A New Zealand road trip takes some planning. Lots of planning. There are some great tour companies that do all the driving for you and stop at the most sought after sites. But we decided we wanted a little more freedom and felt that we could handle driving on the left side of the road. So we decided to rent a car and road trip.

New Zealand is huge. It might not look that big but in just 14 days we drove almost 1,500 kilometers and only saw the north side of the North Island. After researching the things we really wanted to do we plotted all our stops on google maps and choose a route and decided on how many days we wanted to be in each area. Check out our trip highlights:

Glowworm Caves: We decided to book the Labyrinth rafting tour with Black Water Rafting Company. This tour consisted of wearing wetsuits (the water was so cold), hiking the cave in the dark (just a headlamp), jumping off small waterfalls backwards with an inner tube, and floating down the river. There was a ton of water swallowing and slipping on rocks, but we had a great time. We spent the end of the tour with our headlamps off, pitch black, floating on our tubes linked to each other and looking up at the glowworms. Unfortunately, we were unable to take the go pro or camera with us. You will have to experience this on for yourself!

Tongariro Alpine Crossing: This was going to be our big hike day. The way the hike works is that you walk from one end of the crossing to the other. You have to make plans to drop your car at the end and then start at the opposite end. This isn't a circular path. We aren't big hikers and knew this was going to be a challenge as the entire path is about 19.4 km. We decided to do part of the hike by stopping at the Emerald lakes then turning around and heading back to where we started.

This hike is no joke. It is rocky terrain and increases in elevation. We were not a fan of this. We did however enjoy hiking along side Mt Doom (Mt Ngauruhoe). As we progressed through our hike it was becoming apparent that we did not have the right shoes, enough water, or any food. After about 6 km in and reaching a sign that basically asked us if we were prepared for this hike. The answer was no. We decided it was best to turn around.

Rotorua: We spent most of our time here as there was so much to do. It isn’t the best smelling town due to all the geothermal activity in the area. The town smells like boiled eggs. You kind of get used to it till you step outside and get hit with a strong wave of it.

The Te Puia Geyser was literally out our hotel window….at least the steam from the geyser was visible. This geyser is the largest active geyser in the southern hemisphere. It is active multiple times an hour. Sometimes for 3 minutes, other times for half an hour. While we visited it it was active almost nonstop.

My favorite thing we did in Rotorua was the few hours we spent at Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland. Even though it was incredibly hot walking the park and exploring the geothermal pools it was totally worth it. See all the different minerals and the colors they make in the water was really neat. The colors were beyond vibrant. We also saw our first mud pools here!

Cathedral Cove: I wasn’t aware of how intense this hike was going to be. We arrived at the car park to find that there was only 30 parking spaces, which were all full. We headed back down the hill and parked in a guys lawn that was selling spaces. We made the trek back up the hill to the start of the trail. We had about a 45 to 60 minute hike a head of us….up and downhill. We finally made it to the end and found we had about 100 steps to walk down to get to the beach. But we were rewarded with the beautiful beach and water. We spent the afternoon here swimming and exploring the coves.

Random Stops Along the Way: Volcano Activity Center: We paid the cover and entered through the door. It was a single room with some old, cheesy, interactive displays. We laughed as soon as we entered but still managed to spend about 45 minutes there laughing at everything inside.

Across the street was the Huka Honey Hive where we learned about bees, honey, and mead.

We also randomly found the bluest waterfall I have ever seen right down the road from the Volcano Activity Center.

We also visited Hobbiton. Check out the blog post dedicated to that adventure here.

Clearly we did a ton in New Zealand and a bunch I didn't even talk about here. It was a jam packed two weeks. There was so much we didn’t get to do on the North Island and we didn’t even touch the South Island. I can’t wait to go back and explore the country more.