Auckland, New Zealand

Hello Everyone!

We made it to Auckland in the early morning of Thursday, 29 Jan 2026. Once again, the weather was gorgeous, with sunny skies and temps in the high 70s and low 80s. My main activity for the day was a bus tour around the city with several stops for pictures as well as a museum visit. So, let's go!

Auckland City Info

Here's a panoramic view of the port taken from my stateroom balcony. The terminal building is a modern design, and everything is quite neat and clean. When we walked through the building, it was clear from the sturdy but well-worn wooden floors that the warehouse area has been in use for many decades.

The Port of Auckland

There is a ferry terminal adjacent to our dock, and the boats come and go constantly. Many people commute to the city for work, and the ferry is used daily by those living on outlying islands, or by those who want to avoid the rush hour traffic.

Ferries Operating in the Harbor

Auckland is the largest city in New Zealand with a population of around 1.8 million people. The city center (CBD, or Central Business District) is the most built up area with many high rises and businesses. It's a modern and diverse city and is very neat and clean. Some of the population lives in the city, but the majority live outside and commute for work.

Auckland is known as the "City of Sails" because it's estimated that one out of every three persons owns a boat of some sort. There are slips everywhere in the harbor and they're loaded with boats.

I like comparing gas prices in the places I visit with those in the U.S. I noticed that regular unleaded is going for around 2.32 NZD per liter here. Doing the math, that's about $5.28 per gallon or about twice as much as what we pay back home. Not as bad as Europe, but still enough to be a significant cost. I noticed a lot of hybrid and electric vehicles in the city.

Savage Memorial

Our first stop on the bus tour was at the Michael Joseph Savage Memorial. It's a beautiful park with an obelisk-type monument atop a hill overlooking the harbor and the city. 

Michael Savage was the first Labour Party Prime Minister. He served as PM from 1935 to 1940 and is credited with instituting major reforms in social programs. He came into office toward the end of the Great Depression and faced many challenges. He's responsible for shifting New Zealand towards social democracy, having enacted the Social Security Act of 1938, reducing inequality during economic hardship, and creating many systems that still influence government policy today.

Michael Joseph Savage Memorial

I rarely get good selfies, so I had a friend take a picture of me doing the fig leaf pose in the gardens around the memorial.

A Fig Leaf in the Memorial Garden

As I mentioned earlier, the memorial sits atop a hill overlooking the harbor and the city of Auckland. Here are a couple pictures I took.

Auckland from the Joseph Savage Memorial

Panorama from the Savage Memorial

The gardens at the memorial were exceptional. Here is a sampling.

Auckland War Memorial Museum

After the Savage Memorial, we visited the Auckland War Memorial Museum. It's a beautiful old stone building that houses a first-class museum with wide-ranging exhibits. You can think of it as a mash up of a WWI and WWII memorial/museum, a natural history museum, a science museum, and a cultural museum. We had a little over two hours to explore, and I only got to two of the three floors. They also have several special events and presentations going on throughout the day, such as a shark exhibit and Māori cultural shows.

Just inside the entryway was a large panoramic display showcasing the history and geography of New Zealand. I thought the exhibit was particularly clever and innovative.

Panoramic NZ Overview Exhibit

Demographic Stats Display

I sat and watched a display showing various demographic, cultural and infrastructure statistics. I thought the one below was particularly interesting. It shows the demographic makeup of the population of Auckland (Tamaki Makaurau in the Māori language). It points out that 40% of the current population was born overseas, and it shows regions/countries of origin and how those immigrants are distributed among the city's various neighborhoods. I thought the graphic representation of the data was well done, as well as being colorful. I wonder how they collected all the underlying data!

Auckland's population is growing, and most people emigrating to New Zealand tend to move to Auckland, primarily because of job opportunities. This graphic shows the population densities of various areas around the city.

Military History Exhibition

I spent considerable time in the military section of the museum. The entire top floor is devoted to New Zealand's proud WWI and WWII history. There were hundreds of exhibits recounting New Zealanders' many contributions to those wars as well as more recent conflicts. 

Supermarine Spitfire

Japanese Zero

War Memorial

The war memorial itself was particularly striking. They have names of every New Zealander killed in all the various wars in which NZ has participated. The marble work and stained glass are stunning.

War Memorial Panorama

After the museum, the bus headed back to the harbor via a meandering, scenic route. We had several nice views of the city, but I didn't get any good pictures through the bus window.

Back at the port, another solo traveler and I headed off to explore the nearby shops and look for fish & chips and beer. We found a nice British pub and had a great meal. After that, we went back to the ship in the late afternoon.

Evening Activities

After returning to the ship I showered and changed, listened to the port talk on tomorrow's stop (Tauranga New Zealand), attended a lecture on Māori culture and music, and then went to dinner with two other couples and a solo friend. After dinner we attended a comedy and magic show put on by one of our new entertainers. He was hilarious, got the audience involved, had a bunch or quick-witted one-liners, and also managed to do some crazy good tricks. 

In one, he had a man come on stage who had a $50 bill. The magician took the bill and had the man record the serial number of the bill before cutting it into four pieces. Then he had the man throw the pieces into what looked like an open fire. After some more banter about being sorry about the loss of the man's bill, the magician gave the man his choice of three consolation prizes. The man chose a pack of Marlboro cigarettes and returned to his seat. Much later in the show, he had the man return to the stage and open the still sealed cellophane around the cigarette package. The man looked in the cigarette pack, and there was his $50 bill, intact! He verified that the serial number was the same as his original bill. Amazing! He did other similar tricks, and in one instance made a lady's expensive watch later show up inside a sealed tin can. The show was great fun, and I look forward to his next one.

After that, it was off to bed to rest up for tomorrow's visit to Tauranga!

Until next time,
Cheers,
Jim