New Zealand’s State Highway 1, SH1, is the longest highway, connecting both the North and the South island from south to north. From Cape Reinga to Wellington, and Picton to Bluff. It is in total 2033 km long and will take you through some beautiful nature. South Island’s SH1 is mostly following old Maori coastal trail.

So this is all cool and that, but what does it actually to do with us, you might ask. We actually made it to our quest to travel all of this highway. Just a few days ago we finally made the last bit! So this post will take you through all of this road, chronologically as we did them.

Majority of the Northen SH1

The biggest chunk of road in the shortest amount time will definitely be at the start of our Working Holiday Visa (WHV). We had decided to leave Auckland and go to Wellington, in the hopes of finding a campervan there. We booked an AirBnB in Wellington. On our second last day in Auckland, we had a viewing of a van, which we liked so much that we decided to buy it. So we left Auckland around noon, stopped just outside of Taupo for the first night’s sleep in our new home. And then the following morning we continued the drive to Wellington.

Here we did some touristing things like Te Papa, Weta cave, Zealandia and strolling in the CBD (Central Business District, or as we say back home; city center). This is also where we ended up spending almost 4,5 months, a lot of it working.

South Island

Our good friends Liza and Val came to NZ as a part of their World Tour in back in February. We met up in Wellington and took the ferry over to South Island together. We spent almost 2 weeks traveling alongside with them, then we had to split up because Petri and I went to meet up with my parents.

Picton to Rangitata

From Picton we went to Blenheim and Rewick where we did wine tasting. In Kaikoura we did a whale watching tour and got to see a sperm whale as well as Hector dolphins and NZ Fur seals. In Christchurch we visited the Quake City museum. The only reason why Rangitata is on this map, is because it’s here that we turned off the SH1 to go to Lake Tekapo.

Pukeuri to Bluff

Pukeuri is where we got back on track on SH1 after our detour. We visited Oamaru, a beautiful harbor city famous for it’s limestone. We explored The Catlins, and I can especially recommend Cathedral Cave. In slope point we hoped to see dolphins and penguins, but no luck. Lastly, we arrived in Bluff! Our adventure didn’t end there, but our SH1 adenture did.

The missing bit

The remaining bit, between Rangitata and Pukeuri took some time to fill in. At the end of March we were looking for jobs. We found an apple picking job in Temuka, so we got that bit filled out quite quickly. But this job didn’t work out. We followed our newly made friends north to Ashburton and worked with potato harvesting. Not until we finished our work there, did we finally drive the last bit, when we went south to check out Dunedin a bit more.

Back to North Island

There was still everything north of Auckland missing. And as we still had barely explored anything of North Island when we returned at the end of June, we took time to check out as much as reasonably possible, and avoiding SH1 as we had already driven on it. July almost came to it’s end before we were ready to head north of Auckland.

Auckland to Kawakawa

This isn’t especially far, but there’s a lot of things to see on the way. Whangarei has a beautiful waterfall and we checked out the area where some caves are. Kawakawa has some Hundertwasser architectures.

A detour

Then we took off from the SH1 again. We wanted to see the Bay of Islands which is beautiful, we visited outside of Whaitangi Treaty Grounds (50$NZ per person to enter…), visited Kerikeri, drove up to Kaitaia. We also passed Mangonui, where we on the map saw that they have a “World Famous Fish Shop”. We’d never heard of it before, but of course we got curious and made a stop there for lunch. And their fish and chips are good! In Kaitaia we ended up being for just over 2 weeks, doing Helpx.

As North as one can drive

We had a window of beautiful weather and decided that now’s the time to see as north as it’s possible to get. The SH1 goes all the way to Cape Reinga, a good road and a good parking place. Cape Reinga has a light house and a sign as well, saying for example how many km it is to Antarctica and the Equator. Cape Reinga is also very special culturally and spiritually for the Maori, as they believe that the soul travels all the way to Cape Reinga before it leaves the island, goes into the sea and returns to the ancestral home.

1st of September 2019

Is the day we FINALLY drove the LAST bit of SH1, from Kaitaia to Kawakawa. The drive takes you through some beautiful landscape, but to the travelers who have already been through most of the both islands, it can feel a bit meh. There is a while where there are a lot of bends, and it’s a tiring drive.

Good on you for making it all the way down here! Hopefully there was also something interesting to read, and not just me rambling at this hour. It did become more work with writing this than I had expected. But if you do come here and have the time, do travel the whole of SH1, it will take you on an adventure and then lead you back home again. Or, as in the case like us, let you drive your home on it.

Petra

A few facts were collected from;
Te Ara – The encyclopedia of New Zealand
Aunt Wiki for us who can’t survive without Wikipedia