CENTRAL NORTH ISLAND
Central North Island is a region of Maori villages, lakes, trout fishing streams, limestone caves, volcanoes, geysers, boiling mud pots, ski resorts, dairy farms that produce butter and cheese, farmstays, hikes, and tacky tourist towns. The main tourist centers are Hamilton, Rotorua and Taupo.
Hamilton
Hamilton (80 miles south of Auckland) is a large town with an arts and history museum (with Tainui Maori items), Hamilton Gardens (one of New Zealand's premier gardens) and an old fashioned paddle wheeler, which offers trips down the Waikato River. The town is also a good jumping off point for exploring some charming nearby small towns.
In nearby Awamutu there is a lovely rose garden and old Anglican church and the Te Awamutu Museum (with Maori treasures, including the powerful Uenuku). Further south in Otorohanga is a special kiwi display and the largest walk-through aviary in the Southern Hemisphere. To the west of Hamilton is Matamata, the center of New Zealand's thoroughbred horse breeding industry.
Hamilton Tourist Office: Hamilton Visitor's Center, Angelsea Street, ☎ (07)-839-3360, Fax: (07)-839-0794, E-mail: trish@waikato.tourism.co.nz. Accommodation: Hamilton is a fairly large town with a wide choice of accommodation. It has one ★★★★★ hotel; 7 ★★★★ hotels; 25 ★★★ hotels and motels; 9 ★★ hotels and motels; several ★ hotels and guest houses; three backpacker hotels and hostels; and 3 motor camps and campgrounds. How to Get There: Hamilton is a 1½ hour drive from Auckland. It can also be reached by bus and train from Auckland and several other towns. There is a small airport nearby.
Waitomo Glowworm Caves
Waitomo Glowworm Caves (50 miles south of Hamilton) features a 100-foot-long, 50-foot-wide and 40-foot-high chamber filled with glow worms that produce constellations of blue-green light. Glowworms can also be seen in other New Zealand caves but Waitomo is regarded as the best and most developed glowworm cave in New Zealand.
The tour begins with a walk through a cavern that is packed with stalactite and stalagmite formations to a dim tunnel that allows visitors to adjust to the dark. When their eyes are ready they enter a small cave with a platform and a low ceiling that is ablaze with hundreds of glow worms producing pulsating blue-green light.
After everyone has had a chance to take it all in, the lights are turned on, revealing the worms, which are really not worms but fungus gnat maggots (larvae), suspended from the cave wall in mucous nests. Their lights are used to attract insects to sticky strings that dangle from their and used like spider webs to entangle insects. When insects are captured they are reeled in and gobbled up by the worms. After larvae mature into gnats they live for only four days and spend most their time trying to reproduce.
The light is produced by a biochemical reaction (similar to ones that provide light for fireflies and bioluminescent sea creatures) involving the substance luciferase. The hungrier the worms are the more light they produce. Most of their victims are mayflies which are paralyzed with chemicals so their juice can be sucked from their bodies by the maggots.
After receiving a lecture about the larvae, visitors board a small boat which takes them to a large cave for the climax of the trip. Before they enter the cave the guide warns everybody to be quiet: noise makes the worms turn off their lights. The boat is then propelled forward by the guide who pulls hand over hand along a suspended wire.
Inside the cave is a spectacle even Steven Spielberg couldn't duplicate: up on the high ceiling are hundred of thousands of densely-packed worms which light up the cave like a galaxy cluster viewed from a clear mountaintop. The luminescence is intensified because it is reflected in the water below and surrounds the viewer. When the jaded philosopher and playwright George Bernard Shaw witnessed the spectacle, he called it the "Eighth Wonder of the World." [One Source: Paul Zahl, National Geographic, July 1971]
Waitomo Glowworm Cave Tourism
Waitomo Village is the gateway to Waitomo Caves. It is a small tourist town with a few tacky sights. Tourist Office: Museum of Caves Information Centre, Main Street, ☎ (07)-878-7640, Fax: (07)-878-6184, E-mail: waitomomuseum@xtra.co.nz. Accommodation: Waitomo Village is a small place. It has 4 ★★★ hotels and motels; 2 ★★ hotels and motels; several ★ hotels and guest houses; one backpacker hotel and hostel; and two motor camps and campgrounds. How to Get There: Waitomo Village is a two hour drive from Auckland, a one hour drive from Hamilton and 1½ hours from Rotorua. It can also be reached by bus from Auckland and several other towns.
