Run the Forest Rotorua - 10 Day North Island road trip itinerary - Britz

Nine nights and 930 kilometres in a loop from Auckland in a campervan, built around the Run the Forest trail event at Rotorua.

The Coromandel comes first: Whitianga, Hot Water Beach, where a hot spring rises under the sand at low tide, and Cathedral Cove, then the Karangahake Gorge, where an old rail tunnel and tramway run above the river.

Rotorua is the centre of it. The race is held in the Whakarewarewa Forest, planted with Californian redwoods in the early twentieth century as a timber trial and now one of the best trail running and mountain biking networks in the southern hemisphere, with a canopy walkway strung between the trees. The Wai Ariki hot pools are the recovery option. Taupo, the Huka Falls, Tongariro National Park and Whakapapa follow, then Otorohanga and the Waitomo caves before Auckland.

Britz supply the camper and the day-by-day plan, and the hire is priced live per vehicle rather than per person; campsites, fuel, ferries, park fees and activities are all extra, with a nil-excess insurance pack available at booking. Ten days allows for the event and several days either side of it, which is how a trip like this should be arranged. Campsites around Rotorua fill on race weekends. The redwoods are rideable and runnable in almost any weather, since the forest floor drains unusually well, and the Alpine Crossing at Tongariro needs a shuttle booking. Rotorua is also the easiest place in the country to combine an event with a family holiday, since there is enough else there to keep non-runners occupied for days.