4 weeks in NZ in Feb. 2015
 

We are a couple in our mid 60's taking our first trip to NZ & Australia.
Since we will be flying from Boston, USA, we will stay a night in LA and then on to Aukland. We are now thinking maybe one week in the North Island and 3 weeks in the South Island. We are very comfortable driving, but also wonder whether we should hook up with some of the all day tours or will it be easy enough for us to navigate the roads and be able to self drive and tour. We would love some suggestions about best places to stay and favorite sights. We are not going to do any extreme sports but would like to get out and see the beautiful places even if it requires some not too difficult hiking. We would like to stay in clean, moderately priced motels, B&B's, or even a small apartment for a few days. It would be nice not to have to eat out all of the time. I have read that most of the motels, etc. have small kitchen areas which I would like just to make a small breakfast or small snack. I have heard about Air B&B, and it does intrigue me.
Then off to Australia early in March for probably two weeks. Based on the weather are we correct in assuming that NZ should be the beginning of our trip and AU in March considering the weather in both countries? We would like to see Sydney, Melbourne, Ulura & Cairns, We are also thinking of a few days in Fiji at the very end of our trip, just because it is so close and what if I never get back to that part of the world??? Maybe that is too much but it is something I would like to consider. Thank you for any help you can give us.

Hi Annie -

Lucky you for having a month to spend in beautiful NZ!

<We are now thinking maybe one week in the North Island and 3 weeks in the South Island.>

Excellent distribution of time!

With three weeks on the SI (my personal favorite) you can see most of the highlights by making a driving circuit (actually more of a figure 8).

<I have read that most of the motels, etc. have small kitchen areas>

Yes, NZ motels are well set up for self-catering. Many have full kitchens, but I've run into a few here and there that only had a microwave and kettle, so just make sure you know what you're getting so you can plan accordingly.

NZ is easy to navigate on your own, absolutely no need for a tour - I highly recommend self-driving...everywhere.

<Based on the weather are we correct in assuming that NZ should be the beginning of our trip and AU in March considering the weather in both countries?>

Yes. The further into autumn you can go to AUS the better, as it can be extremely hot, even throughout March.

Regarding what to see and do in NZ, I have several detailed trip reports posted here on Fodor's that might help get you started.

Hi Annei,

we did a slightly shorter trip to NZ last year, and reading your queries may just spur me on to finish my trip report.

a word about accommodation, if I may - we used a combination of motels and B&Bs, and though it was nice to have the facilities of the motels, the places we enjoyed most were the B&Bs. The owners were very friendly, extremely helpful, and mines of local information. They booked excursions, restaurants, and provided afternoon tea. This is an example of what I'm talking about:

http://www.criffelpeakview.co.nz/

it's in lovely Wanaka, which we only went to because of a recommendation from Melenq8; we originally intended to spend only a night there but extended it to 3, which we were very pleased about.

The other B&B that I would thoroughly recommend is in the North Island at the start of the Coromandel peninsular; we only had one night there but we wished we'd stayed for longer and had the chance to explore the peninsular properly:

http://www.cotswoldcottage.co.nz/

you will have more time than us, but even then you'll find yourselves having to make difficult choices as there is so much to see and do.

Thank you both for the information.
Melnq8 - Since we are traveling in February in NZ, should we have some reservations for places to stay before we leave home? I read somewhere it is still peak season and we may have a hard time finding moderately priced motels, or B&B's at that time of year without reservations. I am going to look over your suggestions on where to start and things to see. I hope you don't mind if I pick your brain a little when I try to finalize some of the key places to see.

Ann Hig - Could you advise me on some of the places you felt were a must see. Also, did you do any organized tours or were you on your own pretty much. I am looking into some of the B&B's as I agree they can be very nice and the people very helpful for their areas.

<Melnq8 - Since we are traveling in February in NZ, should we have some reservations for places to stay before we leave home?>

Yes, particularly in small towns and areas with limited accommodation, such as the glaciers, Mt Cook, Arthur's Pass, Te Anau, and quite possibly Christchurch, which is still suffering an accommodation shortage since the earthquake.

