Surroundings, Auckland

Tamaki Drive, starting from the Ferry Building, runs for 10km past beautiful stretches of Waitemata Harbour to Judges Bay, below Parnell Park. It then cuts across Hobson Bay to Ohaku Bay, where many leisure craft and yachts are moored. In Orakei a marae constructed jointly by Maoris and whites and a meeting house can be visited.On Bastion Point, further east, there are remains of defensive structures. Some years ago there was a major conflict over land rights between the Maoris and the government when land claimed by the Maoris was to be sold for building luxury houses. Finally in 1988 the government decided to give the land back and pay compensation.On the point is the grave of Michael Joseph Savage (1872-1940), a very popular Labor prime minister. A commemorative column stands out against the triple volcanic peak on Rangitoto Island lying offshore from the point.Then comes Mission Bay, with its beautiful and bathing beach. The mission station founded by Bishop Selwyn is now a restaurant. An exclusive residential district has grown up round the bay.Tamaki Drive ends at Achilles Point, at the east end of Heliers Bay, where a tablet commemorates the cruiser Achilles, which in 1939, along with two other warships, sank the German battleship Graf Spee.

The green hills of the Waitakere Ranges, southwest of Auckland, are a popular recreation area.

Just under 50km north of Auckland on Highway 1 is the pretty little beach settlement of Waiwera. Its hot medicinal springs were already famed in the 19th C; many people came here to take the cure and spa establishments and hotels were built to cater for them.

An hour drive north of Auckland, off Highway 1 to the west, is the little township of Puhoi, founded in the 1860s by immigrants from Bohemia.Martin Kippner, a sea captain from Bohemia who had visited New Zealand, gave such a good account of the country that a party of villagers from Staab, 100km southwest of Prague, were encouraged to make the long and trying voyage. They settled in a forested area northwest of the Hauraki Gulf, where they were allotted plots of land and set about clearing the forest for agriculture. In those days the Puhoi River was their only link with the outside world.