Working from Auckland - What did we miss?

Sadly my time working in Auckland, NZ came to an end earlier this year. If you followed my blog for the past two years, you would have noticed that we made the most of this to explore the North Island from Auckland as a base.

We managed to see a fair bit - including a number of World Cup Rugby games, Bay of Islands, Waiheke Island, Coromandal, Mount Maunganui, White Island, Rotarua, Waitamo Caves, Taupo and of course Auckland itself. But there's a few places we had on our list that we just didn't get to.

1. Tane Mahuta - the giant Kauri, found in Northland in the Waipoua. Ever since seeing General Sherman in Kings Canyon we have been obsessed with big trees

2. Wellington - this would have been a short flight from Auckland, but the Te Papa museum and the vibrant city itself are a big attraction

3. Napier - although I think we'd prefer to visit this art deco city during the Art Deco Weekend in February each year

4. Taranaki - the place where you can surf and ski in the same day, Mt Taranaki in New Plymouth is just one of those things you have to see

I'm sure there are plenty of other places that we didn't visit, that's the problem with NZ, you can never see everything, but if I'd had six more months, we would have definitely crossed the above off our list.