Rotorua, Waikato & the Bay of Plenty

The region's iwi trace their ancestors to famous voyaging canoes: Te Arawa made landfall at Maketu on the Bay of Plenty coast, Mātaatua at Whakatāne, and Tainui on the west coast, giving its name to the Waikato confederation. Ngāti Tūwharetoa settled around Lake Taupō, which fills the caldera of a volcano whose eruption around 232 AD was one of the largest of the last few thousand years.

In 1858 Waikato and allied iwi raised Pōtatau Te Wherowhero as the first Māori King, to unite tribes against further land sales. The Crown saw the Kīngitanga as a challenge, and in 1863 its troops crossed the Mangatāwhiri stream to invade the Waikato. Battles at Rangiriri and Ōrākau followed, and in 1864 the Bay of Plenty saw the British defeat at Gate Pā in Tauranga and the Māori defeat at Te Ranga. The Crown then confiscated over a million acres of Waikato land and large areas of the Bay of Plenty. In 1995 Waikato-Tainui reached the first major settlement of confiscation claims, with a Crown apology and compensation, and other settlements followed.

Rotorua became a tourist destination in the 1870s, when visitors came to see the Pink and White Terraces on Lake Rotomahana. Mount Tarawera's eruption of 1886 destroyed the terraces and buried the village of Te Wairoa. The state then built Rotorua as a spa town, and in 1887 Tūwharetoa's paramount chief, Horonuku Te Heuheu Tūkino IV, gifted the summits of Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu to the Crown as the core of the country's first national park. Gold drew miners to Thames from 1867 and Waihi from 1878, and dairying transformed the Waikato swamps in the 20th century.

Two Māori institutions give the region particular weight. The Kīngitanga still has its seat at Tūrangawaewae marae in Ngāruawāhia, and the coronation anniversary gatherings there draw politicians and visitors; the current monarch, Kuini Nga wai hono i te po, succeeded her father in 2024. Te Arawa, meanwhile, have hosted visitors in Rotorua for over 150 years, and the tradition of Māori guides at Whakarewarewa, famous figures such as Guide Sophia and Makereti Papakura among them, grew into today's cultural evenings of pōwhiri, kapa haka and hāngī.

Rotorua is the national centre for traditional arts, home to the New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute, where students train in carving, weaving and stone and bone work. Ohinemutu, the lakeside village where Te Arawa built a thriving pā, remains a Māori community on the shore of Lake Rotorua.

Elsewhere the culture is rural and outdoor: rugby and racing in the Waikato, where Matamata is thoroughbred country, surfing at Raglan and Mount Maunganui, trout fishing on the Taupō rivers, and a Coromandel counterculture of potters, craftspeople and alternative lifestylers that dates from the 1970s.

Hamilton, on the Waikato River, is the country's largest inland city, with about 180,000 people, a university and a solid service economy built on the surrounding dairy farms; Fieldays, the huge agricultural show at Mystery Creek every June, fills the city. Tauranga, with over 150,000, has grown fast on retirees, lifestyle migrants and the Port of Tauranga, the country's busiest by cargo volume. Rotorua has about 60,000 people and Taupō about 25,000.

The Waikato is dairy country, and the Bay of Plenty grows most of the country's kiwifruit, around Te Puke, along with avocados. Forestry and wood processing dominate the plateau around Tokoroa and Kawerau, and geothermal fields produce electricity near Taupō.

Life is outdoors and car-based, with lake and beach weekends. The current issues are Tauranga's traffic and housing, the health of the Waikato River and the lakes, and repeated storm damage on the Coromandel.

The region has its own form of the hāngī: in Whakarewarewa, food has long been cooked in the natural steam vents and boiling pools, and steam-box hāngī of pork, chicken, kūmara and stuffing is served at Rotorua's cultural evenings, often alongside rēwena, a slightly sour Māori bread raised with a potato starter.

The Bay of Plenty is fruit country: kiwifruit from Te Puke, avocados, citrus, and feijoas in autumn. The Coromandel farms green-lipped mussels and Pacific oysters, and Whitianga has held a scallop festival. The Waikato's dairy herds supply milk and cheese, and the name survives on Waikato Draught, a beer long brewed in Hamilton.

Trout are the anglers' prize in Lake Taupō and its rivers, stocked with brown trout since 1887 and rainbow trout since 1898.

Rotorua's geothermal parks are the region's best-known sights: Te Puia at Whakarewarewa, with the Pōhutu geyser and the arts institute; the living village of Whakarewarewa; Wai-O-Tapu's orange-rimmed Champagne Pool and Lady Knox Geyser; the Waimangu valley, formed by the 1886 eruption; and the mud pools of Hell's Gate. The Redwoods forest carries mountain-bike trails and a treetop walk, and Lake Tarawera, the Buried Village of Te Wairoa and the Polynesian Spa lie close by.

To the west, the Hobbiton Movie Set sits on farmland near Matamata. The Waitomo Caves, with the Glowworm Cave, Ruakuri and Aranui, offer boat trips under glowworms and black-water rafting; Raglan's left-hand surf breaks lie on the coast. The Coromandel Peninsula has Cathedral Cove in its marine reserve, Hot Water Beach, where holes dug at low tide fill with hot water, the old gold towns of Thames and Waihi, and the Driving Creek railway near Coromandel town.

On the coast, Tauranga and Mount Maunganui have the summit walk up Mauao, a long surf beach. Taupō has the Huka Falls on the Waikato River, the steaming Craters of the Moon and modern Māori rock carvings at Mine Bay. South of the lake, Tongariro National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that straddles the boundary with Manawatū-Whanganui, holds the Tongariro Alpine Crossing past the Red Crater and Emerald Lakes.