Auckland
Accommodation: Wed 29th Jan – Sat 1st Feb
Wednesday 29th Jan
We made it across to Auckland, via QF3, without any glitches which, for us, was somewhat surprising. We usually have to deal with a lost bag or a lost bike and Mark being detained at security with his carry-on bag but we managed to avoid all of that. There was a bit of a wait at the car hire kiosk though which meant we were a bit later arriving at our lovely waterfront apartment. I had thought we’d be there by 4pm but it ended up being closer to 5.30pm and this didn’t leave much time to walk (12 minutes) to our 6.30 pm dinner booking at Orbit 360. So we literally just found the apartment, dropped our bags and headed straight back out. Our dinner experience at Orbit was well worth it as this is a revolving restaurant situated at the top of Auckland’s Sky Tower and we enjoyed a lovely meal whilst capturing spectacular views over the whole of Auckland city, its magnificent harbour and well beyond. This is an experience that I’d highly recommend if you ever visit the city and make sure you book to dine before sunset so as to be able to enjoy the view. We were there for about 90 minutes and the restaurant completed one revolution during the at time.
It was close to 9 pm by the time we got back to the apartment and Mark enjoyed a glass of wine out on our huge terrace. I always try to find apartments with some outside space and I certainly excelled here as there were two terraces. The one off the living room side of the studio was huge and offered a magnificent view across the harbour and up towards the city. We’d had a rather full day of travel and dining by this stage so didn’t dwell too much longer after
Mark’s glass of wine.
Thursday 30th Jan
Our first morning was spent taking an Auckland City tour that started at 10 am. Our guide was a young man, Josh, and he was excellent. He chatted for the whole 4 hours providing our small bus group excellent background information about the key points of Auckland’s history, things to see and do as well as pointing out lots of sites of interest. Some of the pieces of information that I found interesting are noted below:
# Auckland has 47 islands in its harbour and that’s part of the reason it was discovered relatively late. It was rather hard to find.
# 1840: Abel Tasman discovered Auckland
# Auckland city and harbour front were extensively developed and greatly improved after the Americas Cup win.
# Auckland has the 2 largest marinas in southern hemisphere and a ratio of 1 boat per 4 pax
# 85% of the buildings in Auckland are timber (kauri). Brick homes were built from materials originally used as ship’s ballast.
A lot of ground was covered during the tour and this is another activity that I would highly recommend. One thing I noted on our trip around the city and surrounding suburbs was how clean and well maintained the whole area appears; no litter or overflowing bins, well kept gardens and parks and no graffiti. It is certainly is one very tidy town!
We got back to our studio apartment by 2.30pm but not before stopping off at Rodd & Gunn’s flagship store to do a spot of shopping for Mark! It was then about 4:30 pm before we set out again and we stopped off at two pubs that our guide, Josh, had recommended. The first one was Brit which did not really impress Mark so then we headed to Brew on Quay which was much more to his liking. They had 102 craft beers so I think I could’ve left Mark there for a week.
Our dinner reservation was for 6 pm at Hello Beasty located in the Viaduct harbour area of Auckland, literally a 4 min walk from our apartment. I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but the name of this venue was rather unimpressive when I first read of the suggestion some months ago. However, I heeded the advice of the blog article and proceeded with the booking. I’m so glad I did as the food, and the whole restaurant experience, was fantastic. The place was well and truly packed by 6.30 pm and had several large groups of geeky looking professionals which wasn’t too surprising as a tech hub, with the likes of Google and Microsoft, was located nearby. They clearly knew the best place to have dinner. My kids will laugh when I say the restaurant was ‘Asian Fusion’ but that is exactly how the owner describes their food. The menu was inspired by the owners’ experience with their travel through Japan, Korea and China. The kids will also laugh when I say this, but, it was one of the best meals we’ve ever had and is somewhere I would highly recommend you visit if you are ever in Auckland.
Friday 31st Jan
The early morning view across the balcony of our studio featured a huge cruise ship which triggered a bit of anxiety for me. At least I now knew what all the ferry horn honking from the very early hours of the morning had been about. Concern grew with the arrival of this huge ship as we’d booked a ferry & hop-on / hop-off bus combo ticket for Waiheke island and, with the sudden influx of several thousand extra tourists, I suspected there would be a lot more competition for this passage, and all of the services, out on the small island.
Mark started the day with a bike ride and I took a walk before we headed over early, 30 minutes prior to departure, to queue for the 10 am ferry. The ferry holds about 400 pax but if you miss out getting on board then you have to wait an hour for the next one. We arrived early though to find literally hundreds in the queue in front of us. We did manage to make it onto the ferry, for the 40 minute journey, but only just. Our fortune improved once off the ferry though as we were well placed in the queue for the hop-on / hop-off bus. Most of the scheduled bus stops were for vineyards so we decided to do a near complete loop (about 80 minutes: 40 min out and then 40 min back along essentially the same path) before we’d hop off at a small village not far from the ferry terminal. It was interesting to criss-cross part of the island and we found it to be rather hilly but very lush and it reminded us of some of the Hawaiian islands we’d previously visited. Our lunch in the village was ok and, given Mark isn’t one for browsing shops, we headed back to the ferry terminal to catch the 2 pm ferry.
Would I recommend a visit to Waiheke island? No. I had considered this as an option early on in my planning but when I realised the island was mostly vineyards, and we had vineyard visits organised for later in our journey, I decided to cancel this and had instead planned to spend the day with a morning ferry trip (12 minutes) out to Devonport, then a beach and volcano walk, followed by an afternoon visit to Mission Beach. I was vetoed on this though but, with hindsight, I wished I’d stood my ground. If you did feel the need to visit the island, I would choose a small group tour so you then only have the stress of securing a seat on the ferry crossing rather than bus tour bookings. Most tours of the island start on the island requiring you to make your own way there and back. Or there were more expensive and slightly smaller ferries one could book but they had less flexibility as you had to lock in a specific departure and return time in advance when you purchased the ticket. All in all, I’d give Waiheke a miss unless you were fortunate enough to have a rich friend with a yacht and could circumvent the island to call in at some of the lovely beaches. Or maybe you could take this tour but I expect it would be exorbitant or this one at $96,000 AUD per person!
We got back to Auckland at around 3.30pm and didn’t head back out until after 5 pm. Our destination was the Viaduct Harbour region again as there was such a huge number of bars and restaurants to choose from. We ended up having one drink at Dr Rudi’s Rooftop Brewing and then dinner at White and Wongs and I would recommend both places for a visit if you’re ever in the area. It was an early night for us as we’d both slept poorly the night before and we had a big day of driving tomorrow. Our next stop is up in the Bay of Islands and this is about a 3 1/2 hour drive from Auckland.
We’ve greatly enjoyed our short visit to Auckland and especially our apartment. It was in a great location, had loads of room, lots of storage (especially in the bathroom which I always appreciate), had a washer / dryer but also a hanging rack, two power point outlets on each side of the bed and, of course, the huge terrace. I would highly recommend this apartment to anyone visiting the area. We’d had three nights in Auckland but we could have done with at least one more as there were some areas we didn’t get to explore as well as innumerable restaurants that were all just a stones throw from our door. Maybe we will have to return one day?