Our trip to New Zealand’s North Island with must-see destinations, travel tips, and itinerary. It was an unforgettable adventure across a stunning region.
Hubby and I spent a few weeks in New Zealand this year. Te Ika-a-Māui (North Island) is where our journey concentrated on this trip. Our first week of our vacation was on land in Auckland.
Exploring New Zealand North Island
Week two of our trip we were on to Tauanga.
Welp, we were on to a local food tour. The first stop was for ice cream and coffee. After we loaded back on the van and started driving, I perked up when I heard the words “cross over train.”
I started to get suspicious when we pulled into the driveway of a home to look at the avocados. I turned to Hubby and said, “I swear we’ve been here before.” That was confirmed when we got to the restaurant for lunch.
Yup! We had done this tour five years ago with the same tour lady! The tour had been modified slightly – but those two stops – the avocado grower and the restaurant were the same. It was a different kiwi orchard, but …
Oh well. It was “free.” Silversea has daily free tours when in port to choose from. I say “free” because of course those tours are built into the price of the cruise fare.
The next day in Gisborne we took a wine and cheese tour.
Our first stop was at the Matawhero winery. They had a very nice table set-up with all the accompaniments of cheddar, blue, and brie along with bread and crackers. We tried a rose (blech), pinot gris (very pleasant), chardonnay – well Hubby did. Chardonnay grapes give me a negative reaction and I cannot drink wine that contains them anymore. And a merlot (also pleasant).
We then went on to a second winery (Bushemere) which also had a nice setup with a meat and cheese platter. We tried a rose (blech), chardonnay (Hubby did) , a montepulciano (!!! I have only ever seen this variety in Italy), merlot/melbec, and a gewürztraminer. I actually purchase a bottle of the Gewürztraminer to have on the ship ($25 NZ which is about $13 US).
We then boarded the bus for a scenic drive. This tour was very low-key even though it was a large bus (28 people) and not a van.
The next two days we spent in Napier.
Our first trip was a van ride through a conservation park with a stop to see the gannet birds.
The story of the Cape Sanctuary starts over 100 years ago on 5K+ acres of land. Cape Sanctuary is New Zealand’s largest privately owned and funded ‘mainland island’ conservation project, running since 2006.
The current owners haven taken great stride in limiting the introduced predators and the rabbits. There are currently over 600 kiwis living on this preserve. Kiwi, while being the national bird of New Zealand, are also endangered. The 600 are considered a real success story – so much so that some of the kiwi are being resettled on other land to try and repopulate the kiwi in other areas of New Zealand.
While we did not see any (kiwi are nocturnal), we did see hawks, sheep, cattle, horses, ducks, and of course, the gannets.
One of our fellow passengers (our trivia teammate) warned us it could be “stinky” where we saw the birds.
Boy, did she undersell it.
The stench was abominable.
When we got off the tour bus there were hundreds, if not thousands, of gannets sitting, flying, squawking, and more. The smell was a cross of bird/guano/fish and I never wished for an oxygen mask more!
The views were breathtaking on the preserve. Simply stunning.
The next day we has another wine tour booked at the oldest winery in New Zealand – the Mission Estate Winery. There is an interesting back story on how this winery came to be which you can read here.
The wine tasting was underwhelming as most of the 23 people on our tour dumped the wine in the bucket after a small sip.
We were served a lovely luncheon paired with their wines. The food made the wines – which were different from the tasting wines – almost palatable.
On one of our wine tours we heard, “New Zealand makes wines to drink, the Italians make wines to go with food!” I cannot express how much I disagree with that statement. New Zealand wines are meh, Italian wines are great to drink or pair with food.
The next day was a scenic tour in New Plymouth. New Zealand is nothing if not beautiful, and there is a lot of scenery. This was a panoramic tour where we were driven to several look out points and then to a lovely park with local wildlife.
We finished New Zealand in Picton. We were scheduled for a catamaran tour on the water around the bay, but it was very cold, rainy, and we were not dressed appropriately for a tour on water so we gave back our tickets. And, I still ended up with the sniffles after waiting 30 minutes for the shuttle bus into town.
The town was small but there were a great variety of shops! We had a lot of New Zealand dollars left that we planned to exchange for Australian dollars, but instead I spent it on jewelry, a leather purse, and lunch!
Lunch was at a local bar and it was excellent. I got fish & chips, Hubby got seafood stew, and we were both well pleased with our meals.
After that, it was several days at sea and on to Tasmania, Australia.
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