Auckland weekend...

This past weekend was Auckland Anniversary weekend - which is a public holiday observed by a large part of the North Island. Being a long weekend, we decided to get away again, while the weather's good. This is just a brief post - check out the links for the photos!

On Saturday morning we met up with the Hulls again and had a morning at Mission Bay with them. After checking in to our accommodation, we walked around the city and then had dinner up in the Sky Tower. Sunday was spent catching the ferry across the harbour to Devonport, where we had an enjoyable morning wandering around. On Sunday evening we headed to Viaduct Harbour. Monday morning we went back there, and then to the Museum to wander around.
Anyway, our impression of Auckland was that it was very much a mini-Sydney. Ponder these similarities:

• The CBD is on the southern shore of a harbour, with a large bridge across being the only practical way to get across for most things (except Sydney now has tunnels underneath, something which Auckland is considering doing)
• The airport is on a second, southern harbour (Botany Bay in Sydney, Manukau Harbour in Auckland)
• The North shore is nice, but expensive
• Traffic is horrible
  
• They both have large towers (Sky Tower and Centrepoint)
• They're both by far the most expensive cities in their respective countries

Anyway, it just felt a bit like Sydney to us. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing... we wouldn't really want to live there though.