Known as the ‘city of sails’, Auckland is New Zealand’s largest city and one of its most striking. The Americas Cup was won by New Zealand in Auckland in 2023. Auckland is based around 2 large harbors and is the major city in the north of New Zealand’s North Island. In the center, the iconic Sky Tower has views of Viaduct Harbour, which is full of superyachts and lined with bars and cafes. Auckland Domain, the city’s oldest park, is based around an extinct volcano and home to the formal Wintergardens. The temperature was in low 50’s and by afternoon in mid 60’s which was a little chilly for us, but minimum rain throughout our stay. We had no real down days with something interesting each day exploring.
In Auckland we stayed at the Hilton at the Viaduct harbor waterfront and enjoyed several excellent dinners and drinks along the harbor front. Here are two different Pub’s Dr Rudi’s and The Fox.
Auckland was our base point for the North Island where we took several days trips. Waiheke Island wine tour, Rotorua area, Māori culture village experience, Hobbiton, Piha Beach and Rainforest Tour which were located on the west coast of the North Island. If we had more time, we would have explored further north to the Bay of Isles.
Waiheke Island was a ferry ride across the bay and hop on hop off bus to visit various wineries. We had an excellent lunch and wine with great view at Mudbrick’s vineyard. This was a highly recommend stop by one of my colleagues Bob who was originally from the area.
One tour that really surprised us was Hobbiton tour. We expected it to be a hokey tourist trap, but we really enjoyed walking through the elaborate movie set of the Shire. It also helped that we watched the “Lord of the Rings – Return of the King” the previous night so some of the final movie scenes were brought to life during our visit. We even had a stout in Green Dragon Inn by the fireplace. during our tour we visited several of the Hobbit homes and tour of inside Bilbo Baggins house. The only thing on the tour that was not real was the oak tree. The tree is oak, but it was from a fallen tree. The tree was cut apart and lifted into place by a crane and pieced back together. The oak leaves are painted silk leaves and adhered to the branches. The three of us had an adventure walking through Hobbiton.
Rotorua is an active volcanic site with bubbling mud pots and geysers and Māori culture center which included a pair of Kiwi birds in a nighttime setting. The Kiwi birds are nocturnal and they have adjusted their habitat for visitation in the dark.
The Māori culture center was interesting. It covered woodworking, clothing and basket making from the materials they had on hand. New Zealand had no mammals prior to Māori coming to the island from Indonesian several hundred years ago. They had to adapt to the different plant material. They also didn’t have coconuts trees on the island which was a previous food staple.
We visited the Auckland Domain gardens and the Auckland War museum which included Māori culture and history within the Auckland area including hand weapons constructed. In the garden, the Wisteria was planted in 1913 when the site opened.
The Auckland Zoo was very nice and was nicely laid out with live foliage. We had an enjoyable walk through the Zoo. The colorful birds are hanging out by their respective boxes.
Our last evening in Auckland, we had dinner at the SkyTower with beautiful views in all directions as we rotated looking across the varying skyline.
Next Stop Noumea, New Caledonia