Auckland

Our one day visit to Auckland convinced us that it is an eminently civilized city. Its location and skyline reminded us of Vancouver and its climate is California year round.

It’s a very new and clean city as well. The oldest buildings are Victorian or Edwardian. There is no graffiti anywhere that we could see. Traffic didn’t seem to be a huge problem.

After a tour of the downtown we passed by the Cenotaph and War Museum, and visited a lovely Winter Garden with both a hot and cold greenhouse. The cold greenhouse had a variety of temperate stuff that would never grow here in Canada, and the hot greenhouse was tropical in spades. The Winter Garden opened in 1913.

Across the street from the Winter Garden was a lovely park with trees from all over the world.

After a drive round the posher areas and over the Auckland Harbour Bridge we returned to the ship. Since we had more time we headed up the street past the historic Ferry Terminal, found a shopping center and had tea and scones in a bakery while we watched the foot traffic. Eminently civilized indeed.

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