We started our journey from Bangalore to Auckland by Singapore Airlines and spent a day in the city. The itinerary was for 10 days drive from Auckland to Wellington with a ferry connection to the South Island and continue till Queenstown.  Our journey went very well as planned. But we also realised that 10 days is way to short to cover all these areas, as commented by the immigration officer while entering the port.

Here I would love to describe the amazing experiences we had along the drive and some of the best spots not to be missed enroute.

We travelled as a family, love exploring the country by road and have driven in almost all countries (except South Africa) where people drive on the left hand side of the road. All nature lovers are strongly recommended to take the road to explore New Zealand. The drive from Wellington through hilly terrains, wine yards and rugged Coastlines was an experience by itself.  The vehicle we had was Toyota RAV4 automatic and well suited the whole trip.

We started post breakfast from Wellington around 9.00am and it was quite windy and cold (waning winter and start of spring season. Our aim was to go to the southern most tip of the North Island i.e. Cape Palliser.

Any drive from city and to reach the state highways are typical here in Wellington also. We just filled our gas tank and took State highways 2 to our first destination, the Stuart Macaskill lakes ( Greater Wellington – about 40 kms from the city) at Te Marua,  where we saw two huge man-made lakes. They treat the river water and distribute about 150 Million Litres of water every day to 4 cities including Wellington, from this place. These lakes also has walking/jogging track around its periphery .

We saw this from a view point high above the ground and the view was splendid. There is also a beautiful Kaitoka Regional Park where we could stroll around only for a few minutes  as our target was to reach Cape Palliser before sunset.

The next stop is a must stop not only for us but to all the Hollywood movie lovers. Yes, it is the Rivendell, (Lord of Rings shooting spot). It is on the same state highways 2, about 11 kms from the Kaitoka regional park. The parking lot was almost empty as it was a week day. The place was so very beautiful with complete silence (but for the rustling of leaves with gentle cold wind), we just lost ourselves and walked around the woods trying to visualise the scenes from the movie.

Rivendell is divided into two regions, from the car parking lot, towards the left goes the Lord of rings shooting spot and the right side leads to nice suspended hanging bridge which in turn leads to trails to the rain forest. There were two trail loops, shorter for 15 minutes and other one for 1 hour and we chose the shorter one which was stunning. The suns rays peeped through the thick rain forest trees and the beetles and other wonderful nature creatures chit chatting in their own language is a mesmerizing moments.

We thoroughly enjoyed those 15 minutes and again started our drive to the next spot, Rimutaka Crossing at Featherston which was 10 kms away from Rivendell. This is in memory of soldiers and above the crossing there were hiking trails. A nice view point and one of the drawbacks we felt in this entire 61 kms of drive, there were no cafes or relaxing benches to sit for few minutes. Since we carried our flasks and snacks, we could keep ourselves warm by sipping coffee inside the car. So when you drive along this route, don’t forget carry some eatables.

The next stop was Martinborough which was 28 kms from Featherston. This small town was the picture postcard town. A quaint little English style town with a tourist information centre, few restaurants and cafes with nice roundabout decorated with vivid flowers.

This town is famous for the winery tours. We just drove around the outskirts of the winery yards and tried tasting some of the best wines at Te Kairanga. Its location is beautiful and calm,  each wine tasting cost around 3 dollars. Daughter and hubby tasted 3 different types and cherished the moments by relaxing for few minutes.

Next 69 kms drive to Cape Palliser was a different experience. From the winery to mountain terrain, we just got to see the beautiful coast line. The Colour of the sea was unimaginable. Turquoise green to blue to deep blue, the change over from coast to the centre of the sea was beautiful and could be expressed only in one word as” WOW”.

Since we carried our packed lunch, we ate our lunch viewing the beautiful sea and reached the Cape Palliser around 3 pm. It was cold, freezing, windy and  we could not climb the light house due to the weather.

Though the place was amazing, no cafes or people around. We were the only human around at that point of time and only one toilet was there. The freezing weather and forceful wind made us to move back to better location. 

While coming back to Wellington we opted an other route to reach Featherston (via Kahutara). To our bad luck all cafes and restaurants closed in Featherston by 5.30 pm and few opens only by 7 for dinner. We were out of our food stocks and drove the 140 kms back to wellington in search of a coffee café and ended up having only at Ibis Wellington.

Overall drive was around 300 kms and an amazing drive through all terrains at one go in a day. That was the beauty of this route.