Feel free to pick my brain as much as you like. I never tire of NZ.

Ann Hig - Could you advise me on some of the places you felt were a must see.>>

annie - that's really difficult. any response is going to be very subjective, depending on the weather, standard of the accommodation we happened to have in a particular place, etc.

but here goes:

The Coromandel peninsular - drop dead gorgeous and we are still kicking ourselves that we didn't spend longer there.

the Gannets at Napier - you can do a 1/2 day trip out to the peninsular where they all nest; the trip is fun but the gannets are really a sight to see, sitting there in serried ranks, with the ones coming into land [we watched one go round over a dozen times before s/he landed] making a wonderful racket, and being a bit smelly too.

The ferry trip from Wellington to Picton

a self-guided winery tour near Nelson [sorry, the Abel Tasman didn't float our boat, perhaps because it was too similar to where we live in the UK] , the great meal we had, and the vibe of the town itself, which we really liked.

Walking on the glacier at Fox [wish we'd done the heli-tour and walk though!]

The drive from Franz joseph to Wanaka.

Wanaka, especially the boat trip to the island in the middle where the Weka [ a very tame flightlesss bird] live, the exceptionally good B&B we stayed at, the fantastic meal we had at a winery there. a really great place.

Arrowsmith near Queenstown. touristy but interesting, especially the chinese village.

Doubtful sound [the boat trip before we got to the sound was particularly enjoyable, perhaps because the sun was shining, the sound itself seemed over-rated]

Oamaru - the gardens, the great italian restaurant, the old victorian buildings, especially the newly restored Victorian opera-house, and the fairy penguins [you can get within feet of them, though you probably shouldn't]

Timaru - the spectacularly good rose gardens.

The pop-up shops and restaurants of Christchurch. not much to look at but fascinating non the less.

you will have gathered that we are quite keen on food, wine and wild-life. and meeting new people which is where the B&Bs come in.

<Arrowsmith near Queenstown. touristy but interesting, especially the chinese village.>

That'd be Arrowtown.

well, Melnq8 - I prefer to think that I was half right, not half wrong.

Indeed you were annhig.

Hi there,

Regarding your accommodation, have everything booked up until at least the 9th of February. School starts to go back at the end of January however in Auckland the last Monday of the month is a public holiday and throughout all of NZ the 6th of February is a public holiday so these are very busy weekends (waitangi day). Given February is typically the nicest month of the year weather wise people make the most of these two long weekends before getting back into the yearly grind.

Places to see / consider:
On top of already mentioned and depending on your taste:

South Island:
Queenstown / wanaka - lots to do in the area. Could easily spend at least five nights
Milford sound - a must. Glow worms in te anua are also pretty cool (if you stay in te anua while doing the sounds)
Franz / fox glaciers as well as lake matheson on a crisp clear morning (photos of the southern alps are taken here)
Punakaiki (pancake rocks) - west coast of the South Island just south of Westport. Punakaiki is beautiful in itself but also marks the start of an amazing stretch of road down to greymouth. Keep heading south to the glaciers before crossing over to wanaka via haast pass
Marlborough sounds / queen Charlotte sound / Abel Tasman national park - top of the South Island not far from nelson. You can head from here to punakaiki. Westport is a hole (nothing there) so don't rush to stay - slightly north of Westport is apparently very nice but I haven't been there yet.
Kaikoura - whale watching and other nice stuff.
Akaroa - Christchurch peninsula - quaint village
Hmmm, you can go down south of Dunedin to the Caitlin's but never been there

North island
Bay of Islands - 3.5hrs north of Auckland. Stay in paihia but be careful around Waitangi Day (6th feb) as waitangi (the place) is right next to paihia so accommodation may be difficult.
While up here you can do day tour to cape reinga (top of north island), buses drive along ninty mile beach. Also do the hole in the rock boat trip and go over to Russell on the ferry - very quaint.
Coromandel peninsula - take your pick of matarangi, Whitianga, cooks beach, hot water beach, pauanui, or a bit further down whangamata / mt mounganui - all beautiful beaches but book accommodation. This is where 2/3rds of Auckland go on holiday to their baches (holiday homes) so feb will still be pretty busy.
Rotorua - lakes / and NZ cultural stuff
Taupo - more so on the way south. I can't remember if hells gate is here or in rotorua but it's worth going to some of the geothermal pools if you end up in the area.

