Auckland

Auckland

Whichever way you look at it, Auckland is by far the largest city in NZ, and it sprawls from the east to the west coast of North Island.  Looking at the Auckland web site, it seems that the main attractions are shopping malls, restaurants and bars, but after a bit of surfing, we picked out a few places we wanted to visit.

We’re camped not far from the station at Ranui, so we decided to take the train into central Auckland.  They are every 20 minutes outside of peak times, which is a pretty good service.  The station is unmanned, so the only option for buying tickets is to use the ticket machine at the station.  Fortunately we’d done the research and discovered that the main station in Auckland isn’t called Auckland; it’s called Britomart, which sounds like some kind of supermarket.

As at Wellington, we were impressed by the rail service.  The train was more or less on time, very clean and there was no barrier between the three carriages.  The middle carriage is level with the platform and a ramp comes out before the doors open to allow for wheelchair access.  The only surprise we did get was when we got to the penultimate station, Newmarket, where three of the four lines meet – we promptly went into reverse for the final stretch!

Our intention had been to get a map of Auckland from the station, but – unlike every other city, town and hamlet we’ve been to – neither the station nor the i-Site information offices have any.  This was less impessive.

Our first stop was to get a coffee at Viaduct Harbour, but the place was packed and there were long queues in the cafés.  We abandoned that and set out instead for Mount Eden and found a café on the way instead.  We also found the Sky Tower, the tallest man-made structure in Auckland.

Mount Eden is an old volcanic cone to the south of the city.  It’s about 5km to walk, with the last bit being straight up, but there are supposed to be panoramic 360˚ views of the city.  We got to a disused cabin at the top and were quite disappointed that the vegetation hid most of the views of the city.  Then we discovered the rest of the climb up!  After another climb, we came to the crater itself, which is all overgrown with grass, and after a further scramble to shorten the distance we got to the real summit.

And the views were indeed panoramic.  Having said that, pretty much all you can see has been built on unless it’s made of water – and even some of that hasn’t escaped.  We headed down by a different route and suddenly found ourselves in what seemed like an up-market residential area.  We weren’t quite sure which way to go, so we did what we always do in this situation and stood on a corner looking at a map.  Sure enough, someone came along and told us which way to go.

A little further along we came across a guy waiting for a bus and got talking to him.  He said it takes about 20 minutes by bus from there, so we gave up walking and jumped on.

Back in busy Britomart, we went in a different direction looking for a late lunch.  We ended up in Orleans and Racket, sitting at a table outside.  This is how their website describes them:

“Located in the heart of Auckland’s seedy red-light district, Racket truly is a pervert’s delight, with dimly-lit corridors, mirrored ceilings and flimsy second hand locks fitted on all toilet doors. The hastily-assembled wine list is exquisitely complimented by a tiny selection of deep-fried bar snacks, while beer lovers will find two semi-drinkable lagers on tap most weekdays, along with an assortment of whatever was on sale at Super Liquor the previous week. Vulnerable old people and alcoholic solo-mothers are always welcome and Racket is definitely the perfect venue for your next snuff-film premier or Rugby League prizegiving.”

The food was unusual too!  We had their daily special, fried chilli chicken on waffles with maple syrup, accompanied by a vanilla, maple syrup and bacon milk shake.  It tasted better than you think!

After that we decided to skip the other places and head for home.  We really didn’t like Auckland, or at least this part of it.  Unless you arrive on a cruise ship and spend all your money at the harbour it isn’t tourist-friendly – I don’t think we saw one brown sign in the city, and the i-Site was all about paid tours.  On top of that, it’s busy, streets are dirty, pavements are damaged and it’s full of construction sites.  I repeat my comment about hairpin bends!