Black Water Rafting Tours in Waitomo Caves entails a 110-foot, dead-drop rappel into a cave, a 50-foot cable-and-pulley "flying fox" ride across a subterranean river gorge and an inner-tube ride trip down a calm and cold river through a spectacular glow worm tunnel. After the tunnel participants climb out of their inner tubes and hike through several tunnels, slither through a small passage and climb two waterfalls to get out of the cave. While underground participants wear a wet suit, hard hat with a headlamp, and rubber boots. Tough caving trips to the Spider Hole and Lost World are also offered.
Rotorua
Rotorua (145 miles south of Auckland) is a town with 50,000 people and the major gateway to the Whakarewarewa Thermal Area and the heartland of Maori region. Reminiscent of an American-style tourist trap, it is dominated by Lake Rotorua and Motel Alley, a strip mall area with 120 mostly garish and tacky motels
Among the roadside-style attractions in the area are Orchid Garden's Microworld, a quasi-museum with glass cases full of things like goldfish, locusts, tree frogs and cockroaches viewed with telescopes.
Other attractions include 1) Rainbow Springs, where you can see a 20-pound trout and read a description about its cannibalistic habits; 2) Government Garden, a magnificent tudor building with a lawn bowling green; 3) the Agromdome, the site of a sheep show with 20 different breeds of sheep, including Merino and English Leicester; 4) the St. Faith's Maori Anglican Church; 5) the Rotorua Museum and Art Gallery; 6) the Fairbanks Maze and Orchard (a hedge maze); and 7) Te Ngae Park 3D Maze.
Around Rotorua are many resorts which tap into the supply of geothermal water and offer tourists a chance to relax in mud baths and hot water pools and spas like Polynesia Pools. There are also many recreational opportunities in area like bungy jumping, horseback riding, mountain luge rides, sky-gondola rides, whitewater rafting, fishing, golf, forest walks, hiking, water skiing and jetboating.
Rotorua Tourist Office: Tourism Rotorua, 67 Fenton Street, ☎ (07)-348-5179, Fax: (07)-348-6044, E-mail: gdela@rdc.govt.nz. Website www.rotoruanz.com/. Accommodation: Rotorua is a fairly large town with a wide choice of accommodation options. It has three ★★★★★ hotels and resorts; 20 ★★★★ hotels; 50 ★★★ hotels and motels; 12 ★★ hotels and motels; several ★ hotels and guest houses; three backpacker hotels and hostels; and 20 motor camps and campgrounds. How to Get There: Rotorua is a three hour drive from of Auckland and a five hour drive from Wellington. It is also a four hour trail ride from Auckland and can also be reached by bus and train from Auckland and several other towns. There is a small airport nearby.
Maori Tourism in the Rotorua Area
Maori Village (near Rotorua) is a tourist attraction with a culture show, “hangi” (feast) and concert at the “marae” (traditional Maori meeting hall). It is a little hokey but still good fun. Describing the show novelist Blanche d'Alpuget wrote in the New York Times, "Incredibly the evening turned out to be both poignant and enthralling. The warriors...came out dancing out of the marae in grass skirts and tatoos, stomping and rolling their eyes...Their face tatoos were painted on. Their traditional meeting hall had electric lights and a nylon lace curtain" but "the songs, dances and oratory united the performer with the audience; their attachment to their lost culture...touched us all."
Maori Arts and Crafts Institute (near Rotorua) is a thriving center of Maori culture. Created by an act of Parliament, it features an elaborately-carved marae made from totora wood painted with a red ocher "protective skin" to ward off evil spirits. Many of the carvings depict Maori gods and ancient legends. There are daily performances of the haka.
In the meeting houses, youth are taught traditional songs, chants and dances. There is also a weaving house where women make flax skirts, mats, baskets fishing nets, and woven flax coats adorned with kiwi feathers. Rotorua is a center of Maori culture. There are 57 marae in the Rotorua area and most of them are at the center of village where traditional Maori village life endures.
Whakarewarewa Thermal Area
Whakarewarewa Thermal Area (near Rotorua) is famous for its bubbling mud pots, rainbow-colored silica terraces, steaming hot springs, and geo-thermal spas. It attracts over 800,000 visitors every year. The only down side is that almost the entire area reeks of sulfur.