I've given you lots of ideas and while this list isn't exhaustive it's from my travels through NZ as a kiwi (lived in Auckland) - google them and see if any take your fancy...

Have lots of fun

Hi Bostonites - we just returned from 4 weeks on South Island and posted our trip report a few days ago.
Very glad we had self catering facilities as we didn't care much for the food. See our report for lodging, etc.
If you have other questions contact me at [email protected]. We're coming to Boston next month for long weekend.

Very glad we had self catering facilities as we didn't care much for the food>>

changermaven - we spent over 2 weeks in NZ last year and had no complaints about the food at all, in fact some of it [not all ] was very good.

I'm just curious - what didn't you like about it?

Interesting I didn't like the food very much in the US, I guess it is just what you are used too.

nelsonian - I've read changermaven's trip report, and had s/he not said that they didn't like the food much, I'd not have known. like all of us, they had some good meals, some ok ones, and a few mediocre ones.

re food surely its what you are used to. we found most of the 'take-away" food to be fried, which we don't want to eat. Meat pies which we did try twice (and liked), to us were heavy and full of calories. Breakfasts were good everywhere - mostly muesli, yogurts, fruits, breads. I guess it was mainly the fast food and dinner restaurant options we found to be much pork, which we don't eat. We found it hard to find lighter meals. Since we pack light, and only very casual hiking clothes, we didn't look at the "nicer" restaurants. I am sure there is very fine food all over. For us, we had to search. for convenience we ate mostly pb&j for lunch on our hikes each day.
hope this helps...

I guess it was mainly the fast food and dinner restaurant options we found to be much pork, which we don't eat. >>

lol, in 17 days in NZ i can't remember eating any pork apart from bacon and sausages for the odd breakfast. We never eat fast food, but IME [admittedly very limited] they don't serve much pork, but mainly very poor beef and chicken. My recollection of your TR is that you ate a lot of fish, and self-catered a lot, so i'm still confused.

but let's not fall out about it. you obviously had a good time, which is the main thing.

changemaven -

Interesting comments about the food, and I agree to a certain extent; we've had our share of bad food in NZ over the years. Some of it can be attributed to regional differences in taste - for example, we find Australian bacon repulsive, because it's so different from what we grew up with and it's not cured or smoked. However, we've had some pretty good NZ bacon.

My die-hard carnivore spouse can't stomach NZ sausages (and believe me he's tried them all) and on our latest visit he even struggled to eat some of the beef offered in the grocery stores. Whether the difference was due to 100% grass feeding vs a combination of grass and corn, who knows, but it's notable as it's a rare day when he turns up his nose at meat!

We first began visiting NZ back in the 90's...back then tearooms dominated the countryside and white bread sandwiches and fried food seemed to reign.

The NZ dining scene has since come a very long way, but yes, there's still plenty of low end options. The higher the budget, the better the food.

We first began visiting NZ back in the 90's...back then tearooms dominated the countryside and white bread sandwiches and fried food seemed to reign. >>

we loved the tea rooms. all very individual [if not to say quirky] and we had nice things like soups, toasted sandwiches, the odd pie - whatever looked best on the menu. and very nice cakes with usually excellent coffee. so much better than the dreaded "little chefs" et al at home in the UK.

Melnq does your DH not like the taste of grass fed beef. We didn't like the meat in the US because it had a different taste which I took to be from it being corn fed rather than grass-fed cattle. Interesting discussion.

