wandertures

We arrived in Auckland and spend our first night at Takapuna Beach Caravan Park on the north of the city. We hired the baby seats through Lucky Rentals (https://www.luckyrentals.co.nz/#) and these were fitted in camper when we picked it up. See post June 12 2018 – Campervanning with Twins http://www.notbyhalves.net/).

Takapuna Beach Caravan Park– absolutely beautiful spot right on the water in the centre of the upmarket suburb of Takapuna. A short walk from the park was a great restaurant strip. We chose a very authentic Italian Restaurant where the owner draws you in with his great and friendly personality and personal recommendations. We had amazing Scallops and beautiful fresh pasta (they even had Gluten Free). The facilities at the park are a little dated but well-kept. Free hot water in showers and a good little kitchen. A short drive from the park there is also a great supermarket to stock up for your trip.

The following day we spent some time tripping around Auckland to find Baby on the Move where we hired our twin pram for the trip (https://www.babyonthemove.co.nz/hire_products). This company was easy to deal with and organise online prior to arriving in NZ. Was a little challenging to find store at first as it is out in the suburbs of Auckland but we got here in the end. Great condition product and they also helped us with an additional locking mechanism for the car seats and assisted us to better install them (even though we hadn’t hired from them) which I thought was great service.

We then took the road north and stayed with friends in Whangarei the following night. From here we visited Russell. This little peninsula which can be reached by Ferry (and road although a much longer journey) was delightful. It is said to historically have been quite debaucherous with sailors using this as a stopover point for their drinking and extra-curricular activities. Today it is a very quaint historical town with lovely eateries, shops and museums.

We stayed the night here at Kerikeri – a great little agricultural town with numerous cottage industries (be bought locally grown fruit and veg) and also sampled some of the local made chocolate and woodcraft. Stayed in a beautiful van park Kerikeri Holiday Park which was lush green with a beautiful river flowing through the bottom of the park. Nice bathrooms, well equipped kitchen and laundry.

One of the challenges travelling in a camper van with 9 month old babies is the bathing situation…

We alternated between having them shower with us and bathing them in the laundry tubs at the parks we’d stay in. It worked well enough J

We then travelled through a beautiful drive across from the East to West ofNorthland through Kauri Forest. In this forest we stopped to see many Kauri pine groves including Tane Mahuta this is an incredibly impressive tree.

On this drive we went through Opononi, which is a tiny little town that I just fell in love with. I can’t really explain why, it just had an amazing energy and really laid back friendliness about it. We stopped a number of times on this drive, had a walk to a beautiful lookout and bought freshly smoked fish off the side of the road. This night we were headed for Dargaville – the ‘Sweet Potato’ capital of NZ by its own classification. Very honestly this and the museum may be the ONLY things going for this town…we backtracked a little and stayed at the lovely Baylys Beach.  This is a lovely quiet spot where we went for a walk up the cliffs (there are some great walks around this beach) and the Baylys Beach Holiday Park had a nice playground and good facilities.

We went to the Dargaville Museum, this was a really great little museum and made the trip to Dargaville worthwhile. Some great historical and cultural exhibits and great views from the museum itself.

The next day (which happened to be a Friday) may well go down in history as the most challenging day anyone has spent in a camper van with two babies.

We very cleverly (sense the sarcasm) decided that we could make it from Dargaville to the Coromandel Peninsula, which is actually only 288 Kms and as an Aussie this seemed MORE than reasonable, haha. What we did not factor in is the ludicrously slow Auckland traffic on a Friday afternoon as well as the fact that you simply cannot travel at the same speed in a Camper Van on NZ roads as you can in the great Australian countryside.

We arrived at the very cool little town of Thames and decided to use free camping this night in a car park just off the main street. No showers and only one 24 hour toilet but a great park for the kids and it was only one night. The next day was Saturday and there were market going on in town. There were old cars and dancers in the main street – it was super cool. We had breakfast at a Cuban coffee house where the owner was a very unique character that lived in a van out the back – the place had character for days – great food and coffee too.

The following days on this trip are amongst my favourite for the time we spent in NZ. We travelled through the Coromandel Peninsula, which is just spectacular.

We stopped at the Coromandel Oyster Company along this trip and got some beautiful oysters and smoked mussels. We then explored the lovely Coromandel Town and stayed the night at the Long Bay Motor Camp. This was a beautifully situated, busy little camping spot on its own beach. It had a store and also a food van that served chips and burgers. The facilities were good (hot showers were coin payment) and kitchen was well equipped.

