Auckland Day

Auckland City

Rose Garden Auckland

Auckland City has 1.5 million people scattered over a vast area of a thousand square miles on top of, with 50 or more dormant(?) volcanoes. Different guides gave different numbers. Our guide for this morning, Tony, was from the Bush and Beach Company providing small bus excursions.

Auckland War Memorial and Museum

We ventured around the Auckland CBD (Central Busness District) streets with highlights stops at: a rose garden; the museum and war memorial;

the "Wintergarden", a flower garden with a hot house, a cool house, and a native garden;

Yours for $60 million NZ

a marina, of which there are 9 in the City (1 in 5 people own a boat in Auckland);

and a panoramic viewpoint on top of an old volcano on the north side of the harbour where the Harbour Master use to live and work.

An interesting tale about the Harbour Bridge is it has clipon roads attached to both sides. The original bridge was 4 lanes, but as the area grew more lanes were needed. So a company in Japan devised sections that sections could be “clipped” on to add 2 extra lanes each side. "Nippon Clippons", rather a neat way to solve the capacity problem. But now the capacity is again too small, so a tunnel. like Sydney Harbour, is probably next, after they finish the huge one to the airport currently under construction.

In the afternoon we switched guides and were taken west of the downtown into the Waitakere Ranges, the city's largest regional park, and where their drinking water comes from. It forms a natural barrier between the city and surf beaches on the Tasman Sea to the west. Our first stop was at the Arataki centre where one gets great views of Auckland CBD, the Sky Tower and the 2 Harbours of Auckland, plus in the far distance, the Pacific Ocean to the east.

A short trek in the forest we came upon a beautiful waterfall, in the Karekare area. From the storm a couple of days before a new pile of rocks was sitting at the edge of the pond.

Back to our van we drove very narrow twisty roads to the Piha area to the a beach. The guide brought a magnet to show us what was in the sand, black iron and titanium made up 85% of the sand, which stuck easily to the magnet. We weren't prepared for this stop and kept our shoes on as we found the sand quite hot. Lots of people were enjoying the water with surf about 4-5 ' high. One of the rock formations is looks like a lions head thus it's name. Some afternoon tea was served before, we headed to a lovely spot a lady fell in love with. Who wouldn't?

The final stop was to see a 800 year old Kuari tree. As the tree grows it drops the bottom branches, so the yellow wood has almost no knots. A delightful day again.