Auckland: Ferry Building, Auckland Domain

I’m back in Auckland after my visits to Dunedin, Queenstown, Christchurch, and Wellington, in that order. Sadly, that means this trip is winding down. Today, we wandered around, primarily in the harbour district, including looking at the Auckland Ferry Building. We then walked to and through Auckland Domain, which I hadn’t been to at the start of this trip.

Unsurprisingly, the harbour and the rest of the city are pretty much as it was when I left Auckland almost a couple of weeks ago.

Ferry Building

I don’t think I mentioned the Auckland Ferry Building in the couple of posts I published when I was in Auckland at the start of this trip. It’s an attractive building.

The Ferry Building used to be—wait for it—a building where people caught ferries. Well, they didn’t so much catch them as board them. Ferries are surprisingly difficult to catch unless you have a really, really big net and very, very strong arms.

Whatever. Never mind. The Ferry Building doesn’t serve that purpose anymore.

The ferries now leave from a newer, mostly nondescript ferry terminal. The old building now has a couple of restaurants and shops on the lower level.

I don’t know what’s on the upper levels. They don’t appear to be open to the public.

That’s a picture of the old Ferry Building to the right.

It’s difficult to find a spot for a good picture of the building these days because there is a lot of construction around it. As a result, the building doesn’t look anywhere near as handsome in the picture as it does in person. (That is to say, I was there in person. The building is just a building, not a person. But you probably figured that out.)

Then again, I don’t look anywhere even bordering on handsome either in person or in pictures. So, the Ferry Building has in-person handsomeness on me.

Auckland is building underground transit in the central business district. I think that’s the cause of all the construction in the area.

Auckland Domain

Auckland Domain is a large park that’s not too far from downtown.

It has some sports fields, treed areas, flowers, a Wintergarden complex (a tropical greenhouse and a temperate greenhouse, with a small decorative pool between the two) and a duck pond.

One of Auckland’s leading attractions, the Auckland Museum, is also in the park. But we plan to visit that another day. Therefore, I won’t write about it in this entry, other than to say that it’s in Auckland Domain and we’ll visit it another day, which I’ve already said.

When we were in Auckland Domain, people were playing cricket on one of the sports fields. That is, I think it was cricket. They threw a ball, but not using the same throwing style used in baseball. And there was a bat involved, but it wasn’t a baseball bat and they didn’t swing it the way baseball players generally swing bats. The players were dressed all in white. Who dresses all in white in baseball? Anyone? Then again, I know only slightly more about baseball than cricket, about which I know next to nothing. So, why are you even bothering to read this worthless run-on paragraph about sports I know almost nothing about? This is time you’ll never get back.

Come to think of it, the paragraph not about the Auckland Museum was also a waste of your time. Sorry about that. Ask for a refund on your way out.

The flowers in the greenhouses were beautiful. The duck pond was peaceful. All in all, Auckland Domain is a very nice park. There. I put some real information in this, the final paragraph of this entry. Trite information, sure. And only of slightly more value than the preceding few paragraphs, but real information nonetheless. Well, I guess it was more of an opinion than information, wasn’t it? I should just quit while I’m ahead with this journal. If I ever get ahead I’ll quit. No doubt about it.