Copy this photo ...

After a lifetime of thinking about it, we finally made it to New Zealand in March 2019. Fearing the effects of a flight half way around the world we kept our ambitions modest and stayed close to Auckland for the first couple of days.

Our visit to the harbour area started inauspiciously when we struggled to park and ended up paying by far the most expensive parking fee we’ve ever encountered. We walked to the Ferry Building area by the harbour, planning to take a ferry somewhere. But once we’d checked the destinations and schedules we realised that our timing would not allow us to do anything worthwhile. So we opted for a classic 2 hour harbour tour, which was in fact a lot of fun and allowed us to see a lot of the area.

But Auckland Harbour (or Waitematā Harbour to be more accurate) is a hive of ferry activity. Most of the ferries dock near the iconic Ferry Building, but there are many destinations, so the boats are constantly arriving and departing. I have no details here – just photos of some of the ferries I saw that day.