New Zealand Road Trip: Whangarei Falls

After stopping in Sydney, it was time for the true vacation part of the trip… a campervan adventure in New Zealand!

I woke up early to fly into Auckland and met Bryan in the airport. Our flights conveniently landed at about the same time without any hiccups. We got a ride to pick up our van from Wendekreisen, and we were all set to move in!

We decided to unpack our clothes into the drawers and leave our suitcases at the office. That ended up being a very good decision, because every bit of space counts when you’re living in a van for two weeks, especially with surfboards.

Our next stop was the grocery store (Pak’nSave) to stock up. I love grocery shopping in other countries to see the local delicacies, like these green-lipped mussels and golden kiwi:

Then we headed north into the Northland region. I was nervous about driving the van in the dark on unfamiliar roads (I would later learn that I didn’t need to be), so we planned to drive about two hours to our first stop. Since it was already getting late, we decided to save our groceries and grab takeout from a burger place on the way.

When we arrived in Whangarei, our plan A campsite was full—not surprising, because we knew it only had four parking spots—so we moved on to plan B (Waikaraka Layby). In the dark, it just looked like a parking lot on the side of the road to spend the night. We set up our bed, put out the window shades, and settled in for our first night in the van.

In the morning, we woke up to this view:

Not too bad for our first morning in New Zealand!

Then it was time to start exploring. Our first official stop in Northland was the beautiful Whangarei Falls. Fun fact I learned: “Wh” is pronounced like an “F” sound. I’m glad my friend told me that before I left home!

The falls were lovely, and they led us to an easy trail where we did a short hike past kauri trees.

Some of the trees are thousands of years old! We had to be very careful to clean our shoes at the boot-cleaning stations, because many of the kauri trees are dying due to a disease from foreign soil.

It was a nice, peaceful walk to took us to another waterfall:

We looped back to the van for some lunch sandwiches, on our newly discovered world’s best bread, Vogel’s Bread, and prepared to drive further north.

We stopped to check the surf at Shipwreck Bay, but it was too small, and there wasn’t anywhere to park the van unless we wanted to take the risk of driving onto the sand. We did not! (And I think the van company forbids that anyway.) But it was another beautiful view:

We continued our drive north to one of my favorite spots on the trip, Spirits Bay, just in time for sunset. I’ll tell you more about that next time!