He eats grass fed beef in AUS all the time nelsonian, but he prefers grass fed that's been finished off with 100 days of corn before butchering. It improves the flavor tremendously, (at least for those of us used to corn fed beef) and there's considerably less sinew.

This year in NZ though, all the beef we bought at grocery stores had so much sinew running through it that he could barely chew the stuff.

Our British friends in Australia much prefer completely grass fed to corn, as that's what they're used to. A Thai expat living in AUS once told me she found Aussie pork smelly and disgusting. I thought that was an interesting comment as we felt the same about the pork in Indonesia - it would stink up the house for days.

It all comes down to what a person is used to.

During a tour of Cadbury in Dunedin years ago, we learned that they made the chocolate less sweet for their Japanese market.

Different strokes for different folks.

You can have those tearooms annhig (not to be confused with NZ cafes, which are lovely). If I could find a NZ tearoom with a proper flat white I'd give it a go, but most seem to do the Nescafe thing (gag, choke).

You can have those tearooms annhig (not to be confused with NZ cafes, which are lovely). If I could find a NZ tearoom with a proper flat white I'd give it a go, but most seem to do the Nescafe thing (gag, choke)>>

mel - what on earth is the difference between a tearoom and a cafe, in NZ terms? i'm talking about the roadside stopping places that you see out on the road or in the smaller towns, usually offering a selection of light meals, cakes, coffee, tea, etc. The vast majority had very good coffee - not a nescafe in sight. Are we talking about different sorts of places?

I find it amazing now that even in the most remote places in New Zealand now you can find a cafe or tearoom that serves flat white, cappucino's etc. When we did trips in the old days, we used to take a thermos flask of tea, and sandwiches!!!. My brother still does this when he comes to visit us from Christchurch.

I find it amazing now that even in the most remote places in New Zealand now you can find a cafe or tearoom that serves flat white, cappucino's etc.>>

that was more or less our experience too, Nelsonian.

glad to have it endorsed by a local!

Yes, annhig, we're talking about different places. Perhaps my terminology isn't correct, but you're describing what I consider a café. A tearoom (at least to me) is roadside takeway-type joint with plastic furniture and tablecloths that sells thawed and fried this and that, white bread sandwiches and lousy coffee. They're usually found in tiny remote towns and on the fringes of larger towns. Haast and Makorora spring to mind.

As I said above, dining has improved dramatically in the years we've been visiting NZ and (hopefully) the old tearooms are a dying breed.

Yes, annhig, we're talking about different places. Perhaps my terminology isn't correct, but you're describing what I consider a café>>

thank goodness for that, I was thinking that perhaps I'd been imagining things. That said, I'm reasonably sure that at least a few roadside places we stopped at called themselves teashops, even if they served decent coffee. [as they all did, so far as i recall].

alternatively of course, we've just got lousy taste in food and coffee!

I know it's been a while but have been working on our itinerary. After talking to a few travel agents I was conflicted about whether I could do this on my own and now after reading so many reports from travelers on this site and trip advisor, I am jumping in with both feet! I will use a travel agent to make the plane reservations as they are complicated.
We will be traveling around the 6th of February from Boston. We are planning on NZ for about 4 weeks and Australia about 2 to 3 weeks. We have given up the idea of Fiji for this trip, especially since many comments were to save it for another time. I agree it only adds more luggage and may be vacation overload.
We will fly from Boston to LA or San Francisco, then to Auckland where we will start our journey. So the North Island will be first on our agenda. We would like to spend a day in Auckland to help get over the long flight,
Day 2 travel to the Bay of Islands where we will go to Paihai, and take a tour from there to Hole in the rock and maybe se the dolphins.
Day 3 Bay of Island (Rainbow Falls, maybe scuba dive for my husband)
Day 4 Back through Auckland to Waitomo Caves & Rotorau
Day 5 Rotorau, Mud pools, maybe the geothermal spa & the Maori Dinner & concert
Day 6 Rotorau
Day 7 Lake Taupo, Huka Falls, Maybe jet boating
Day 8 Taupo
Day 9 Napier, look around at the art deco type town, Maybe Gannet bird safari
Day 10, Wellington, Tour of Wellington, Museum, Botanical gardens, sightseeing
Day 11 Ferry to Picton

I thought we would make reservations for the first few nights and then make them as we go along in case we just want to stay a little longer in one place. Is that ok during this time of year?

