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City Center
The modernist addition to the Auckland Art Gallery has breathed life and light into a structure built in the 1880s. The soaring glass, wood, and stone addition, which some say looks like stylized trees, both complements and contrasts with the formal château-like main gallery. A courtyard and fountain space at the front is home to ever-changing works. The gallery, adjacent to Albert Park, has some 15,000 items dating from the 12th century but also shows innovative and challenging contemporary art that draws big crowds. Historic portraits of Māori chiefs by well-known New Zealand painters C.F. Goldie and Gottfried Lindauer offer an ethnocentric view of people once seen as fiercely martial. Goldie often used the same subject repeatedly—odd, considering his desire to document what he considered a dying race. New Zealand artists Frances Hodgkins, Doris Lusk, and Colin McCahon are also represented here, and there are shows and performances. The gallery has made a tilt to offering more international exhibitions so check with the website for the latest show. Free collection tours are given at 11:30 and 1:30. The café is hip and busy, and the gift shop offers a range of books, original artworks, and keepsakes.
5 Kitchener St., Auckland, Auckland, 1010, New Zealand
Sight Details
Rate Includes: Free, except for special exhibits
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Parnell
The Māori artifact collection here is one of the largest in the world, housed in a Greek Revival building in one of the city's finest parks, with views to match. Must-sees include a fine example of a pātaka (storehouse), a fixture in Māori villages, and Te Toki a Tapiri, the last great Māori waka (canoe). Made of a single log and measuring 85 feet long, it could carry 100 warriors, and its figurehead shows tremendous carving. To learn more about Māori culture, attend one of the performances, held at least three times daily, that demonstrate Māori song, dance, weaponry, and the haka (a ceremonial dance the All Blacks rugby team has adopted as an intimidating pregame warm-up). The museum also holds an exceptional collection of Pacific artifacts and hosts high-quality visiting or issue-specific exhibitions. If you want a bit of talk and music in the evening check out the once-a-month panel discussion followed by live music known as Late at the Museum. The museum is also home to two cafés. On Anzac Day (April 25), thousands gather in front of the museum in a dawn service to recognize the gallantry of the country's servicemen and -women.
Park Rd., Auckland, Auckland, 1052, New Zealand
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Rate Includes: NZ$28
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This harborside marine park—the creation of New Zealand's most celebrated undersea explorer and treasure hunter—offers a fish's-eye view of the sea. A transparent tunnel, 120 yards long, makes a bewitching circuit past moray eels, lobsters, sharks, and stingrays. You can also have an encounter with King and Gentoo penguins and their keepers in their icy abode, and take home photos to prove it. This attraction is popular and limited to four people a day so it pays to book ahead.
23 Tamaki Dr., Auckland, Auckland, 1062, New Zealand
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Rate Includes: NZ$41, Closed Tues. and Wed.
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City Center
These 15 acres of formal gardens contain a mix of established and seasonal plantings, a fountain, and statue- and sculpture-studded lawns. They are a favorite of Aucklanders, who pour out of nearby office buildings and two adjacent universities to eat lunch and lounge under trees on sunny days. Good cafés at the universities serve well-priced takeout food and coffee. The park is built on the site of an 1840s–50s garrison, which kept settlers apart from neighboring Māori tribes. On the park's east side, behind Auckland University's general library, are remnants of stone walls with rifle slits. The park is home to festivals throughout the summer and the Auckland Art Gallery is on its edge.
Bounded by Wellesley St. W., Kitchener St., Waterloo Quad, Auckland, Auckland, 1010, New Zealand
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Rate Includes: Free
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Parnell
Saturday cricketers, Sunday picnickers, and any-day runners are some of the Aucklanders who enjoy this rolling, 340-acre park—not to mention loads of walkers, often with dogs. Running trails range from easy to challenging, and organized 10-km (6-mile) runs occur throughout the year. The Domain contains some magnificent sculpture as well as the domed Wintergardens (open daily 10–4), which houses tropical and seasonally displayed hothouse plants. In summer, watch the local paper for free weekend-evening concerts, which usually include opera and fireworks. There are superb views of the city and harbor from the top of the park. Take a bottle of wine and a basket of goodies and join the locals—up to 300,000 per show. While the Domain is safe during the day it is not a place to be at night unless you're there for a concert with a big crowd.
Entrances at Stanley St., Park Rd., Carlton Gore Rd., and Maunsell Rd., Auckland, Auckland, 1052, New Zealand
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Recommended Fodor’s Video
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City Center
This extravagant art nouveau movie theater was the talk of the town when it opened in 1929, but nine months later the owner, Thomas O'Brien, went bust and fled, taking the week's revenues and an usherette with him. During World War II, a cabaret show in the basement was popular with Allied servicemen. One of the entertainers, Freda Stark, is said to have appeared regularly wearing nothing more than a coat of gold paint. Now the café at the front of the Civic bears her name. When you sit down to a show or movie you'll see a simulated night sky on the ceiling and giant lions with lights for eyes on stage. The theater is host to an ever-changing roster of movie premieres, intimate rock concerts, live theater, and dance parties.
