Arriving in New Zealand

View German Language version here.

When you arrive in Auckland, I suggest you have a nice rest in an Auckland hotel or motel before you set out on your New Zealand journey. Too many people try to start their holiday immediately after getting off the plane and consequently have car accidents. For a nice restful walk in Auckland, you could have an ice-cream or a cup of coffee in Cornwall Park. There you can look at a lot of beautiful semi-tropical trees and listen to some native birds (such as the tui) singing you a welcome song! The good thing about Cornwall Park is that it is close to the motorway and you don’t have to go too far into the city to find it.

View Larger Map
To get to the park, .....



simply drive towards Auckland on state highway 1 and take the Ellerslie turn-off. If you are coming from the south (the airport is south of the city), then you should turn left onto Greenland Road. After about 3 traffic lights, you should find a small road to your left called Pohutukawa drive. This is the entrance to Cornwall park, Auckland’s biggest park and the home of One Tree Hill.
If you find a hotel near here, you will be in a fairly safe location that is close to the park and the motorway that leads out of the city. To find accommodation near here, you could google the following suburbs: Ellerslie, Greenlane, Remuera, Epsom, Mt Eden.
Now, I will tell you some things about the park.

Auckland has a number of small, extinct volcanoes, and One Tree Hill is one of them. At the top of the hill is a crater which early Maori found to be a very good spot for building a military fort. John Logan Campbell, one of Auckland’s first European settlers, eventually obtained the land and used it for farming until he later gifted it to the city as a park. Campbell is buried at the top of the hill, and a giant obelisk and a statue have also been built at his request in celebration of the spirit of the Maori people. Many New Zealanders interpret the obelisk as being an earnest expression of respect for Maori, but there are some who interpret it as a somewhat patronizing gesture, given that it was planned in a time when Maori population had dropped below 6% of the population and it was assumed that the culture would die out.

The volcano is small and relatively easy to walk or drive up. The terraces on the hillside were built by pre-european Maori and at the top you can find pits where Maori originally stored sweet potatoes. You will also find sheep grazing on the hill. At the bottom of the hill is the old house originally built by Campbell and his fellow settler, John Brown. The house was originally built in a different location and later moved to the park.
In the park, you can see a lot of very large oak trees which were brought to New Zealand by settlers, and also Moreton Bay Figs, which were brought from Australia. There are also some very large native Pohutukawa trees, otherwise known as New Zealand’s Christmas tree because of the beautiful red flowers it boasts in December.
A bird that you are likely to hear is the New Zealand Tui, which sings in a strange bell-like and choking way. The bird seems to cough as it chimes. If you want to SEE the tui, look at the tops of the highest trees. It is a small back bird with a white feather under it’s chin, and as you can see, it likes to sing it’s song from the highest place it can find.

Of course, there are many other exciting things to see and do in Auckland, but I don’t want you to spend too much time there. Have a rest, then start driving south down state highway one, following the directions to Hamilton. This will get you onto the Pacific Coast Highway, which I will tell you about next.