Auckland Centre and Devonport

Auckland from the ferry to Devonport

We arrived in Auckland last night for our long-awaited holiday in New Zealand, but only had time for a quick stroll round and a nice meal before crashing out. Today we decided on an exploratory self-guided tour.

We started from our hotel in Waterloo Quadrant and walked up Princes Street, where we had noticed some fine Colonial style wooden villas. It seems they were now all part of the University, whose main buildings are on the opposite side of the road. This was the most easily photographed.

At the end of the road was the extravagant Clock Tower.

This was originally the Arts Building and was completed as late as 1926. It is an Auckland landmark and an emblem of the University.

We crossed the road to walk through the very pleasant Albert Park. You would not easily guess that it was built in the crater of an extinct volcano. We then made our way to Queen Street, the city's main thoroughfare. It is in truth more like the tackier end of Oxford Street, but there are one or two gems. First was the fine art deco Civic Theatre of 1929. The Smith and Caughey building (a department store of 1929) opposite was also interesting.

Further up we came to Aotea Square and the City Hall. It opened in 1911 and was designed by Melbourne architects JE and EJ Clarke in an Italian Renaissance revival style to fit the awkwardly-shaped site.

We now walked along West St and Hobson St to find the extraordinary Sky Tower which dominates the city's skyline (see photo at the head of this post). It is 328m tall to the top of the spire and is proudly described as the tallest free-standing building in the southern hemisphere. (For comparison, the empire State building is 442m and the world's tallest, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is 829m.) It incorporates a viewing deck and a restaurant - and, being New Zealand, there are also facilities for doing a base jump to the ground and for a harnessed walk around the outside. It was opened in 1997.

We were sensitised to the virtues of towers like this by our enjoyable recent visit to the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, a mere 170m high.

We settled for the viewing deck and were thrilled to have chosen a clear day. The views all around were stupendous. To the north there was a fine view towards the North Shore of Waitemata Harbour, with Devonport and North Head in the right foreground. Behind, can be seen the perfectly symmetrical volcanic Rangitoto Island, with Motutapu Island behind it.

To the east it was possible to clearly make out the collapsed volcano cone of Mount Eden, one of the key points on the Coast to Coast walk we plan to do tomorrow.

On our descent, we headed south towards the quayside and the Ferry Building. It was designed by Alex Wiseman and was completed in 1912. It looks fine from the landward side, but is cruelly dwarfed by sky scrapers from the seaward (see the photo at the top of this post). We had dinner last night in the the excellent Harbourside Restaurant on the first floor, which certainly lived up to its claim to be the best seafood restaurant in Auckland.

We caught the ferry across the harbour to Devonport, and were immediately confronted by the handsome Esplanade Hotel of 1902, said to be modelled on English seaside hotels of the period.

We collected a copy of the Old Devonport Walk from the tourist office and, after a nice pub lunch, set off along the shoreline. The official starting point is identified by a flag pole which marks where the British Navy came ashore in 1840 and further along the shoreline there is a memorial to the original settlers from Hawaii who made landfall here in about 1350. Given my current interest in art deco, however, I photographed this clock tower built in honour of the man who built the sea walls.

The town walk turns left here into Church St, but we decided to first continue along the coast to North Head, another one-time volcano, which was later a key part of New Zealand's coastal defences. After following the shoreline to a nice little beach we were forced inland to climb up some suburban streets and then grassy slopes. We climbed up to the top for excellent views back to Auckland, overlooking Devonport, and across the channel to Rangitoto Island.

We now retraced our steps rejoin the town walk at Church St. We walked up this with its Victorian wooden cottages and turned left into Albert St, distinguished by a number of fine Victorian villas, of which this one example will have to do.

Then past the charming, rather Arts and Crafts, Presbyterian church of 1917 ...

...and into Victoria St, with its art deco Post Office, which I couldn't get a satisfactory photo of, and wonderful early 20th century shop fronts.

We completed the walk by catching the ferry back to the quayside and walking back to our hotel.

Distance: about 6 miles.

Conditions: sunny and warm.

Rating: four stars.

Sightings

Our first Monarch butterflies on the slopes of North Head.