We will be renting a car. Should we pick it up at the airport or get it in Auckland and have our transportation from the airport to the hotel booked by the hotel?

Also, are we giving enough time each day considering the distance driving from place to place? Any suggestions or changes on things to see, how long to stay in each place, places to stay,. are appreciated. I am looking at B&B's, motels, etc. Not fancy but clean.

I will stop here for now. I will be asking many questions about the SI on which way I should start out but I would like to firm up the North Island first.
I thank you all for your help. This is the first time I will be doing this without the help of a travel agent and although it is intimidating, I also am very excited about it.
One more question - When we get on the ferry do we leave our rental on the North Island and pick up another car on the SOuth Island and i it done by the same rental company?

<When we get on the ferry do we leave our rental on the North Island and pick up another car on the SOuth Island and i it done by the same rental company?>

It depends on the rental car company. Some let you take their cars on the ferry (like APEX) others don't.

Good for you planning this yourself - I think you'll be glad you did.

Annie - I hope you don't mind my saying so but I think that you are falling into the error which we committed on the NI, in that we simply didn't allow ourselves long enough to recover from the driving, which is very hard work. using my trusty Pathfinder NZ Atlas, which includes a very helpful [and in our experience accurate] map showing driving times, I have added those times to your itinerary, thus:

Day 4 Back through Auckland to Waitomo Caves & Rotorau -7 HOURS
Day 5 Rotorau, Mud pools, maybe the geothermal spa & the Maori Dinner & concert
Day 6 Rotorau
Day 7 Lake Taupo, Huka Falls, Maybe jet boating - 1 HOUR 20 MINS
Day 8 Taupo
Day 9 Napier, look around at the art deco type town, Maybe Gannet bird safari 2 HOURS 30
Day 10, Wellington, Tour of Wellington, Museum, Botanical gardens, sightseeing 6 HOURS
Day 11 Ferry to Pic

The long drive from Paihia to Rotorua isn't such a problem as you then have 3 nights [giving you 2 days] to recover, but you will be hard pressed to do more than a stroll round Napier on your arrival day there [the gannet safari takes a good half day and you will have no time at all to visit the wineries, which are a lot of fun, or to do any bike riding, ditto] and you will have even less time to spend in Wellington after your drive from Napier, though you could always try to fit the museum in in the morning before you catch the ferry. [we actually did that and it was fine]. if you are arriving in Wellington on a Thursday night you could see Te Papa then as it opens late on Thursdays.

I think that if you could "borrow" another night for Napier from Rotorua/Taupo then you might get more out of that section of your trip - it's quite a long way to go for one night and the gannet safari is very good - it was one of the highlights of our trip. if you had a full day you could do the safari in the morning, and a wineries tour in the afternoon, which would make a very nice day in that area.

Apex do let you keep your car on both islands which we found very convenient. we were not terribly impressed with their service on collection of the car - they bus you from the airport to a depot about 10 mins drive away, they don't give you a map [hence our purchase of the Atlas though we had to stop at 2 petrol stations to find it] and they wouldn't even give me a glass of water though I was parched so we had to stop for that too! The car however was absolutely fine and very easy to drive. automatics are more or less standard which I suspect you will appreciate. I would strongly counsel against picking up/starting off in the Auckland rush hour which we did not enjoy at all, though as you will be starting off from downtown Auckland your experience might not be as bad as ours!

I really envy your having a whole month in NZ - we had only 17 nights and it wasn't anything like long enough.

Agree that bay of Island to rotorua via waitomo caves is a very long day. Without the detour to waitomo it is a 3.5hr and a 3hr drive combined and this is for a local. Same goes for taupo to napier and Napier to Wellington, both long days. Do you have to go via Napier? If you are looking to see a gannet colony I don't know how murawai stacks up but if you took the well signposted secondary route sh16 back to Auckland you drive past murawai beach.

