Tag Archives: tongariro national park

Road Trip Highlights

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Did you enjoy riding along with us on our month long road trip across the north and south islands of New Zealand? We had so much fun exploring and adventuring  and sure hope you have the opportunity to explore it in person some day.

If you are interested in getting a copy of our itinerary, please email us at christine@svSugarShack.com.  The itinerary is broken down by day, with kilometers to each location, links to all activities, bars, restaurants, and hotels.  Here is a recap of our road trip.

Overall journey was well over 5,000km and took us about 28 days.

Here are highlights of each major stop:

North Island

Auckland- The City of Sails: Sky Tower and Viaduct

Loads of fun in Waitomo starting with the beautiful glow worms

And The Lost World Adventure where we abseiled 100m into the earth!

The road trip continues to Wellington, the southern most point in the North island and the capital of NZ.

South Island

We take a ferry across the straight to the South Island.  We visit the Nelson Classic Car Museum and take a Sky Wire ride over the valleys and trees.

The Abel Tasman Forest has several really cool hikes and caves to explore.

Next we make our way down the west side of the south island:  Westport, Charleston, Greymouth and Inchbonnie.

The absolutely beautiful pancake rocks stun us with their unique beauty.

We took a phenomenal helicopter ride over the Franz Josef glacier and dozens of other glaciers.

We get perplexed at Puzzling World and see a huge waterfall in Wanaka.

Definitely one of the highlights for me was our Shotover Jet Boat ride.  A truly thrilling and exhilarating experience!

My favorite day was our trip to Milford Sound where we took a 5.5 hour bus ride, 2 hour boat ride, and 45 minute plane over one of the world’s 8th wonders!

We make it all the way to the southern most point of the south island, Stirling Point at 46 36.53!

Stewart Island

Although we did not technically “drive” to Stewart Island (as you can’t bring your car over), we did take a ferry and enjoyed exploring this “3rd island” of New Zealand.

Our road trip finally turns us around and we have to head back north.  We start by going NE toward Dunedin which has the world’s steepest street (San Francisco has the world’s crookedest street).

We find beautiful, little blue penguins and a steampunk museum in Oamaru!

Christchurch is a city of potential being rebuilt after several natural disasters.

North Island

Tongariro National Park is the home of the world’s best one day hike.  Even though we could not do it, we did manage to hike over 15miles in 2 days.

Lake Tapu has many hot springs, geysers, and mud pools.

One of my favorite waterfalls is Huka Falls where 200,000 liters of water push through the falls every 9 minutes.

Orakei Koroko Geothermal Pools fascinated me with the vibrant colors, geysers, and hot pools.

The road trip continues on to Rotorua where we take a float plane over the lakes, volcano, and hot springs.

We loved the Redwood Tree Walk where we crossed over 28 swing bridges!

And we conclude our road trip with a relaxing day at Polynesia Spa where we soak in acidic and alkaline hot springs.

A truly once in a lifetime experience to be able to explore this amazing country by land.  Even though I felt like we saw a lot, we did not touch on so many other wonderful things.   I think a return visit will be in our future.

Events from this blog occurred in mid-February to mid-March 2023.  Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.

Tongariro National Park Hikes

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We came to the Tongariro National Park so that we could do the Tongariro Alpine Crossing which has been hailed as the best one day hike in the world.  It is 19km (12miles) and takes about 7-8 hours.

However, our plans were changed and we had to skip this beautiful hike.  Matt hurt his knee while jumping over the Moeraki Boulders and had a severe limp.  Then we watched the video and I realized that I probably would have much difficulty on the descent as it is over 1,000 meters straight down and that would wreak habit on my knees.

So, what did we do with our now free day?  Different hikes that did not have steep climbs.

Taranki Water Falls

About 45 minutes away from our hotel are the Taranki Water Falls.  They are a whopping 20m tall and can be found in the center of the Taranki Falls loop walk which is about 6km and takes 2 hours.

The views are lovely with towering mountains and vast fields.

Volcanoes and mountains reach for the sky.

We crossed over several rivers and enjoyed many small waterfalls

Half way thru the track we finally come to the Taranki Water Fall and it is majestic!

The waterfall jets out of the mountain and lands into a beautiful small pool at the bottom.

The views are really stunning.

Whakapapa Gondola and Restaurant

Just down the road is Whakapapa (which is pronounced “fakapapa”) where the longest gondola and the highest restaurant are located.  This is a ski resort in the winter so there are ski lifts, snow machines, and snow makers all over the place.  In the spring, summer, and fall, it is used for mountain bikers and hikers.

We were hungry after our walk and were really looking forward to eating at the highest restaurant in NZ.  However, it was closed so we were robbed of the experience.

The view is still stunning, but I can only imagine it being spectacular in the winter when it is all covered in snow.

Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed which seriously irritated me!  But we did enjoy the view and they had a fabulous tiki at the top.

Next we decide to go to do the loop around Lake Rotopounamu (say that 3 times fast).

Lake Rotopounamu Loop Walk

Another 30 minutes down the road we arrive at the Lake Rotopounamu Loop walk which is 5km and about 1.45hrs.  This track circles a beautiful lake surrounded by native forest and is a special favorite of tree lovers and birdwatchers.  It is a relatively flat walk with less than a 150m incline and you are literally surrounded by forest and trees.

We come across three beaches along the loop and they are all beautiful and isolated.

On the way home we pass by the two volcanoes that threaten the life of the locals in Tongariro National Park.

We also find the mountain that we ascended in the gondola (see arrow).

All in all a wonderful day.

  • Kilometers driven:  210
  • Hotel: The Park Ruapehu
  • Kilometers walked: 13.5

Events from this blog post occurred mid-March.  Our blog post run 10-12 weeks behind live events.  In our last blog post we had a long travel day in the car and ferry, but arrive safely at Wellington.