Not the luminous ultra-sugary kids fruit cordial drink from the 80s – you remember, the one with the suspiciously racist advertising campaign! Kia Ora is actually a Māori greeting literally meaning “be healthy”. We have made it (almost exactly) to the other side of the world, New Zealand. I have been here once before back in 2002 for a wedding, but apart from one or two day trips, I never really explored anything outside of Auckland. So I’m really looking forward to seeing exactly what this country has to offer.
Preceding our arrival, New Zealand had been suffering some of the worst weather imaginable. January saw intense flooding in the capital of Auckland, and at one point we wondered if we would even be able to travel here at all. The flooding passed, and the clean-up operation was progressing well. That is, until tropical cyclone Gabrielle reared its ugly head in the Pacific Ocean. It made land fall in New Zealand three days before we were due to fly, and wreaked havoc on the poor islanders who had already endured their worst summer on record. For only the third time in its history, New Zealand declared a state of national emergency. Our flight carried on regardless however, and we arrived into a post-cyclone Auckland in bright sunshine, somehow fortuitously having missed these intense weather events. The day after we arrived, the city of Wellington also experienced a magnitude 6 earthquake. They do say these things happen in threes, so hopefully for the sake of the poor, long suffering residents of NZ (as well as, selfishly, our own) that’s it for the foreseeable future. Maybe we might have brought a few weeks of well deserved summer with us from Australia!
New Zealand is roughly the same size as the United Kingdom, but amazingly only has about 5 million residents. To put that in context, that’s just over half the population of London, but spread across the entire country. In fact, there are five times as many sheep as people here, the highest sheep to person ratio of any country in the world!
Auckland is often incorrectly thought to be the capital city. Actually, Wellington is the capital, but Auckland is the most densely populated with around a third of the nation’s population living there. This population is incredibly culturally diverse. Apparently 39% of Aucklanders were actually born overseas. Half of the city are Europeans and a third are asian. It is also home to the largest Polynesian population of any city, comprised of indigenous Māori people and other Pacific Islanders. Auckland is a very hilly city, due in no small part to the fact that it is located on top of the Auckland Volcanic Field. There are 53 individual volcanos visible within the area as part of this dormant volcanic field, and the last eruption occurred only 600 years ago on Rangitoto island in the harbour. The larger craters protruding through the cities skyline are impressive, and now form beautiful green spaces to explore and enjoy far reaching views over the metropolis below.
We decided to visit the largest scoria cone, and the highest natural point on the Auckland isthmus, Mount Eden or Maungawhau. We caught a bus from our hotel to the Mt. Eden suburb, expecting to be dropped at the foot of the hill. Amazingly, however, our bus driver managed to take a wrong turn. I guess he had hoped nobody was going to notice as he awkwardly drove on, missing out several miles of his route. Unfortunately though, I had to point out his mistake in order to get him to let us off before we ended up even further away from our destination. So, after an extra unexpected twenty minute walk, we finally found ourselves at the foot of the volcanic park, and braced ourselves for the climb up to the 196 metre summit. As you reach the rim, a raised metal walkway rises from the grass below, keeping the visitors on a set path and away from the dangers of rolling down the steep sides of the fifty metre deep crater. The views across the city from the rim are fairly breath taking and well worth the slog up the hill in the 28 degree heat. It was altogether much easier making our way back down the hill to catch the bus back to the centre of town.
After dinner in the Harbour Eats food court at Queens Wharf, our slow wander home along Queen Street brought us past the iconic Civic Theatre and saw us taking a diversion into a late night gaming arcade to waste half an hour before getting the kids off to bed.
The following day, after school, we visited one of the most important museums in New Zealand, The Auckland War Memorial Museum in the middle of the Auckland Domain. This incredible neo-classical building is perched atop another dormant volcanic peak, and houses many collections concentrating on New Zealand history. You really can learn the story of New Zealand here, through the amazing collection of Māori artefacts and treasures, the stellar hands-on natural history halls and the impressive displays detailing New Zealand’s history of war. We were actually kicked out of the Museum (to the sound of the last post) at closing time, having only seen half the exhibits – so I’d recommend allowing at least 4 hours to really take in everything on offer.
We managed to make it back to the city in time to have a look at the building that dominates the skyline in Auckland, the Sky Tower. This 328 metre tall structure was, until last year, the tallest freestanding structure in the southern hemisphere, and is the best place to go to get a perfect 360 degree view of the entire city. It’s truly amazing to see the volcanic nature of the city from this height, with the countless green peaks perforating the outlying urban streets below. You can even perform a tethered jump and descent from the viewing deck if you so wish – although just the feeling of looking down through the glass floors at this height evokes the same feeling i felt last time I stood in this tower 21 years ago -NOPE! I’d rather just enjoy the views from up here if it’s all the same thanks. If you’re also not into casting yourself a third of a kilometre off the side of a building, there’s a slightly tamer attraction in the form of the SkySlide – a virtual reality ride where you can imagine sliding through glass tubes outside of the tower above the city below. It’s not exactly white knuckle kinda stuff, but it’s a bit of fun and the kids loved it.
One helpful tip if you’re visiting this city and looking to exchange some money – to avoid the insane queues that occur everyday at all the money exchange booths in the town centre, just head to the casino housed below the Sky tower, and they’ll be more than happy to sell you some NZ dollars at a pretty similar rate, but saving you an hour (at least) of your life.
Just time for one last meal from the tiny street vending booths at the bottom of our street. Some tasty Korean fried chicken and dumplings (which seems to be one of the most common foods available in Auckland) followed by a tasty chocolatey crepe from the all French team at the cleverly named Frenchys!
That’s it for Auckland for now, we’ll be passing back through it a few times over the next few weeks, but for now it was time to pick up our rental car for the next three weeks and head to the Northland of New Zealand – next stop, Paihia in the Bay of Islands.