From here we took the famed 309 road to head over to Hot Water Beach (a spot where the thermal waters bubble up on a particular spot right on the beach and at low tide people take shovels and dig up spots to sit in). We found this to be a great little, off-the-beaten-track road to explore on and we stopped to see the pigs, waterfalls and beautiful natural surrounds.

Hot Water Beach was a great spot to stop off, we fed the seagulls (M&M love animals, birds especially) and walked down to find a spot on the beach to sit in the hot water. We went at the wrong time of day and only got to sit in some small patches where we were able to dig out a bit of a hole before the water came rushing in – we weren’t there at low tide. It would be a great spot to take a bit of a picnic and sit up in the shade on the beach while you are waiting for low tide if you were staying at the beach. We decided to keep moving and stayed the night in Tairua.

This is again a lovely little town on the Tairua River where property prices were surprisingly high we found (apparently due to being a very popular weekend destination for the Auckland crowd). We stayed in a funky little camper van park – Tairua Holiday Park, which is a short walk to town, restaurants and the river.

We then took the drive down the coast to Tauranga. We free camped at a little parking area near the Lifesaving club this night. There was a lovely fountain and park at this spot and a toilet block that was open between 6am and 9pm. We walked into town and had one of the best meals of the trip. It was a Tuesday night but this place was pumping with a Trivia competition. It was a funky little place – BREW, sold craft beer and the best pizza (including Gluten Free).

The next day we took a drive to Mt Maunganui which is an absolutely stunning beachside resort town, reminded us of the Gold Coast in Australia somewhat. We spent the rest of the day driving inland to our next destination – Rotorua.

Here we stayed at a great Caravan park called Rotorua Thermal Holiday Park. They had great powered sites as well as cabins here and they had 5 thermal pools and a normal cold swimming pool (which is actually very nice after you’ve been steaming in the warm pools for some time). We could take the babies into the warm pools (not the hot ones) with swim nappies (of course).

While in Rotorua we visited Whakarewarewa – The Living Maori Village. Highly recommend a visit to this place, it was well priced and was awesome to see Maori people still living on and using the geothermal waters that are a key part of this village. They cook in boxes with the natural steam and make corn in the boiling waters. They also have outdoor bathing areas where they bath in the thermal waters. There is a great little tour and you are also free to explore yourself.

We left Rotorua on our way to Taupo, a beautiful lakeside town in central North Island. Here we had a great lunch on the waterfront and played in the grass and on the water’s edge with M&M. When they had their nap in the car we took it in turns to go for a swim in the lake also – it was very refreshing. In Taupo we stayed at DeBetts. This place had hot pools, hydroslides and great play area for kids. We didn’t use the park and slides as the kids were too young but would be great for older kids. It is right alongside a Hilton hotel too so I took M&M over for a sneaky cocktail while Dad was out getting groceries.

From Taupo we continued to travel through central North Island through some great little towns. We freedom camped the night at Clifton Road Reserve right on a lovely rocky beach where we cooked sausages and tried to stop the twins from eating rocks. It was so peaceful and serene (particularly after M&M had gone to bed and we had some free time from pulling rocks from babies mouths and could enjoy a well-deserved drink).

One town on this leg of the trip, Waipawa, was super cool and memorable. It had some great vintage/antique stores, cafes and most impressively an awesome theatre set up as an old western theme with posters and old memorabilia, Cactus Jacks Music Saloon. It is so worth a stop to see this place. If you know ahead you may even get there for an act (and in researching for this post I noticed that they are seeking more support) – would be such a shame if such a cool spot closed down due to lack of support.

On this trip we also stopped in at Pukeora Estate Winery that has been built in an old hospital on a hill overlooking the countryside. We followed the signs and entered the building on the opposite side to the cellar door. Initially it felt a little like the beginning of some horror movie walking through the eerily quiet (abandoned but well maintained) old hospital corridors. The cellar door was well set up and they do use the old rooms for people travelling on cycling/walking tours. The wine was very good too. I was so pleased to have found this place – a huge buzz in travelling is finding these super cool sort of places.

This part of the trip had some of the coolest spots and little towns – well worth the drive on State Highway 2.

