Pacific Coast Highway via East Cape - Mighty

Seven nights and 1,072 kilometres from Auckland to Napier in a campervan, round the East Cape on the Pacific Coast Highway.

The Coromandel comes first, then Mount Maunganui and Tauranga on the Bay of Plenty, the mountain a volcanic cone at the end of a sandspit with a surf beach on one side and harbour on the other.

Whakatane follows, then the long run round the East Cape, which is the quietest coast in the North Island: empty bays, small settlements and almost no traffic for a hundred kilometres at a time. The East Cape lighthouse stands at the most easterly point of the mainland, up a few hundred steps from the road. Tokomaru Bay and Gisborne come next, then Mohaka and Napier, rebuilt in art deco after the 1931 earthquake flattened it.

The camper and the day-by-day plan come from Mighty, 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. Eight days for 1,072 kilometres is a comfortable pace, and the East Cape section is the reason to take this route rather than the inland road: it adds a day and it is the part nobody else is driving. Some of the side roads out there are unsealed. Services are thin round the cape, so fuel wants topping up at the larger towns. This is a one-way hire, so a relocation fee is worth checking at booking, and Napier is a pleasant place to finish rather than a transit point.