Ask An Australian

Went for work a couple times a few years back. Ended up travelling up through the middle of the North Island, Wellington to Auckland first trip, second trip i's only in Auckland, mainly around Epsom. I's able to fit a lot in on the weekends though.

New Zealand is a fantastic place, the walking can be good, pretty rough with the hills in the city though.

Cool things i did,

Hobbiton, its worth it, its a bit of fun. You go through the horse breeding area where phar-lap was born, which is interesting if you're into that sort of thing.

Lake Taupo, and Mount Ruapehu look huge, and seem very cool. I only drove past them though.

Café culture is much like Australia's, which is nice for a coffee lover like myself. Few different take out options, more US chains i think due to some details in their trade deals with the US making it more advantageous for US chains or something like that.

Wellington is straight up a beautiful place, kinda like Albany in Western Australia.

If you're only in Auckland, but want to go snowboarding/skiing theres a indoor place just North of the city. It was fun enough, definitely helpful if you're learning and planning to go somewhere else on another trip.

The Zoo in Auckland was a bit underwhelming, but the War Memorial Museum was good, they have a full size Maori canoe, thing is way too big to be called a canoe though :)