Whakarewarewa Thermal Area lies on the Taupo Volcanic Plateau, one of the most geologically active places on earth. Like Yellowstone Park, it is well known for its geysers, and the first place many tourists head is Geyser Flat, a cluster of seven geysers that erupt fairly frequently and are situated on a terrace platform of mineral deposits.
A short walk from Geyser Flat is the Prince of Wales Feathers group, which has one geyser that shoots water 40 feet into the air. The largest geyser in New Zealand, however, is Pohutu, which sometimes thrusts a column of water 100 feet into the air. The only problem with Pohuta is that it is very unreliable for a geyser. Zealand. Usually it erupts every 20 minutes but between April 1932 and June 1934 it didn't erupt once, and in 1920 it erupted continuously for 12 hours.
The activity of geysers is all inter-twined. Just before Pohuto erupts, for example, nearby hot springs begin to bubble over. When the geyser starts to shoot the water level in the springs drop. Activity as a whole has decreased in recent years because homeowners and geothermal companies have taken out too much water.
Waimangu Hot Springs
Waimangu Hot Springs (near Rotorua) is another popular thermal area. In the 19th century, when it was regarded as New Zealand's premier tourist sight, it contained two magnificent sets of fan-shaped terraces: one pink and one white.
Formed from mineral deposits, these terraces were said to be the most beautiful geo-thermal formations in the world. The pink terraces covered five acres and contained striking azure pools of water. The white terraces resembled a giant alabaster staircase. They covered 7½ acres and contained pools of water fed by erupting geysers.
All that changed on June 10, 1886, when a nearby volcano, which was thought to be extinct, erupted with a violent explosion that could be heard hundreds of miles away. In the months that followed, twenty-two vents opened up and spewed out 6,000 square mile of lava, covering up the white and pink terraces and many nearby villages (the excavated village Te Wairoa can visited today).
Almost as if the earth was trying to make amends for the disaster, a geyser sprouted up out of the debris in 1900. When it matured in 1903, it thrust boiling water and mud 1500 feet into the air, a world record that has never been equaled according to the Guinness Book of Records. But it too didn't last, in 1904 it sputtered to a mere dribble and by 1908 it dried up completely. In 1906, another volcanic eruption occurred, destroying a hotel and leaving behind a 10-acre boiling lake.
Waimangu Hot Springs sits on an area where magma is particular close to the earth's surface. Although it is not as impressive as it once was, Waimangu is still an incredible area. It contains jagged volcanic features, bold-colored mineral deposits, boiling and hissing lakes, steaming cliff faces, and psychedelic moonscape features.
One such feature, Cathedral Rocks, is a set of steaming red-streaked cliffs that rise up from a 10-acre lake of boiling water. Red cliffs also surround the turquoise blue water of Ruamoko's Throat, another lake. There are also boiling mud pots, hissing fissures of sulfuric gases, pools of multi-colored water, and geysers (but they don't erupt with regularity and intensity of those at Whakarewarewa).
Near Rotorua
Mount Tarawera (15 miles east of Rotorua) is a 3,300-foot-high volcano that can be easily climbed or reached with a four-wheel drive vehicles. Tour vehicles usually drive to the top and allow visitors to walk around the craters for about an hour and a half.
Lake Taupo (50 miles south of Rotorua) is New Zealand's largest lake at around 100 square miles. Produced by a largest known volcanic eruption, in the A.D. 2nd century, it is a massive crater filled with water. Today, it is famous for its large rainbow trout and golf courses. On the north side of the lake are Wairakei Park and Huka Falls. The later is where the mighty Wairekei River gets channeled into a narrow crevasse.
Attractions around Taupo include 1) Craters of the Moon (a thermal area with steam vents and boiling mud; 2) Aratiatia Rapids, which at times supplies water for powerful turbines; 3) the Tiki Te Tamamutu meeting house (a Maori marae that dates back to the early 1800s; and 4) the famous Maori rock carvings in Mine Bay, which can be viewed only from a boat. Whitewater rafting is done on the Tongariro and Rangitaki Rivers.
Taupo Tourist Office: Information Taupo, Tongariro Street, ☎ (07)-378-9000, Fax: (07)-378-9003, E-mail: tuovin@nzhost.co.nz. Website www.thinkfresh.org.nz. Accommodation: Taupo is a medium size town with two ★★★★★ hotels and resorts; 12 ★★★★ hotels; 26 ★★★ hotels and motels; 7 ★★ hotels and motels; several ★ hotels and guest houses; three backpacker hotels and hostels; and 10 motor camps and campgrounds. How to Get There: Taupo is a 4½ hour drive from Auckland and an hour drive from Rotorua. It can also be reached by bus from Auckland and several other towns. There is a small airport nearby.
