A quick three-day tour to Auckland ..!!

---

We had been warned.

Auckland is damp and freezing throughout the winter months.

Thankfully, we would only be there for three days!

All of the foregoing is true, but our little stay gave us enough of a flavor of the place to persuade us both that we should return another (warmer) time.

Though we were sleeping at a wonderful, peaceful hostel outside the center (Brown Kiwi), we spent the first night resting at an old work colleague's house on the other side of town, where we had been invited for supper (and quite a few bottles of wine).

The following day, we cleansed ourselves of the hangover by walking for over two hours back into town, gaining a beautiful sense for the various suburbs on the way back,In addition to the region's often unpredictable weather. Once in town, we headed for a well-deserved supper at the Sky Tower, which has a rotating restaurant and spectacular views of the surrounding volcanic coastline through the clouds. A little pricey, but you need a treat every now and then throughout this backpacking adventure.

The next day, we planned to join a whale and dolphin boat for 5 hours of animal watching, but this was canceled at the last minute due to severe weather (or potentially a lack of other insane tourists visiting Auckland in the dead of winter, who knows?). Instead, we boarded a local ferry across to the island of Waikeke and went off trekking along the 'clearly designated' trails along the coast.

Despite the inclement weather (similar to Donegal in Ireland), we enjoyed a delightful three-hour walk over beautiful clifftops to W-Bay, then back across the middle of the island to the ferry port.

The following morning, our final day, we spent killing time before our departure to the Domain Museum, a massive structure that dominates the hillside on the outskirts of town. Aside from the conventional WWI and II portions, the museum features a large area on Maori / Polynesian culture and history, as well as several really interesting rooms dedicated to the New Zealand Wars (between Maori and Europeans), which I was previously unaware of. Furthermore, compared to the normal Australian approach to history (which completely obliterates any pre-European history from mention),The Kiwi perspective on things was refreshingly balanced.



We will be back...

---