New Zealand

Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, is your probable arrival point in the country. Don’t be fooled by the skyline with its giant needle that apes Toronto’s CN tower, or the cluster of swanky bistros around the waterfront. Despite its 1.3 million people, Auckland is less a big city than the blueprint for New Zealand’s myriad small towns – one main street with an endless sprawl of suburbs.

With a centre squeezed into a narrow isthmus between two harbours, Auckland has the traffic problems of a city five times its size, not helped by the locals’ disdain for public transport. But look out across the harbour to the drowned volcano of Rangitoto on a sunny day, and you understand why the inhabitants don’t care much about urban planning. What’s good about life here is the beautiful, accessible coastline that spreads north and along the Coromandel peninsula to the southeast. Head out of Auckland and you will find many little bays where lush native forest tumbles down to beaches of golden sand and transparent, balmy water. In summer, it can blissful.

Three hours north of the city, the aptly-named Bay of Islands is a popular spot where boats take groups out for marlin fishing or dolphin watching. It’s also worth visiting Waitangi, where New Zealand’s founding treaty was signed between the British and Maori tribes. But if you want to get away from the tourists it’s not hard to hitch or take a car to find a rustic little beachfront camping ground with only a few local holiday makers barbequing sausages and playing cricket with their kids.

The thick bit of the North Island peters out around Kaitaia, an amiably depressed town where the main occupation is growing and consuming marijuana. From there, you can take a 4WD up Ninety Mile Beach to the very tip of the country. At Cape Reinga, the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean, their currents merging in contrasting colors. According to Maori legend, this is the point of departure for souls of the dead, returning to their ancestral home of Hawaiki.

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