14-day NZ Trip :North Island

Finally, the day has arrived, and we were  excited to start off our journey in New Zealand! We purchased the tix from KLIA to Auckland, with little awareness on how the New Zealand trip should have been explored.

So after a while, I purchase the plane tix from Auckland to Christchurch, in order to pursue our plan to South Island part.

We have spent a few days in North Island. Little that we expected, we have covered almost entire New Zealand at the end of the day becos that was not part of our initial plan, actually.

So we arrived at Auckland Airport at 10 pm local time, with time difference by 4 hours ahead Malaysia time.

We rented a sedan car, just perfect for 4 of us including our bulky suitcases. And best part about renting from Jucy is that we are entitled for special discounts for some fun activities and cruises. We were lucky that I still kept the evidence of this rental to enjoy good price for cruise at Millford Sound about a week later in South Island. Yippii~

                                                        No, no. This estima is just for show. Not the car we rented ok.

The first place we went was to Rotorua, which is 3 hours away from Auckland. It was very calm and relaxing long drive that we kept ohh and ahhh on the scenery along the way. Being the first timer drving in this country, it was hardly to feel stressful on the long, flat road with little incoming traffics and rarely seen houses of the local people. All we saw were sheeps and cows farm and green hills here and there. Very beautiful.

In Rotorua, we headed to Whakarewarewa to visit Maori traditional village and to watch their cultural performance.

Afterwards, we were brought touring around the village that is full of natural wonders like hotspring and geiser.

We were so hungry after touring around the village, thus decided to have little picnic at the nearby spot before leaving to Rotorua city. Nasik himpit and sambal bilis from Malaysia are forever best meal for our late lunch.

And we went to Rotorua Night Market too. Despite surrounded with white people, the vibes received and atmosphere of night market are similar with one we felt at home.

Oh yes, it was my birthday! Some little celebration with piece of cake and packets of maggi.Epic kan? hihi.

On the next day we went to Agrodom Sheep Farm. Oh man, never seen the ship as much as this place, seriously! The farm provides tour to sheep farm as well as  sheeps acrobatic performance.

There is also beautiful Huka Falls on the way to Lake Taupo. Mind you, this is a must drop-by spot even just for a while.

The turquoise color waterfalls captured our breaths instantly. This is rare!

The extreme activity like rapid is also available here but we chose to pose here and there while enjoying the beauty scenery in dry piece before we resume our journey to Lake Taupo.

We arrived at Lake Taupo almost in midday. Apart from its beautiful view, this place is also well known for extreme activity like bunge jump.

Lake Taupo is one of the largest natural lake in New Zealand. The picturesque scenery is just too priceless to miss out if we arrived in New Zealand,

That's it for southern island of North Island.  As the land of North Island is not soooo vast to explore, we also took the opportunity to drive up to the northern part of North Island.

This is totally unplanned itinerary to drive up to Cape of Reinga. Things started on our first night in Auckland when I realized that the flight Christchurch-Auckland was later than Auckland-KLIA.Had I not realized it this soon(err isnt it a bit late already?duhh), we might ended up stranded in Auckland Airport  waiting the next available tickets to purchase with the cost of fortune! So the whole night was not for rest from our long haul journey, but was spent to call all airlines  hotlines to decide our resolutions. Alhamdulillah we managed to secure MAS tix at a reasonable additional price with extension of a few more days in Auckland, that made up total of 14 days in NZ. Hihi

Back to North Island exploration, we stayed one night in Paihia. It is just a small town that we stopped for one night after over three hours drive from Auckland.

The evening in Paihia is so peaceful for a walk.

We snapped pics here and there,enjoyed the quite evening, forgot all our exhaustion before we called it a day.

On the following day, we resume our journey ahead to the tip of New Zealand, Cape of Reinga. The drive was quite adventurous, mind you to ensure your tank is full prior the journey as it was quite hard to find gas station-thanks to GPS in our car.

The journey to Cape of Reinga took almost 3 hours. But when we arrived, it was really worthwhile. The place is beautiful and we can see the meeting point of Tasmanian Sea and Pacific Ocean. 

We left Cape of Reinga with full of satisfaction. Time to go home!