Auckland is a large, world class metropolitan city, with an urban population of about 1,547,000 – about 1/3 of New Zealand’s total population. More people live in this city than the whole of the South Island. The Auckland landscape is dotted with 53 volcanic sites. This area was first settled in around 1350 and was valued for its rich and fertile land. The Māori population in the area is estimated to have peaked at 20,000 before the arrival of Europeans. Because of the culture and history, there is a lot to explore.
We began, yesterday by visiting Mount Eden, one of the extinct volcanoes near the city. It is Auckland’s highest natural point with a prominent dormant volcanic cone offering 360-degree city views. It has a 50 metre deep crater with significant Māori archaeological sites. A 300-metre walk leads to the top, where walking paths folow the rim of the crater. The mountain was once a large Māori pā (fortified village), with visible preserved storage pits and terraces.
From there we drove to a viewpoint where we could see the Harbour Bridge. I don’t think that it is quite as spectacular as the one in Sydney but it is still impressive.
The bridge originally only had two lanes in each direction. In the late 1960s it was clear that it wasn’t large enough to meet future traffic requirements and a Japanese company was contracted to clip extra lanes onto each side of the bridge. These became affectionatley known as the “Nippon Clip-On”.
We spent a few hours at the delightful village of Devonport with cafes along the main street and a good view across the harbour.
Years ago, we bought a glass paperweight from a glass artist whose gallery still exists in the street opposite the park. It was not open on a Saturday so we had no oportunity to add another piece to our shelf at home. Instead, we settled for a coffee and a piece of Baclava at a Turkish Cafe. We drove a few hundred metres around the bay, past a New Zealnd Naval Base, to another lookout point with a similar view of the city acroiss the harbor.
Before arriving back at our hotel, we stopped off at another one of Auckland’s conical volcanoes at One Tree Hill. There used to be a large pine tree on the top but only a stump now remains. The tall obelisk, perhaps, take its place.
One Tree Hill is located in a large area of parkland with an arboretum and even a field containing sheep. One of the trees is an enormoius Morton Bay Fig Tree. You can see its size by comparing its height and spread to the people standing beneath it.
The Domain (Park) in which One Tree Hill is located is very extensive and we spent quite a while looking around it.
This morning, we began by visiting an unusual place. On our SBS TV channel at home is a reality show about a New Zealand (Maori) Funeral Director and his business, Tipene Funerals. The show is called “The Casketeers” and is an entertaing series of episodes. We found the busines in the suburb of Onehunga and, unsurprisingly, the building looks exactly like the one on the TV series. If this TV show is ever on in your area, you could do a lot worse than look at a few episodes. You may even learn a few Maori words.
Next, we visited the Sky Tower -a telecommunications and observation tower. It is 328 metres tall, making it the second tallest freestanding structure in the Southern Hemisphere, surpassed only by the Autograph Tower in Jakarta, Indonesia, Since its completion in 1997, the Sky Tower has become an iconic landmark in Auckland’s skyline so it is almost a ‘must’ to visit. It’s also rather expensive. Our entry fees along with parking came to a total of NZ$118.
However, the views from the top level were quite spectacular and it was easy, even for us, to identify a number of Auckland’s landmarks.
Another long visit, and our final one for the day, was at Auckland’s War Memorial Museum. It is located in the Auckland Domain and is a very impressive building indeed. It was constructed progressively between the 1920s and 1950s and stands on Observatory Hill, the remains of another dormant volcano,
The ground floor contains exhibits that relate to the history and culture of the area around Auckland while the second floor has displays of natural history
The third floor houses the National War Memorial and military museum.
The walls of the central hall are inscibed with thousands of names of soldiers lost in WW1. I noticed that all of these names were solid British sounding names – such was the population of the day. New Zealand’s mortality rate in that war was marginally higher than Australia’s making it the country with the highest proportion of deaths of all Commonwealth (and perhaps any) combatant countries.
There is a small section about New Zealand’s involvement in Soiuh Vietnam. At Nui Dat, my unit was positioned next to a Kiwi artillery battery and a company of NZ infantry were part of an ANZAC Battalion. I was a bit suprised to see 28 names on the Vietnam Honour Roll. I didn’t realise that so many Kiwis had died in Vietnam – a sizeable contribution from a small force.
It was obvious that the Vietnam War was as politically divisive here as it was in other countries. A large photo showed the police removing protestors from a parade of returning soldiers.
There were a few exhibits in the musem diplayed equipment but most of the dispays were personal stories of those who served.