We drove the next day through Palmerston North and Whanganui. On this day outside of Palmerston North there was a large agricultural show with farm machinery, leather workers, food/drink and an awesome little petting zoo. I’m not sure about you but our 9 month olds just LOVE animals. They squealed and screeched at each different animal they could pet – it was awesome. We kept driving and came to the little town of Patea on the West Coast. This is a small little town with a great black sand beach an old jetty leading out into the ocean. It used to be a key export hub for milk and grain grown in the area and the owner of the van park was talking to us about how they are investing to re-invigorate the area. M&M loved playing in the black sand (and eating it), and it was a great spot for some cool photos of the crumbling jetty that locals fish off. The Patea Beach Motor Camp is a short walking distance to this beach and is a very well kept, pretty spot with a friendly and attentive park owner (who is also a teacher at the local school).

Raglan is a very hip little town, this was the next stop on our journey. It was a busy little motor camp at Raglan Holiday Park which is on the other side of the inlet that runs through town. The main part of town and the restaurants and shops are on the other side of the inlet which can be reached by a footbridge or road. It was quite funny when we set up our camp here for the night. The people behind us, upon seeing we had twin babies, promptly went down to the reception and asked to be moved. Even funnier is that we wouldn’t have even noticed except that they came to specifically tell us ‘no hard feelings’ we just don’t want to camp near babies. Good thing too actually, because while M&M are generally quite good, on this particular occasion they both decided to throw wobblies of epic proportions which I’m guessing would not have been well received by our once neighbours.

This is a great little town, there are a few place on our trip (which I’ve outlined below that for me where absolute must visit spots, this was one of them). It is a cool little town with a very laid back vibe and the awesome and unique stores that generally come with the alternative crowd that flock to this great town. There were some great shops, art galleries, cool little laneways with stores and restaurants. We ate at the Blind Tiger which is a great, understated restaurant that focussed on friendly service and great food. Had a great vibe and we ended up chatting and laughing with people that also had a baby at the table next to us (and M&M even played with him). Simple menu, great fresh food – well and truly worth a visit if you’re in town.

For our final night before flying out of New Zealand (Auckland) we made our way to the little town of Port Waikato. Here we found a park where we spent some time and took M&M down to the beach, black sand again so we had more black sand nappies. The Port Waikato Holiday Park is a lovely green park with nice facilities and a great TV room where we hung out for a bit while the weather wasn’t great. Port Waikato is little with a few restaurants and a nice beach, very small. From here it is about a 1 – 1.5 hour drive to Auckland so we knew we’d have plenty of time to get up and going and do the few things we’d need to do in Auckland.

We arrived in Auckland late morning and decided to park and go for a walk around this city centre and marina (which is easier said than done). We eventually found a park and paid for parking. We had lunch at a great little pop up eatery where there were quite a few options to choose from down near the water and shopping centre. We then took a walk around the marina. There were some absolutely amazing looking restaurants down here, one in particular which was primarily an Oyster restaurant and had various types of oysters from across the world (very enticing to a seafood junkie like myself). I got a bit nostalgic for the younger version of me that used to do weekend boozy lunches with my girlfriends and would never have dreamed of taking babies to a place where you can hear the champagne glasses chinking as you walk in. I half considered ducking in with the babies for a drink and some oysters, was a tempting thought to show the old me that things DEFINITELY change, alas, we’d already eaten.

All in all I was most worried about this day as I knew we’d be out and about all day with no ability to have a shower or put the babies down in the afternoon as we had to drop the van back at 5pm with a 7pm flight. Children are amazing creatures though and M&M didn’t seem to worry at all. We dropped the van back, ate dinner at the airport and had a relatively uneventful flight home – worrying over nothing as we usually do as parents.

Top Spots

We spent around 3 weeks in New Zealand and this amount of time may not be possible for everyone. I’ve outlined below the spots that I felt were an absolute must of the ones we visited. There are obviously so many great places that we didn’t get to also. When I asked my husband for his opinion on top spots he said, nope they were all great – so no help from him…

My top spots in no particular order:

• Russell: even though we didn’t stay here this was such a cool little historical town with some great little eateries (I may have mentioned before I’m a bit of a foodie).
• Coromandel Peninsula: particularly the town of Thames if you can be there on a Saturday for market day, but the whole of this area is just stunning. Gorgeous views, roads that run along stunning coastline, fresh seafood and smoked fish you can buy from road-side.
• Rotorua: for the thermal baths and unique culture.
• Raglan: this little surf town is just packed with great vibes and great food.

This is by no means and exhaustive list and there are obviously so many beautiful places when you are travelling around. I think the selection of the above if on a more limited timeframe would give you a great taste of the diversity of landscape, culture, great food and amazing scenery on offer in New Zealand’s North Island.

Please comment or ask questions if you have any. Always happy for you to share your experiences and ask anything on your mind. We are a courageous little community that go on grand adventures with our children – we need to stick together.