Windy, rainy Auckland
We did not arrive in Auckland in the best of weather, 2023 has not been a great summer weather-wise for the Auckland area, and it got worse after we left at the end of January when it rained 10 inches and caused catastrophic flooding throughout the city including in the airport.
Getting from the Auckland Airport to central Auckland is unfortunately not straightforward. The airport is quite a distance from downtown Auckland and there is no fast connection between them. We found the Skydrive bus to be the easiest and most cost effective option. It runs regularly from the airport to the Skytower, reservations are not required, and they accept credit card payment.
On our first day, the weather was intermittently showery with some sun breaks. We were in a bit of a daze from 14 hours on a plane, but after a flat white and some food (salt & pepper squid and Korean Chicken bowl) on Ponsonby Road near our hostel, we were revived and ready to explore.
Auckland turned out to be a pretty good walking city and our first stop was the top of Mount Eden, one of the many volcanic peaks throughout the city with a crater and a great view of central Auckland. It was very windy.
From Mount Eden we walked to the harbor, which was a couple miles, but it was a pleasant way to see the city.
We finished the loop by walking back to Ponsonby Road and stopping for a drink before heading back to our room.
The next morning it was even windier and rainier and the sunbreaks had completely disappeared.
So it wasn’t a good day to take a ferry to one of the islands, which was the original plan, and instead it was a good day to visit a museum. We decided on the Auckland War Memorial Museum.
It’s an imposing building with an imposing title, but there is a lot more there than just a war memorial. There was actually a little bit of a lot of things including dinosaurs, natural history, and Maori history, of course along with the War Memorial covering New Zealand’s history in WWI and WWII.
After several hours in the museum, it was time for some sustenance, so we walked over to the nearby Newmarket neighborhood and found an open bar. (Side note - we did find a lot of restaurants closed at the beginning of January for the holiday, and although we didn’t have tons of options, we did find places to eat.) And it turned out that the food was really good, I ate cauliflower tacos, that had crispy battered onions and a tomato chutney, which I really enjoyed.
And that was the end of our time in Auckland. It was pleasant and good to take a moment after getting off the plane before we dived into the rest of our trip, but it definitely was not the highlight of our trip.
