Rotorua to Wellington
 

My wife and I are traveling in New Zealand from October 30 to November 22. We our both in our 70’s. Adventure sports, hiking, fishing, resorts, wine tastings are definitely not items on our agenda. Our main interest while traveling is photography. That makes our travel times much longer than what shows up in the GPS or aa.co/nz Maps. Our vacations are self-drive staying either one night or two in on location.

As part of the 24 day trip we are planning driving from Rotorua to Wellington. aa.co.nz shows the driving time as 5 hours 40 minutes which is too long of day for us with all the photo stops. Looking at breaking up the trip into 2 days. Taupo is a possible but it is still more than 4 hours north of Wellington. Any suggestions where to spend the night between the Rotorua and Wellington is appreciated.

When we did our NZ driving tour after Rotorua we stopped at Hawke's Bay (it's near Hastings and Napier) - it was about 3 hours drive from Rotorua - a perfect distance for us. We spent a few days in the area seeing the sights and visiting several vineyards & wineries. It was a very nice area and well worth the stop. If your budget allows stay at Cape Kidnappers.

RoamsAround has the best suggestion. Hawke's Bay is the region and Napier and Hastings are cities there. They are only about 1/2 hour apart but Hastings is less interesting. Napier has Art Deco buildings as they rebuilt the city after a devastating earthquake in 1929.
Mission Winery is lovely and has a great restaurant.
The SH 1 is pretty boring past Tongariro National Park through to Wellington. Waiouru or Taihape would do for one night.

If you go to Hawkes Bay, you might enjoy the drive up to Te Mata Peak for its excellent views. Note the road to the summit is steep and curvy.
http://tematapark.co.nz/

Thanks to everyone for the comments. I will do some more research now that you have given a couple of ideas.