Re scuba diving, the best would be poor knights otherwise goat Island (Leigh), both are between bay of Islands and Auckland.

Enjoy your planning

annie - we loved Napier, despite the non-stellar weather that we had there, but it does rather take you off route. if you omitted it, you could do this:

Day 3 Bay of Island (Rainbow Falls, maybe scuba dive for my husband)
Day 4 Back through Auckland to Waitomo Caves
Day 5 Waitomo caves [or similar] to Rotorua
Day 6 Rotorau, Mud pools, maybe the geothermal spa & the Maori Dinner & concert
Day 7 Rotorau
Day 8 Lake Taupo, Huka Falls, Maybe jet boating
Day 9 Taupo to Wellington
Day 10 Wellington, Tour of Wellington, Museum, Botanical gardens, sightseeing
Day 11 Ferry to Picton

this enables you to break the mega-drive from the Bay of Islands to Rotorua [still quite a long drive each day] and gives you a whole day in Wellington.

As we discovered, if you try to fit in everything, you can spread yourself too thin and get very tired. We changed our plans en route because we realised that we had bitten off more driving than we could chew and we were so glad that we did.

Thank you so much. I am trying to avoid that overly ambitious driving. I realize we should skip a few things and that is one of the reasons I am so happy to have found this forum. I will take all the advice I can get.Since I haven't made my plane reservations yet, (it will be done this week hopefully), I am still flexible. Annhig, since you just did the trip, I appreciate your thoughts on my itinerary. I would like to limit the driving to around 3 hours if possible. I think I will scrap Napier, as I would like to spend some time in Wellington.
Is there anything that any of you think I should see in the cities I have chosen that I did not mention. Since this is my first time, I am open to all thoughts on favorite places. We are not real hikers but we could easily walk 3 or 4 miles to see something spectacular! I love to see things I would never see here in the states, and I love the beauty in nature.

Melnq8, I know you said we should have reservations in some of the small towns, but since we may deviate from our route a bit, do you think it would be ok to make them while in NZ or do they need to be made months in advance?

Annie, we only had 4 nights on the NI, hence the overload with driving that we lumbered ourselves with, and two of those were in Napier, so that's not much use to you.

definitely aim to see Te Papa, and possibly the Museum of Wellington and the sea, though try to miss the exhibition about the ferry disaster if you're about to get on the boat. When they delayed our ferry for a few hours we wanted to use the cable car to get up to the botanical gardens but it was raining too much so we went to the Museum of Wellington instead and it was really good. This website may help:

http://www.museumswellington.org.nz/

if you have time, it's also worth going up to the top of Mount Victoria - the B&B we stayed in was towards the top and had terrific views over the whole of the bay, though it shook a bit as it was rather windy.

We decided to book our accommodation from the UK but it was clear when we got there that we needn't have done so, except for our first night or so; when we changed our plans we had no problem in finding alternative places to stay when we got there. The tourist information offices are really useful in that regard and will phone for you to make sure that there is a vacancy. The only problem might be making sure that you get to Wellington in time for the ferry but it is very easy to find and there are no customs or passport offices to worry about which makes it much simpler!

Annie -

No need to book months in advance. I think you'll be okay making those reservations while in NZ for the most part, but places like Mt Cook, Arthur's Pass, Franz Josef and Fox Glacier in February do worry me.

You might contact the Visitor's Center in each of the small towns you plan to visit and ask them their take on things. Perhaps they have some sage advice.

good point made by Melnq8 about booking ahead in areas where accommodation is relatively scarce.

I am wondering how I should avoid the 7 hour ride from Bay of Islands to Waitomo Caves. Is there a better route so that I will not do more than 3 or 4 hours driving in a day. Maybe some other place to see that would be interesting?