Queen and Wellesley Sts., Auckland, Auckland, 1010, New Zealand
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City Center
This magnificent 1912 Edwardian building continues to stand out on Auckland's waterfront. It's still used for its original purpose, launching ferries to Devonport as well as to Waiheke and other Hauraki Gulf islands. The building also houses bars and restaurants.
Quay St., Auckland, Auckland, 1010, New Zealand
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City Center
New Zealand's rich seafaring history is on display at this marina complex on Auckland Harbour. The collection includes Pacific and Māori seagoing canoes as well as a range of European sailing boats. There are detailed exhibits on early whaling and a superb collection of yachts and ship models, including KZ1, the 133-foot racing sloop built for the America's Cup challenge in 1988. A scow conducts short harbor trips twice a day on Tuesday, Thursday, and weekends, and there's a wharf-side eatery.
Eastern Viaduct, Quay St., Auckland, Auckland, 1010, New Zealand
Sight Details
Rate Includes: NZ$53
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Parnell
The largest of Auckland's extinct volcanoes and one of the best lookout points, One Tree Hill, or Maungakiekie, was the site of three Māori pā (fortifications). It used to have a single pine tree on its summit, but that was attacked several times by activists who saw it as a symbol of colonialism, and in 2000 it was taken down. Sir John Logan Campbell, the European founding father of the city, is buried on the summit. There is fantastic walking and running in the surrounding acreage known as Cornwall Park, with avenues of oaks, a kauri plantation, and an old olive grove. Or just take a mat and read under an old tree. Free electric barbecue sites are also available. Because the park is a working farm of sheep and cattle, you'll need to be wary of cows with their calves along the paths. There's also a cricket club with old-style seating, where you can watch a game in summer, and a pavilion where you can buy refreshments.
Greenlane Rd. W, Auckland, Auckland, 1051, New Zealand
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Parnell
When you tire of boutiques and cafés, take 10 minutes (or more) to gaze upon and sniff this collection of some 5,000 rosebushes. The main beds contain mostly modern hybrids, with new introductions planted regularly. The adjacent Nancy Steen Garden has antique varieties. And don't miss the incredible trees. There is a 200-year-old pohutukawa (puh-hoo-too-ka-wa), whose weighty branches touch the ground and rise up again, and a kanuka that is one of Auckland's oldest trees. In summer it's a popular site for wedding photographs.
85 Gladstone Rd., Auckland, Auckland, 1052, New Zealand
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Rate Includes: Free
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Parnell
The lovely Victorian timber villas along the upper slope of Parnell Road have been transformed into antiques shops, designer boutiques, cafés, and restaurants. Parnell Village is the creation of Les Harvey, who saw the potential of the old, rundown shops and houses and almost single-handedly snatched them from the jaws of the developers' bulldozers in the early 1960s by buying them, renovating them, and leasing them out. Today, this village of trim pink-and-white timber facades is one of the most delightful parts of the city. At night, the area's restaurants and bars attract Auckland's well-heeled set.
Parnell Rd. between St. Stephen's Ave. and Augustus Rd., Auckland, Auckland, 1052, New Zealand
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City Center
This 1,082-foot beacon is the first place many Aucklanders take visiting friends to give them a view of the city. Up at the main observation level, glass floor panels let you look past your feet to the street hundreds of yards below. Adults step gingerly onto the glass, while kids delight in jumping up and down on it. Through glass panels in the floor of the elevator you can see the counterweight of the Sky Jump, a controlled leap off the 630-foot observation deck that provides an adrenaline rush.
Victoria and Federal Sts., Auckland, Auckland, 1010, New Zealand
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Rate Includes: NZ$32
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Parnell
This Gothic Revival wooden church was built in 1886 by the early Anglican missionary Bishop Selwyn. The craftsmanship inside the kauri church is remarkable, down to the hand-finished columns. One of the carpenters left his trademark, an owl, sitting in the beams to the right of the pulpit. If you stand in the pulpit and clasp the lectern, you'll feel something lumpy under your left hand—a mouse, the trademark of another of the craftsmen who made the lectern, the so-called Mouse Man of Kilburn. The story of the church's relocation is also remarkable. St. Mary's originally stood on the other side of Parnell Road, and in 1982 the entire structure was moved across the street to be next to the new church, the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity.
Parnell Rd. and St. Stephen's Ave., Auckland, Auckland, 1052, New Zealand
Sight Details
Rate Includes: Free
