Myth: The north island is the south island’s ugly stepsister.

Fact: Not even raging winds and torrential rain can spoil its appeal. As Kris Ashton discovered …

Give the staff at Rydges Auckland credit: they didn’t bat an eyelid when our house on wheels pulled into the hotel’s loading zone.

Perhaps I should explain. To get a broad feel for travelling New Zealand’s north island, my fiancé Kellie and I were taking a luxury Maui motorhome along a Value Tours coach route while staying in a range of quality hotels. Anyway, the Rydges people somehow made our vehicle disappear, leaving us to explore Auckland on a mild Friday afternoon. 

Sky Tower is Auckland’s tallest building. On the wall in its SkyDeck viewing platform is a diagram showing the heights of buildings around the world. It claims Sky Tower is taller than Sydney Tower. While this is technically true, its observation deck – ie, the thing that matters – is actually lower.

Still, it’s what you do with your tower that counts, and the Kiwis make much better use of theirs. The SkyDeck not only has glass windows but a section of glass floor you can walk over while peering between your feet at the road 220m below. And sure, you can walk around outside Sydney Tower, but you can base jump off Sky Tower.

While we enjoyed a drink at the Sky Lounge Café, we spoke with a fellow traveller who asked, “Are you doing the south island next?”

This question came up again and again during our trip. When we said no, it was hard to tell whether the askers were shocked or disappointed.

The next morning Auckland fell back to make way for NZ’s famous green pastures, an eye-popping contrast to Australia’s flat yellows, browns and reds. Lush hills come at a cost, of course, and I was forever switching the wipers on and off. But it was a small price to pay, especially when the fields were alive with floppy ears and twirly tails. For two cute-animal connoisseurs, the spring lambs provided an endless, delightful distraction. Concentrating on the road was difficult indeed.

Our first stop was the Waitomo glow-worm caves. We descended beneath the earth and were invited to climb aboard a small tinny floating in an underground stream. Our guide pulled us into the perfect darkness using an overhead cable, ensuring silence. When the glow-worms appeared on the cave ceiling the effect was incredible; like staring up into a galaxy of light-blue stars.

There lurks in every man’s heart, I believe, a secret desire to perform the haka. At Te Puia – an authentic Maori village with a theme-park feel – in Rotorua, we were given a demo and then invited on stage to try it. Volunteers charged the stage like a rugby team. Female laughter told us all we needed to know about our performance.

Te Puia also hosts Rotorua’s most famous geyser, Pohutu (see pic). As if sensing our arrival, Pohutu provided a spectacular show, sending jets of steaming water 30 metres into the air. We finished the night drinking cups of hot chocolate while seated on a naturally warmed ampitheatre.

Here’s a funny thing about Rotorua: at first its all-pervading sulphur smell was unpleasant, but by the time we were due to leave for Taupo, we found ourselves seeking it out… like a gourmet savouring the odour of blue-vein cheese.

Created by a volcanic eruption, Lake Taupo’s size is almost incomprehensible to Australian eyes – Kellie had to reassure me we weren’t looking at the Tasman Sea. It’s a popular waterway, too, with Taupo’s population rising from 20,000 to 60,000 during summer.

We arrived in the afternoon and were supposed to be fishing and taking a seaplane ride the next morning, but the weather had other ideas. A severe storm cell descended on New Zealand, one of the worst in years according to the news. We decided instead to make an early start on our drive down to Wellington.

An hour out of Taupo we topped a rise and the familiar green fields turned to arid earth and spiky red and yellow grasses. The change was so abrupt I wondered if we had come upon some weird Kiwi plantation, but I later learned it was the Rangipo Desert, caused by a volcanic mountain range that alters weather patterns and soil in the area.

Around this time the storm hit us for real. Sand, driven by 120km/h winds, blasted against our windows while passing trucks splashed our windscreen with waves of rainwater. The highways in NZ’s north island are excellent – just as well, since invisible hands tried to wrench the steering wheel from my grasp.

We arrived at the Holiday Inn Wellington, ate dinner in the hotel’s restaurant and slept soundly indeed.

On Wednesday morning the sun finally re-emerged and presented NZ’s seaside capital in shining glory. Wellington Tourism is selling the city on its excellent café culture, shops and restaurants, but really it’s just Melbourne-lite. For me, the true experience came exploring greater Wellington on a Rover Tours mini-bus. The suburbs have bent to the will of geography and some dwellings on Mount Victoria, for instance, are accessed via mini cable cars (which left me wondering how residents moved large furniture into their homes). We also passed “the worst house on the best street in Wellington”, which belongs to Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson.

“If it wasn’t for Peter Jackson, I wouldn’t have a job,” our driver explained, adding that since the movies, tourism in Wellington has increased 700 per cent.

On the plane home, I considered that recurring question. The south island might have the upper hand in aesthetic beauty, but the north island is no slouch in the looks department itself and it also harbours the real New Zealand – the people, the places, the history.

Not even a wild storm could dampen its appeal.

Open Road November/December 2008