What things to do in Auckland?

On October 16 2011 07:08 Plexa wrote:
Burgerfuel is everywhere in Auckland - burgers are goooooooood.

What type of things are you looking to do? i.e. are you here mostly because of nature etc or is it just a vacation to get a feel for what NZ is?

Of course there is the sky tower, which houses a pretty expensive restaurant called orbit which rotates around. The only malls worth visiting are Botany (southish), Sylvia Park (centralish) and Albany (north). If you want to go on some walks check out the Waitakeres (relevant blog). In terms of food, burger fuel is your high end fast food, there are some nice restaurants in town - wildfire is pretty sweet as its basically all you can eat meat, genghis khan in botany (other ones are average) is a buffet restaurant with good food, if you go to mission bay there are a number of good restaurants on the waterfront; midori is really good jap food and the mexican restaurant around there (forgot its name t.t) is also awesome.

All in all, Auckland isn't anything too special - the rest of the country is better in terms of entertainment

On October 16 2011 10:22 EzraLim wrote:


Thanks~ But what we're going there for is to really just look at the scenery (Want to see some snow and mountains, that kind of stuff) and eat tons of food. Is there 'New Zealand cuisine' or is it just the same as Britain and America?

On October 17 2011 22:10 Plexa wrote:

So far as scenery goes, Auckland is pretty boring. There is the Waitaks which I linked in the blog but thats about it. It's that way because of Aucklands origins as a town that should never have been (it just sprung up, there's no real good reason why it should be here lol). There are (dormant) Volcanoes around Auckland - Mt Eden, Mt Wellington, One Tree Hill (with no tree lol) which are all on the mainland and then there is rangitoto: http://www.rangitoto.org/



It's off the mainland, so you need to ferry across but imo it's well worth it. It's a bit of a hike to the summit but well worth it . Other than that there really isn't anything T_T.

If you travel up north Waitangi is very nice as well as the whole bay of plenty area, very beautiful esp. during summer. I suppose you'll probably be heading more south though thats where the mountains are etc. I'm sure you know them already ^^

New Zealand does have ethnic Cusine - it's called a Hangi which is similar to other polynesian food in that it is cooked underground. However, unless you actually see it come out from the ground it is most likely prepared using a steamer/pressure cooker. It's good if you're able to find authentic hangi, else it's best avoiding it as it is nothing special.