Saturday In Auckland

Dec 11, 2011 by Joel

I flew into Auckland last Sunday Afternoon, and due to the trip being for work, really have not had a chance to see anything. So it was nice to be able to get away from work and head out into the city to have a look at some of the sights around town.

I did not really know much of what there was to see in the city, except I knew that SkyCity Casino was in Auckland so I punched this in as the destination on the GPS. It took about 30 minutes to get into the city and at first I drove by SkyCity and just drove around the city a little to see what was here, before coming back around and parking at SkyCity.

This is I think the best option for parking, even if you don’t gamble. Just grab lunch at one of the restaurants, and as long as it comes to over $20 (which for two people is easy) your parking is just $5 for 3 hours and only $1 an hour after this. Parking here gets you only about 1-2 blocks from the main shopping street.

While I did go for a walk down the main street, the main reason I decided to actually stop in Auckland city itself was to visit SkyTower. The Highest building in Auckland and New Zealand, they have an observation deck at 186m high. There is also the highest point, which I went to is SkyDeck at 220m. There is also a cafe and two restaurants in SkyTower. Oh and for those who are more into the daring things, you can either walk around the top of the observation deck or jump off (if you care to spend the money)

From the observation deck you get a great overview of the city, and this kind of helped me to find the next few places to visit this afternoon. The first was Mount Eden, located pretty close to the city, is a small mountain at only 196m however it is the tallest of the volcanic mounds in Auckland. It is easy enough to get to the peak was well, there is a paved road almost right to the top with only a short walk of less then 100m depending on how full the carpark is. From here you get a good view of the city looking towards the North Shore, which was my next destination.

The drive I took to the north shore, took me across the Auckland Harbour Bridge, and around the harbour to a small community by the name of Devonport. This is a really nice little town, with a main street lined with stores and places to eat. However it was closer to 7pm, when I was getting here so being a Saturday many of the smaller stores were closed.

However going down to the waterfront, you can see straight across the harbour to the city from another perspective. Also from here I was able to get quite a good photograph of a cruise ship that was just leaving port. Princess Cruises, Sun Princess.

This was a great day to see some of the sights in Auckland, it would have been better to get a little more time in the morning to see the city, however not to worry, there will always be another time. Tomorrow the plan is to get out of the city and see a bit more of the countryside.