The Australian Alternative
While it is true that Australia is and always will be a popular travel destination, there is a little known destination that deserves some consideration that offers diverse, interesting and just as importantly, economical options. And what is this destination, you’re asking? It is a place not far from Australia: New Zealand. And they have a city that can be considered a well-kept secret: Auckland.
With a population of about 1.3 million people, twin-harbored Auckland is New Zealand’s largest city and is known as the City of Sails. The city will host the Rugby World Cup in 2011 -– one of the world’s largest sporting events -– but there are plenty of cheap and offbeat reasons to get to know it now.
Part of the Auckland’s downtown SKYCITY entertainment complex (which includes a casino, two hotels, restaurants and a theater), the 1,076-foot-hight Sky Tower is taller than the Eiffel Tower and is New Zealand’s tallest building.
Glass-fronted elevators (one with a glass floor) carry visitors to indoor observation areas offering 360-degree views of the city, its landmarks and the surrounding countryside, but thrill-seekers can opt to take a tethered outdoor stroll around an upper-level deck or get hooked up to a cable for a 14-second Sky Jump off the side.
Tip: Admission to the main Sky Tower observation deck is included in the Auckland Multipass, which offers discounts to four attractions. And while the Sky Walk and the Sky Jump are offbeat, they’re not cheap, so look for two-for-one coupons online and in tourist brochures.
New Zealand’s rich maritime history, from Polynesian migration and visits by Captain James Cook to modern day campaigns to capture the America’s Cup is explored at the New Zealand Maritime Museum (starting November 2nd, it’s the Voyager New Zealand Maritime Museum).
In addition to temporary exhibitions, there are permanent indoor galleries filled with genuine and replica vessels used for trade and transport and an all-too-real reproduction of a steerage cabin from the 1840s that rocks (and rolls) to simulate a sea voyage. (Beware if you’re prone to seasickness.)
In December the museum will open a giant new wing dedicated to the late New Zealand hero, environmentalist and yachtsman, Sir Peter Blake. In addition to housing the 1995 America’s Cup-winning boat (NZL32-Black Magic), memorabilia from Blake’s life and career will be displayed, including his good luck charm: red socks.
Tip: Time it right and your admission to the Voyager New Zealand Maritime Museum will include a ride on one of the museum’s vessels. Although it’s not actually pronounced the way it reads, kids will enjoy being able to tell friends about their trip on the museum’s historic steam launch, the SS Puke.
As you’ll learn in the Voyager New Zealand Maritime Museum, or in conversation with just about anyone in town, the City of Sails is passionate about the sailing regatta and sporting trophy known as the America’s Cup.
It’s usually only the very wealthy — or the very skilled — that get to sail on the sleek, finely-tuned vessels that compete in these races, but Sail NZ has two former America’s Cup yachts, NZL40 and NZL41, that welcome aboard both experienced and novice sailors for laid-back, 2-hour sailings or 3-hour yacht-vs.-yacht races.
Tip: The contest for the America’s Cup, yachting’s Holy Grail, began back in 1851. Read New Zealand’s take on the history of the race here.
While it does tell the stories of and serve as a memorial site for New Zealanders lost in wars, the massive, 80-year old Auckland War Memorial Museum is better known as the home of the country’s major natural and human history collections.
Highlights include dinosaurs, an Egyptian mummy, the ice axe that New Zealand’s Sir Edmund Hillary used to climb Mount Everest, and galleries filled with treasures of the Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand.
For an educational and enjoyable crash course in Maori culture, attend one of the museum’s daily Maori cultural performances and/or the guided tours of the Maori gallery.
Tip: For its Sonic Museum project, the Auckland Museum asked well-known New Zealand musicians and sound artists to create aural responses to some of the museum galleries. Listen to what they came up with here.
As its name implies, Auckland’s Butterfly Creek has plenty of butterflies and you’ll find up to 700 colorful, free-flying butterflies flitting about in the warm, walk-though butterfly house.
But “the Creek” is also home to a petting farm with tropical fish, birds, lizards, baby alligators, giant saltwater crocodiles (Scar and Goldie), tarantulas, cockroaches, and New Zealand’s largest insect, the giant weta, or wetapunga, which weighs as much as a small mouse.
Tip: You can walk to Butterfly Creek from the Auckland Airport, but the attraction also provides complimentary shuttle rides back and forth, making this a good option for long layovers with (or without) young children.
The 40-acre Museum of Transport and Technology is home to more than 30,000 objects, ranging from a cute-but-complete Victorian village to farm machinery, trams, restored steam trains, the world’s first chilled beer tanker, and Auckland’s original pump house, with its giant restored beam engine.
In the Pioneers of Aviation exhibit, you’ll find a replica of the plane Richard Pearse used to become the first New Zealander to fly, and audio visual displays that detail the life of Jean Batten, a pioneer aviatrix from New Zealand who broke several flying records.
Tip: Museum admission includes entry to MOTAT’s aviation collection, housed down the road. The Sir Keith Park Memorial Aviation Collection includes more than two dozen aircraft and a few one-of-a-kind items.
Auckland has close to 50 volcanic cones, but don’t fret: the last eruption was about 600 years ago, and chances are slim (to none) that another eruption will take place anytime soon.
So don’t be shy about visiting two of the prettiest and easiest-to-access in-city volcano sites: One Tree Hill and Mount Eden.
One Tree Hill (named for a lone and long-gone sacred tree; not the U2 song or the TV show) is among Auckland’s largest volcanoes and was the site of the largest documented Maori settlement.
The park at Mount Eden, Auckland’s highest volcano site, is one of the city’s most popular lookout sites.
Tip: Several groups offer guided volcano walking tours. You can also learn more about Auckland’s volcanoes at the interactive Volcanoes exhibit at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, where you can sit in a mock-up of a typical Auckland home as it shakes and rattles in a scary, simulated eruption.
When it first opened in May, 1959, more than 100,000 people took the opportunity to walk across the Auckland Harbor Bridge over Waitemata Harbor.
Today, the only way to cross the bridge is by bus or car, or on foot during the annual Auckland Marathon, which takes place this year on November 1.
The rest of the year, brave souls can climb the bridge with a tour guide or drop and dangle from it on a Bungy Jump.
Tip: Throughout 2009, the Auckland Harbor Bridge is celebrating its 50th anniversary. View an online exhibition about the history of the bridge here.
Some caves in Waitomo and other parts of New Zealand offer the perfect breeding grounds for an unusual fly: the Arachnocampa Luminosa, or the New Zealand glow worm.
During its one-year lifecycle, the fly spends much of its time as a luminescent worm that sends out a sticky web to catch food.
While it sounds icky, once you’ve hiked down into a limestone cave and gazed up from a boat at a ceiling beaming with thousands of neon-green dots, you’ll forget that glow worms are actually phosphorescent maggots.
Tip: Waitomo is about a 3-hour drive from Auckland. In addition to the Glow Worm caves, many visitors give underground “black water” rafting a try.
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