North Island Odyssey

The Telegraph‘s Max Davidson takes a leisurely tour of the North Island’s wine-producing hot spots. The trail begins in “cosmopolitan Wellington,” followed by the Wairarapa, Auckland, and Waiheke Island. Further north, the scenery becomes more and more spectacular, reaching its climactic point in the Bay of Islands. “The dramatic wooded archipelago, with the Pacific Ocean beyond, bowled me over the way it must have bowled Captain Cook over in the 18th century,” says Davidson. “Why he bothered discovering Australia is beyond me. I would have stayed put here, among the trees and the birds and the sea-surrounded hills.”