Auckland

11th February 2014: What can we say about Auckland? Well, Well, I said American Samoa was close to paradise, but I would prefer to live here. It’s like Sydney, but with a village atmosphere. We parked downtown, and any further downtown we would have been in the shop windows.

The bay is crisscrossed by ferries like Sydney and a short five minute ferry took us to Devenport, an upmarket naval community built with wooden houses made from the native kauri hardwood which takes 600 years to mature and can live up to 2000 years..so 90% of it was cut down by 1900.

Below the dormant volcano called Signal hill in Devonport, (Auckland boast 14 of them and all classified as “dormant” not “extinct”), lies Cheltenham beach, and horseracing used to take place on the park beside before it was turned into a golf course.

However Auckland is really BOAT City, with more boats per head of population than any other city. Learning to sail is even part of the curriculum here with all children having to learn. Where else can you see the Americas Cup skipper Dean Baker walking down the road with his early morning coffee? Boats and Superyachts are also brought here from all over the world to be looked after in special ships (see below) that sink so your boat can be floated into to be transported to Auckland.

Of course, when you have your boat you need somewhere to keep it so why not a boat park? Pull up with your boat downtown and your boat gets parked in a multi story boat park that must house over five hundred boats.

Of course, even at the local Sofitel you can also park your yacht in the central basin of the hotel,  just outside your room.

The biggest drawback to moving here tomorrow is the fact that its miles from anywhere. America, Asia, UK and even Australia are just a long long way away.