Auckland Audio Tours

Auckland sits on the narrowest point of New Zealand's North Island, with the Waitemata Harbour on the east opening to the Pacific and the Manukau Harbour on the west opening to the Tasman Sea. The isthmus between them is only about two kilometers wide at its narrowest, which means Auckland is a city where you can theoretically walk from one ocean to another. It is also built on the Auckland volcanic field, a collection of 53 extinct volcanoes in various states of cone, crater, and lake. Mount Eden, twelve minutes' walk from the city center, is a perfect volcanic cone with a 50-metre deep crater and a 360-degree panorama across both harbours that makes the scale of the city immediately comprehensible.

Auckland has more registered boats per capita than almost any city on earth, which is where the 'City of Sails' nickname comes from, and the America's Cup yachting infrastructure along the waterfront near Viaduct Harbour has changed the downtown waterfront from a working port into one of the most pleasant urban waterfronts in the Pacific.

The Maori call the region Tamaki-makau-rau, meaning 'the isthmus fought over by a hundred lovers,' which refers to the centuries of Polynesian intertribal warfare over this strip of land. Maori culture is not a backdrop in Auckland: it is present in public art, in language on road signs, and in the governance of the city at the Auckland Council level.