Tongariro National Park
Tongariro National Park (south of Lake Taupo near Turangi) is a 188,000-acre park dominated by three volcanos: Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu. Between November and April the park is filled with hikers (there are some dormitory-style huts where hikers can sleep). In the winter, particularly in July and August, it attracts skiers.
The first national park in New Zealand and the forth national park in the world, Tongariro became a park after it was given to the people of New Zealand in 1887 by the Maori chief Te Heuheu IV. Selected as a UNESCO World Heritage site, Tongariro draws about 800,000 visitors a year, the majority of them skiers.
Turangi (to the south of Lake Taupo) is the main gateway to Tongariro National Park. It offers access to some nice walks and white water rafting on the nearby Tongariro River.
Turangi Tourist Office: Turangi Information Centre, Ngawaka Place, ☎ (07)-386-8999, Fax: (07)-386-0074, E-mail: tuvin@nzhost.co.nz. Website http://ruapehu.tourism.co.nz. Accommodation: Turangi is a fairly small. It has 1 ★★★★★ lodge; 4 ★★★★ hotels; 6 ★★★ hotels and motels; 2 ★★ hotels and motels; several ★ hotels and guest houses; one backpacker hotels and hostels; and 5 motor camps and campgrounds. How to Get There: Turangi is a four hour drive south of Auckland and two hours south of Rotorua. It can also be reached by bus from Auckland and several other towns. There is a small airport nearby.
Mountains and Hikes in Tongariro National Park
Mt. Ruapehu is the tallest peak and southernmost volcano in Tongariro National Park. Standing 9,175 feet high and getting taller, it has erupted several times this century, releasing boulders and causing ice-bock avalanches that have swept sweep away buildings and bridges. An eruption in the 1950s released ash and lava 1,000 feet into the air. In the winter Ruapehu's glacier-covered slopes attract large numbers of skiers. There is a special warning system in place to alert skiers in the event of an eruption.
Rangipo (in Tongariro National Park) is New Zealand's only desert. Situated on the eastern slopes of the parks mountains, it is rocky but colorful and awesome landscape.
Tongariro Crossing (in Tongariro National Park) is a 10-mile, 8-hour "tramp" across a dramatic plateau that is regarded by Kiwis as the world's finest one-day hike. A one-way hike that begins in Mangatepopo and ends in Ketetahi, it passes in and around rain forests, barren multicolored deserts, heath-covered slopes, towering mountains, lakes, waterfalls and the three active volcanos—Mt. Tongariro, Mt. Ngauruhoe and Mt. Ruapehu.
The hike involves some steep ascents and some scrambling on all fours over boulders. At the summits of the volcanos, the trail winds through fields of black, red and gray lava, and passes dozens of craters with steaming vents, barren floors, striking blue lakes and furmoles releasing sulfur-drenched steam (hikers are advised to stay on the trail). There are also spectacular views. Near the end of hike there is an open-air hot spring where hikers can relax and soak their tired bodies.
Mt. Ngauruhoe
Mt. Ngauruhoe (in Tongariro National Park) is regarded as New Zealand's most active volcano. The northernmost peak in the park, it features a smoking, ash-covered cone that rises 2,000 feet above numerous smaller volcanos.
According to legend the mountain became volcanic at the beginning of time when a holy man climbed to the summit and complained he was cold and asked the gods for help. The gods obliged and sent fire up to him through the mountain and the mountain have been filled with fire ever since.
The first man to climb the mountain was a British climber who ignored Maori taboos and scaled it in 1839 only to flee down its slopes after peering into the crater and viewing "the most terrible abyss ever seen or imagined." His tale deterred anyone from attempting to climb it for another 14 years.
In some places the magma is very close to the surface and he soil is hundreds of degrees hot. People who are a little nervous about the volcanic activity aren't encouraged by the guides who tell them things like the Maori volcano god, will "do his best to shake you lot off the mountain" and "scientists say he'll blow like a bomb next time." [Source: New York Times]
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: New Zealand Tourism Board, National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Discover magazine, The Conversation, The New Yorker, Time, BBC, CNN, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Wikipedia, The Guardian, and various books and other publications.
Last updated September 2025