Down the waterfront

This morning the weather had improved somewhat. Today we went exploring Auckland Harbour. The harbour area to the right is industrialised and not really accessable. We started at the Ferry Building and walked along Quay Street past towards Princes Wharf. It is a 10 minute boat ride to Davenport form here but we had already visited the place previously. We enquired about tickets to one of the Waiheke Island but in the end we gave it a miss. Along the waterfront the developers have got in and like most modern cities you can find expensive apartments, lots of cafes, restuarants and bars.

Auckland is known as the city of sails as it is purported to have the greatest number of boats per capita of any city of the world. We spent a couple of hours wandering about looking at the expensive boats in the Viaduct Harbour. We came across the “Athena’ Yacht as it was moored up alonside the pier in Princes Wharf. ‘Athena’ was registered in Georgetown, Cayman Islands and is a beautiful modern yacht.

 

Described as the Godess of the Sea and probably the world’s largest privately owned sailing yacht. It is a 3 masted Schooner, 289 feet in length and when the wind reaches over force 5 is capable of 18.9 knots under sail.

The tallest of Athena’s three masts is 62 meters in height. To give a sense of scale, the view from the Athena’s crow’s nest is much the same as peering over the top of a 20-story high building. AWESOME!

Later we returned to the B & B.

In the evening we returned to the waterfront area to sample some of the many bars. It wasn’t as busy as I expected. Newton-le-Willows High street would have been busier on a Saturday night.

~ by blackgoth on March 31, 2007.