Two weeks in New Zealand somehow feels both luxuriously long and impossibly short. I experienced this firsthand during a recent visit to my mother on the North Island, where she’s been living near Opotiki since 2015. Embarrassingly, this was only my second visit since she moved—my first was way back in 2016—but I pinky-promised to return sooner next time.

Small aside because this is wild – this photo is from March 2016, taken on White Island which is not far from where my mom lives in the Bay of Plenty. My mom and brother along with Will and I took a helicopter tour out to the island and got to walk around for a few hours on the active volcano (!!), which then erupted in 2019. The eruption was a terrible tragedy that claimed several lives, and understandably, no tours have operated there since.

New Zealand is an incredibly popular vacation/honeymoon destination for a reason, and that reason involves a lot of adventuring and lakes and hot springs and bridge jumping (among other things). 

Much has been written about where to go and what to see, and those guidebooks are largely accurate, so I won’t ramble on about the big things. The Waitomo Caves Black Abyss tour with its magical glow worms and the surprisingly addictive Rotorua Skyline Luge are gems for a reason, and Blueberry Corner is still my favorite place for delicious New Zealand-style ice cream (though honestly, you can find a similar treat in most places).

But here’s what I actually broke my blogging hiatus to share: a few discoveries that haven’t made it into the standard travel guides yet, or at least not the ones I bothered to read.

1. Ngā Tapuwae o Toi Walkway – specifically at high tide

The “Footprints of Toi” walking trail between the towns of Whakatāne and Ōhope can be as easy or as hard as you’d like depending on how far you go. The full loop is 5-ish hours with great views (including of White Island), but you can also just do half and take a bus back, or turn around at any point.

It’s a well-known path that you’ll find in travel guides, but here’s something they don’t mention: while the guides warn that Ōtarawairere Beach is inaccessible on foot during high tide, I’d argue you should in fact ONLY do this section of the hike at high tide (if you’re up for some adventure). For a few hours around high tide, water reaches the rocks and forces you to scramble over the rocky shoreline instead of walking easily on the beach. We went about 30 minutes after high tide and had to climb a fair bit, but the hardest move was maybe V0 on the bouldering scale—my sixty-something mother managed fine (though she also did a 13-day Mont Blanc trek with me, so take that as you will). It was incredibly fun navigating around the water, climbing the rocks, and having the area mostly to ourselves.

2. Mahy Reserve Park in Ōhope

This is just a regular park in a regular beach town but holy smokes the trees create an elite-level natural playground. We went to the park specifically for a wild foods festival, which was great, but for me the trees were the highlight – even above the freshly made wild venison sausage roll. And of course, the kids at the festival agreed with me, running and climbing all over. The ancient-looking, gnarled trees have sprawling limbs and super thick horizontal branches low to the ground that are perfect for balancing on. I wish I had gotten a photo, but you’ll just have to use your imagination.

3. Bridge Jumping on the Dunes Trail in Opotiki

The Dunes Trail is a 9 km biking/walking trail along the beach. Don’t let the “easy” rating deter you – while not particularly difficult, it’s SUPER fun. The gravel path flows up, down, and around the dunes along the Opotiki Beach, with some great views (you can see out to White Island on a clear day) and a mid-trail pullup bar if you’re into that sort of thing.

The Dunes Trail starts and ends at the Otutaopuku bridge, which is absolutely perfect for a post-ride high-tide bridge jump as long as you time the water level correctly.

4. Onekawa Te Mawhai Regional Park – Southern Loop Track

This small, out-of-the-way park has a wonderful two-hour loop that Will described as an “elite-level hike”. In fact, I loved it so much that I did it three times during my short two weeks in New Zealand. The Southern Loop Track is the longer version of the trail (there’s a shorter option as well) that winds up through the forest before emerging to an open field area where you navigate through some sheep and cows before descending down the other side of the hill to Bryan’s Beach. Walking along the beach and then for a few minutes on the road brings you back to the start of the loop.

I might be biased because the trail begins approximately 400 steps from my mom’s house, and Will might be biased because it’s a fair bit shorter than the hikes I normally drag him on, but it’s overall a truly lovely walk. For a fun bonus, if you go at night, you can do a quick detour to see glow worms in the wild!

So that’s the minimal inside scoop, in this case for the eastern Bay of Plenty area. These hidden gems aren’t particularly hard to find and definitely worth a stop if you’re in the area.

For this trip, I didn’t think a full overview would be as interesting since I mostly just accompanied my mom in her daily life (yoga! dance class! paddleboarding! swimming! biking! so! much! walking!), with a few touristy things sprinkled in (glow worms! luge! hot springs!). Will and I had an absolutely lovely time (he skipped the dance classes), and we’re already excited for the next trip. I did pinky-promise it would be soon, so I better start looking at flights.