Auckland City WalkAbout

We arrived in Auckland this am, picked up our rental car and checked into our downtown hotel.  This city has ALOT of construction happening with roads, buildings, infrastructure so it was a challenge just getting the car to the hotel.  Once settled we headed out for a walking tour of the downtown area.  The pier/waterfront area is the main focal point which has been quite industrial in the past but is in the process of being converted and opened up for more public space.  It's abit like Yaletown/Granville Island with the restaurants and bars being very busy.  Lots of areas for people to just hang out (skateboarding, kiddie pool, indoor picnic tables etc...) We went all out with $ 20 each for a mojito and martini - they were good but ya, pretty over-the-top pricing ! 


Lots of different types of boat tours available from the huge pier area and some really posh yachts parked in the harbour.  There is a tour you can take on the huge sail ships that are used for the America's Cup racing - that's on Alexs 'to do' list for the next time we are here.


We found a park near the university that had the craziest tree !  See the pic below to grasp the scope of the 'octopus tree'.  Not sure what it's actually called but it was really cool.   After knocking off another 15,000 steps today we decided to have room service dinner in our hotel and prepare for the driving tour over next 2 days.  We've added a couple stops that we found on Google tonight so hopefully those will be good and interesting for all of you as well :-)