Good Home Base to Relax near Auckland?
 

Hi All,

Any advice regarding a good town or area close to Auckland (within a few hour drive) to recover after flying in from Canada? We have two young children (5 & 7 years) and will be spending 6 weeks or so in New Zealand arriving in mid-February.

We will definitely stay in Auckland at some point but would like to spend the first part of our trip somewhere quiet, quaint, and easy (beach is good but not necessary). Accommodation ideas would also be appreciated (motel, B&B etc.).

Thanks for any and all help.

Connie

If you want quiet beaches near Auckland, I'd suggest the Coromandel Peninsula. Our family (kids 6 & 9) liked staying in the the Waihirere Cottage (http://www.greenstone.co.nz/gs_4.html), located near Tuateawa.

A nice place to spend a few days is around the Orewa region, about 1 hours drive north of Auckland city. The drive there is easy as the motorway goes all the way to Orewa so you wont have to many driving dramas while jet-lagged.

The township has a beachside village feel to it and the beach setting is divine. I think it would be a great place to acclimatise and recover from the rigours of the flight before heading off on your adventure.

http://www.orewa-beach.co.nz/

i don't want to start a war, but as this is the second recorded plug for orewa by the same poster, i would like to share my impressions:

i visited orewa the last 2 nights of a week long trip through the north island's beach communities and found it to be drab- a strip of hotels and motels- and charmless. the "center of town" has a two lane busy road running through it, certainly worrisome for a parent with small children. it is one of the most charm-less places i've been in all of new zealand.
the accommodation choices were tiny little mom and pop motels one atop another and the beach was truly awful. access to the beach was down a small cliff and the sand was brown dirt. the beach was not at all spectacular and by 8pm the only place for a meal was the pub.

new zealand in general and auckland in particular boasts some of the world's most spectacular beaches.

why not check out the official tourism website (it used to be purenz.com) and find one. you can do better than orewa, imho.

Hi kerikeri,

I have only spent one night in Orewa so I guess you have had more time there to get a good look at the place.
I really enjoyed my stay there ... maybe it was the fact that it was the beginning of a fun trip to the Bay of Islands or maybe it was the people I met there ... who knows, but I loved it.
I guess my one stay made such an impression on me that I only saw the good things, having a motel room that overlooked the beach was pretty nice as well.

Oh well, one mans treasure is another mans trash I s'pose ~

Thanks to all for your input. Any other suggestions welcome.

Hi Conny

If you are not averse to a 2 to 2.5 hour drive, then the Coromandel peninsula is a good choice for places to stay.

There are two main tourist towns on the East side of the peninsula. Whitianga and Whangamata. As you are going there in February they will be a little quieter as the school holidays are over (So long as you are not there on Waitangi weekend the weekend of the 6th of February this is a fairly major holiday weekend.)

The beach at Whangamata is pretty good. I like it alot and it takes a bit to get me in the sea.

Whitianga is a small town again with good safe beaches.

A website for there is
http://www.whangamata.co.nz/index_whanga.htm

A good starter website is as follows:
http://www.thepeninsula.co.nz/whitianga/

Apart form these places there are a cluster of others such as Cooks Beach, Matarangi, Coromandel township, Thames. They each have their attractions, but IMHO are not as good, either for location, beaches, access to other towns.

Follow the links through the sites I have given you and you will get a good idea.

The bonus of staying on the Coromandel is that you can travel south very easily to Tauranga, Mount Maunganui and onto Rotorua and Taupo with ease.

Of course it all depends on what you want to do.

By the way, February is USUALLY our most settled month, however weather in New Zealand can be unpredictable to say the least, so pack accordingly. Should not be cold though in the top of the North Island.

Hope some of this helps. I can give you a few suggestions North of Auckland but to be honest the only beaches I like north of Auckland are at least 3 hours North. Starting with Uretiti (Which does have some interesting aspects to it) and on up to my favorite beach in New Zealand, Matai Bay.

Steve