Early morning Auckland. The sun just coming up on a sleepy city. The view we had from this condo was great. We could see the bridge going to the suburbs, the marina, everything!
On the warm days, we even sat out on the balcony to eat lunch.
Now we're cooking. The day gets going.
The development in this port area has given a great vitality to the downtown core. There were a lot of swish shops and restaurants.
The parks had some pretty spectacular specimens of old trees. The lichen growing on the tree is supposed to mean the air is very clean.
I see an influence for architecture here, don't you?
University of Auckland grounds. Very English in style with a few Kiwi twists here and there, mainly the exotic plants.
This is a perfect contrast of summer and winter and trees that are not native to New Zealand doing their winter thing.
The architecture in New Zealand is quite beautiful A lot of it is in woods, because of the ample supplies available during colonization. Hence no more Kauri trees, practically.
A great example of stencil grafitti. I loved it!
Karangahape road. This is supposed to be the "cool" area. Lots of fun coffe houses and eateries, alternative and second hand shops mixing with upscale designer shops. Even though it rained on and off, it was warm and "cool".
More of the Street!
An example of post Victorian row housing shops. I was reading a book about an author born in Auckland and living on this road during the depression and second world war.
A city Marai and school for the Maori community. It was located in a beautiful area just a short walk from Karangahape Rd. School was just coming out.
Coming up a street, we passed this behind the scenes of shops on the "K" road and saw that things had not changed much, except for the satellite dishes, of course.
I went back to the train station to take pictures of the interior. It had the most stainless steel I had ever seen in any architectural application.
These were the light openings for the train station. From outside, they looked like tits!
We took ferries to get to areas of the city that were away from the downtown. This day, we were going to a park to see some Kauri trees.
A view of the ferry terminal, from a ferry.
A view of Auckland as we pull further out into the harbour.
The portlands from the bay. We walked past it one day and watched with fascination as they moved containers at speed with these great forklifts specially for containers. Kind of scary when you think of the size of those things.
The bridge we are about to pass under. The temperature was very temperate, the only consideration being that the rain could come down at any time, so, be prepared.
We took a ferry to Birkenhead, where we could then walk to a conservation area that boasted some Kauri trees. I really wanted to see these trees.
The walk up from the ferry took us through the "parking lot" a very lovely light with the passing rain.
This park was a great scrambling climb, skidding down and tramping all around. There was mud and dry and swamp. It was hot work and fun!
This is just a small portion of a Kauri tree. The top is another 80 feet up! This is apparently a very young tree.
There were Tuis everywhere. Inquisitive and curious, they followed us around the park.
This was such a magic place.
Lacework beyond belief! This was a small park in a suburb.
Wonderful colour in the plants, even in winter!
A great view as we come over the bridge back into Auckland. We had had a great day and a great excursion!
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