This is the Double Tree Motel - our first accomodation in the tour.

Our Welcome lunch was given in the Cornwall Park Restaurant located in Cornwall Park. This is a landscape park designed for the recreation and enjoyment of all the people of New Zealand and is renowned for its landscape design and its wide variety of mature trees. It is centered on a volcanic cone, One Tree Hill, with many interesting geological features. A pre-European Maori fortification (pa) was built on the cone, many features of which can still be seen. The Maori name for the hill is Maungakiekie - mountain of the kiekie. Kiekie (Freycinettia banksii) grows as an epiphytic climber or vine.

The Auckland War Memorial Museum, Te Papa Whakahiku. was established in 1852, and contains extensive collections of Natural History, Ethnology and Archaeology, New Zealand History, Applied Arts and Photography. It also contains one of New Zealand's principal heritage Libraries.
The current Museum Building (opened 1929) is a memorial to New Zealand war dead who sacrificed their lives in the First World War, Second World War, and other conflicts. It is prominently sited in an extensive central city park, on one of Auckland's many extinct volcanic cones, and overlooks Auckland City and its beautiful Waitemata Harbour.

Muriwai Beach contains one of the only three nesting colonies of the Australasian gannet. We had a good view of the domestic competition of the gannets from the hill above.The adults arrive here to nest around the end of September. The young birds fly to Australia as soon as they can fly. When the gannets mature, at two years of age, they begin to return to New Zealand.
Gannets are among the few native birds to be on the increase and are vigorously in the process of establishing new colonies.

The Arataki Nature Center is located in the Waitakere Ranges which were formed by a chain of volcanoes which were active over 20 million years ago. The Waitakere Ranges have since been eroded to sheer bluffs and dissected valleys.
Arataki is Maori for 'Pathway of Learning', and the Arataki Nature Trail provided an ideal introduction to New Zealand's native bush. The trail is divided into 11 sections or 'learning areas'. These areas include 'Birth of a Forest', 'Emerging Patterns', 'Life from Death', 'Adaptation' and 'Dependence'.

Rangitoto Island is the largest, youngest and one of the least modified of about 50 volcanic cones and craters in the Auckland volcanic field. It erupted from the sea in a series of dramatic explosions around 600 years ago, and is now extinct. It dominates the local seascape and a visit there is like stepping into another world. The island is a public reserve managed by the Department of Conservation and is famed world-wide as a botanical gem.

The America’s Cup, first awarded in 1851, is one of the oldest trophies in international sport and is considered by sailors to be the Holy Grail of sailboat racing. Although there is no prize money awarded to the winner, racing teams spend tens of millions of dollars to either defend or challenge for the America’s Cup and prove their technological supremacy at sea. Because of the enormous amount of preparation and funding required by the contenders, the event is held about every three years. America’s Cup XXXI is scheduled for February/March 2003 in Auckland, New Zealand, with the selection trials to begin in late 2002.