about this cafe but all their hype comes from others.

We based ourselves for several days outside Tauranga, mostly for its easy access to other regional favorite tourist spots.

The first and most obvious of those is Hobbiton, the extensive Hobbit village that was created for the films but maintained for visitors when the landowner realized how high demand was to see tiny houses with circle doors. Drew and Alice visited Hobbiton together while I stayed back and worked (don’t feel bad for me, I don’t really care for the films and didn’t care to visit) but they later assured me that I would have loved it. Professional guides are required for all visitors but they really bring the place to life, sharing anecdotes about building Hobbiton, making the legendary movies and what it was like working on a movie set with the notorious nitpick Peter Jackson. For example, in order to maintain visual continuity, instead of bringing in fake foliage, he required each tree leaf to be painted by hand by a crew of … tree leaf painters?

Our final highlight day in the North Island was spent in Rotorua, a small city on a seriously picturesque lake. Alice decided that this day would be her ‘Perfect Day’ (cue either the Lou Reed ballad or the theme song from Legally Blonde) so we set out to make her dreams come true.

First up was a soak in the geothermal hot springs that dot the region and give the city a (very slight) sulfur scent. We booked a private pool at Polynesian Spa, where the three of us soaked in the mineral goodness for a half hour. Multi-hour packages in a series of pools are available at this massive spa, but we were following Alice’s lead, so a quick soak it was. Next up was the Redwoods Treewalk which is a self-led walk high in the canopy through a small forest of redwood trees. New Zealand is seriously serious about its environmental conservation so you’ll be happy to know that the entire structure of raised bridges and walkways was created without a single nail damaging a single tree.

All in all, Alice certainly got her perfect day and we sang the Perfect Day song on repeat for the next ten days.

I feel like we barely scratched the surface of the North Island, but that feeling is one we came to know fondly in New Zealand. Turns out all the bloggers are right. You really should spend months exploring every corner.

That said, our one week introduction to this fantastic country was exactly what we wanted. A little adventure, a little hiking, a little wine tasting, a little relaxing. It really was the perfect day…I mean, week.