Two days in Auckland

February 4, 2010
Thursday morning; got up to an excellent breakfast (included in our room rate, which was less than the place in Sydney) at the Heritage hotel; not just good food, but excellent coffee, the latter available from self-serve coffee machines - you dial in what you want (plain, espresso, latte, with additions, like extra milk, or more concentrated coffee) and it pours it into your cup, freshly ground and freshly brewed. I want one of these in our kitchen!

Then, a short walk to Sky City, Auckland’s communications tower, with a short stop at one of the many cell phone stores along the way to pick up a New Zealand pre-paid SIM card for my unlocked cell phone. Instant local communications for a surprisingly low price. Sky City is a tower, sort of like the CN Tower, shorter, but on a hill. At the bottom there is an entertainment complex, casino and all, but the real thrill is at the top. First of all, you have a viewing gallery that offers 360 degree views of Auckland and the surrounding area. But also, there is opportunity to partake in one of the important New Zealand industries; extreme sports. One, you can spend a considerable amount of money and do a controlled jump down to street level. Controlled meaning that you are on a cable, in a harness that is connected to two guide wires that guide you down to a target platform; the cable lets go and then stops you after a few dozen feet so you dangle in front of the viewing platform windows, and after a few seconds lets go, and you drop some hundreds of metres, with the controlling cable coming back into play (you hope) just before you hit bottom - and for this you pay money. Two, there is the skywalk, a roughly 1 foot wide walkway all around the top of the tower with nothing below it but several hundred metres of air; you are hooked by a short cable to a rail above, and then you simply walk around the tower - I suppose it is perfectly safe, but you couldn’t pay me any amount to do this, let alone me paying them to allow me to do it.

From Sky City, back to the harbour area and a short lunch. Then onto one of the harbour ferries for a short trip to Devonport, one of the many Auckland suburbs, this one being an almost perfect copy of an Edwardian English seaside town. Quaint cottages, pretty beaches, a lot of artsy-crafty shops, all within view of the magnificent Auckland downtown skyline.

Back to the city in later afternoon, to scout out the departure location of a pre-booked dinner cruise the next night, and to find a place to eat. That turns out to be an Irish pub directly underneath our hotel, totally authentic, in that is was an actual Dublin pub that had been dismantled, shipped to Auckland, and reassembled by Irish craftsmen. Authenticity aside, they had excellent beer, and amazing braised lamb shanks - an excellent supper. We also noted that they offered breakfast; while we have breakfast included in our hotel package on this stay; that would change as we moved onto our pre-booked package on return from the North, and our final morning in Auckland would not include breakfast.

February 5, 2010
The next morning, after breakfast, we were picked up for an all-day City and Beach tour. As it happened, we were the only ones that had booked this day, so we had a van and driver/guide all to ourselves. The morning was an extensive city tour, of all the interesting parts of Auckland; also some of the suburbs, including Devonport, again. A lot of time was spent in various harbours, and, as Auckland is (probably) the only city in the world on two oceans, we visited both the Pacific shore, and the Tasman Sea shore (both of which have extensive recreation boat harbours, but one has to choose which one to sail in, as there is no connection between the two oceans). Lunch was at the seafood docks, where freshly caught fish and other sea critters are available for purchase, but where there is a restaurant the serves freshly caught seafood to order. You place your order, literally pointing out the fish or whatever you want to have, along with sides, and then are given a pager. You are now free to tour the complex, with its ice-filled counters full of sea critters that you have never imagined, and when your pager goes off, you go back to the restaurant for your (delicious) freshly cooked lunch.

After lunch we were handed off to the Beach portion of the tour, which was somewhat more full than the morning, including some Italians who spoke no English, let alone being able to understand English with a Kiwi accent. We headed out into the Waitakere Ranges Parklands, lands bordering on the Tasman Sea. Some of this area is very ancient forests, but it also has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, some of which we visited.

Slightly disconcerting, when we noticed them, were signs along the roads we were driving on that announced that this was a “Tsunami Escape Route” - more disconcerting after we realized that we had passed signs, going in the wrong direction, that announced “Tsunami Safe Level.” However, the beaches we saw, and were able to walk along barefoot, were absolutely gorgeous, and there was no tsunami!

It was on this tour that we first heard of kauri trees. Native only to New Zealand, this almost extinct species has special significance to the country, and the aboriginal Maori. Kauri are a tree that is very slow-growing, but grows very tall, with no branches, hence no knots, for 50 feet or more. They are also very resistant to insect infestation, as they shed their bark annually. When first discovered, they were a natural source of masts and spars for the Royal Navy. By the end of the era of sailing ships, the kauri had become almost extinct, and are now completely protected, There are reforestation schemes. But because of the slow growth, these will not see mature trees for many more years.

Back to Auckland, a clean-up at the hotel, and then back to the harbour area for our dinner cruise on a 50 foot yacht. Here was the first glitch in our pre-booked arrangements - the location we were given for checking in closed before we got there - fortunately we had checked out the scene before, and knew exactly where to go instead. The dinner was excellent, poached salmon, and fresh vegetables, as well as appetizers and dessert; more amazing because it was prepared in a sailboat galley.

After dinner we continued to sail around Auckland Harbour, and those who wanted got a turn at the helm of the boat - unless some miracle happens, my only time controlling a sailboat that size. As we returned to our mooring, we were buzzed by a Zodiac, in control of a number of obviously drunk teenagers; our skipper, after radioing the harbour master and ttelling us that nothing what so ever would be done about this incident, introduced us to New Zealand libertarianism - if you had the money to buy a boat of any kind, there were no tests, no licencing, no need to know the rules, and there were no laws to stop you from doing anything whatsoever. (Sort of like Canadian gun laws.)

And so to bed; tomorrow we begin the pre-booked portion of this trip.