I am ready to start planning my itinerary for the SI. I will have about 20 days there. I am thinking that we will take the boat to Picton and probably focus on the west side of the island. I know Melnq8 you mentioned doing a figure 8 tour. Punakaika is said to be the start of a great road to Greymouth. I would like to take the train there also. Other places of interest is Franz Joseph,
Want to see the glaciers, Mt. Cook, Milford Sound, Wanaka, Queenstown and end in Christchurch. Any help or sugestions on how I should do this and stops along the way will be greatly appreciated.

Annie - the route we planned to take in the SI was this - Picton - Nelson - Franz Joesph - Wanaka - Te Anau - QT - Mount Cook - Christchurch. We altered it en route because we realised that it involved too much driving in the time we'd got on SI [13 nights] but that won't be such a problem for you.

You can of course see Mount Cook from Franz joseph, and in the time you've got, you could go from Te Anau to Dunedin which is one of the places that we missed that we wish we'd seen.

another alternative is to go south from Picton down the east coast as far as Arthur's Pass and then to drive across to the west coast from there, which means that you have opportunities to go whale watching and other similar activities, rather than the walking and boating that we did around Nelson.

Melnq8 is probably your best resource when it comes to planning trips to the SI - she was extremely helpful and patient with me when I was going through the planning process.

and Annie - I have an apology to make regarding Waitomo caves - when i looked again, they are of course as far south as Rotorua so there is no advantage in going there instead. What you need is somewhere to stay either just north or just south of Auckland, which is more or less equidistant from Paiha and Rotorua. A guide to Auckland might help in identifying nice places to stay near but not in the city.

Hi Annie -

<<Punakaika is said to be the start of a great road to Greymouth.>>

This would be SH 6, and yes, it's a pretty coastal drive, takes about 45 minutes to get from Punakaiki to Greymouth.

Regarding taking the train...are you referring to the Tranz Alpine from Christchurch to Greymouth?

If you arrive into Picton, it makes logistic sense to travel south to Punakaiki via SH 6 and then continue down the West Coast.

If you want to take the train, you'd board the train in Christchurch, detrain in Greymouth and collect a car, then make the detour to Punakaiki before turning south to head down the West Coast. Or do the reverse - Greymouth to Christchurch.

Re North Island.
3hrs driving will likely get you between 250-300km give or take. Most of the roads other than around the main cities are single lane with passing lanes. Given you will be there in summer expect the roads outside of the major centres to be busy as we all leave the cities and go to the beaches.

There is no real alternate route to get you from bay of Islands to rotorua and/or waitomo. There are occasional side roads but I would leave these to the locals unless you have a good gps as they tend to be poorly signposted.

As I've mentioned to someone else, rather than go to the bay of Islands you could go to the coromandel peninsula which is South East of Auckland and much closer to rotorua and waitomo. It really depends on what exactly you want to see. While the bay of Islands is beautiful IMHO the beaches on the coromandel are nicer. Paihia in the bay of Islands would likely be your choice for accomodation and the base for hole in the rock / a short ferry ride to quaint Russell / trip to waitangi for some Maori heritage (doubtless bay further north has nicer beaches). Likewise you might chose any of a number of places in the coromandel peninsula / bay of plenty (matarangi, whitianga, cooks beach, hot water beach, pauanui, whangamata, mt mounganui). It takes about 2.5-3.5hrs to drive from Auckland to the coromandel and then maybe 2hrs from there to rotorua. Just an option for you to throw around.

So, if you go to bay of Islands and want ~3hr drives you will need to put a night in between to get to waitomo / rotorua. Auckland would be your mid way point and there are lots of options depending on what you fancy doing. if it's simply a stop over you could stay somewhere in Auckland CBD as it's close to the motorway that will take you straight through Auckland. You might otherwise stay somewhere near kumeu (sorry I don't have an actual recommendation). You could then go to muriwai to see the gannets and I could also recommend the riverhead tavern for a great meal. Again this would be a relatively straightforward location with easy access to the motorways that get you South.

You seem like you are getting there, have fun with your research.