We’ve been in Auckland for almost 2 weeks now.  They describe Auckland as a “supercity”, as at some point some surrounding suburbs were incorporated into the city.  So it now has almost 1.4 million people, an astonishing 1/3 of the entire population of the country.  The first week we spent dabbling around the outer Auckland regions, as Spencer figured out how to drive on “the Other” side of the road.  It seemed like a nice, livable city but with rather drab architecture (basically no identifiable style).  We finally ventured into the Central Business District, the “CBD” earlier this week and I was very surprised how nice it is.

The first day we started down Queen Street, basically the main drag, and then veered off to see the University of Auckland.  The campus was really lovely, about 2 blocks from the CBD.  The next day we ventured further down Queen Street to the harbor, which is really spectacular.  The CBD’s skyscrapers were strangely very nicely done and they had spruced up the harbor area a number of years ago for the Rugby World Cup.  There was an enormous cruise ship anchored there, and a marina filled with eye-popping boats.  It was a lovely place to walk, and there were a number of outdoor cafes/restaurants in which to enjoy the view and nice weather.

We then hopped on one of the ferries to head across the harbor to Devonport, a nice, touristy little village about 15 minutes from downtown.  We walked up Mt. Victoria and at the top, we had a wonderful 360 degree view of the harbor, downtown and harbor islands.  From that view, you could see that if you stood the cruise ship on end, it was actually larger than some of the largest downtown skyscrapers.

It’s bigger than the buildings.

Auckland is also amazingly diverse – absolutely not white-bread Boulder.  This means that there are stores and restaurants of every conceivable nature and ethnicity.  We head to the South Island on Tuesday and I’m curious to see if this holds true

Auckland skyline

Barb asked me to up a video of the panorama from the top of Mount Victoria.

Water water everywhere.