A Walking Trip around Auckland

Today was a day that we felt we needed to stretch our legs out after the flight and explore Auckland. I tore out a page from our Lonely Planet guidebook that had a City Walk Ramble and we followed that guide. We started and ended the walk from our Air BnB house in Grey Lynn, so walked a total of 14 km.

I am just going to touch on some of the highlights and places that we walked though.

1. St. Kevin’s Arcade - a 1924 shopping arcade. We bought a delicious Green Gorilla smoothie here and walked down the stairs to pretty Myer’s Park that s in a ravine.

2. Moses Statue - a reproduction of Michelangelo’s Moses made from marble from the same quarry as the original.

3. We walked up some stairs to Queen Street and passed the Auckland Town Hall (1911, the Aotea Square and the Civic Theatre. The theatre was built in 1927 and is one of only 7 ‘atmospheric theatres’ left in the world. It was closed when we went by but we peeked in the windows and saw a little of its lavish decorations. We would have loved seeing its Moorish auditorium with a night sky and projected clouds and shooting stars on the ceiling.

4. We went up some more stairs in the little Khartoum plaza which had tiles on the walls celebrating NZ women’s historic victory of becoming the first in the world to win voting rights.

5. At the top of the stairs is the Auckland Art Gallery. We went in but entrance fees were too expensive for foreigners. We have to pick and choose the places we want to see or we will be broke!

6. Behind the Art Gallery, and on top of a hill, is the Albert Park. Now it has formal Victorian gardens but during the New Zealand Wars (1847) it was part of the Albert Barracks. University students enjoy hanging out here.

7. At the far end of the park, the beautiful University Clock Tower (1926) can be seen through the foliage. It is white and covered with carvings of flowers and animals.

8. Walking through the lush gardens of the university, we came to a building that was made of wood but looked like stone - the old Government House (1856).

9. Now we started to walk down towards the harbour. It was getting hotter and hotter outside and we were starting to get hungry. The plan was to eat fish and chips at the Fish Market but we still had a ways to go .We passed shopping areas on High Street, historic pubs on Vulcan Lane and ended up in front of the Britomart Train Station.

10. Now we started walking on a flatter area, Quay Street, beside the Viaduct harbour. It is all reclaimed land and under a lot, and I mean a lot, of construction. Bars, restaurants, wharfs with cruise ships, and docked millionaire’s yachts lined this area.

11. We crossed a (bascule) bridge that rises like a seesaw to let boats pass and went into the Wynward Quarter where the Fish Market is located, and our lunch.

12. The Fish Market has several restaurants and all meals are fairly expensive. We settled on eating a shared plate with a mixture of beer battered fish, coconut shrimp and octopus and of course french fries. It was tasty and cost $35 and one beer that cost $10!! Our first, of probably many fish and chips in NZ.

13. The day was getting hotter and hotter and many of the streets do not have a lot of shade. We started the 3.5 km walk home, up and down big hills and around construction. It certainly felt longer than 3.5 km! We stopped at the big Victoria Park to rest and to watch a cricket game. Then, through another park and watched kids flying through the air and going over little hills in a scooter park. What fun.

Anywhere that we went to in Auckland, we could see the Sky Tower. Someone here called it a giant hypodermic needle. It is 328 m tall and has restaurants on top. You can Sky Walk or Sky Jump from the observation deck. We didn’t see anyone doing this though.

Finally, we hot back to peaceful Grey Lynn and had a restful, late afternoon siesta.Read more