Bootless in Birkenhead and Au Revoir Auckland

Bob and I returned to Auckland last Friday afternoon July 27th and spent much of our last week prepping to leave Auckland. However, we did see two movies as part of the New Zealand Film Festival, and we would recommend both. We saw “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” which is a good but depressing documentary film about the power of money in our Democracy and the inability for money to buy true friendships. Roy was a powerful attorney starting with the McCarthy era and with close ties to the current president. The second film was Who You Think I Am, a French film starring Juliette Binoche. She is as beautiful and talented as ever and the plot has a number of twists and turns through to the very final scene.

We also had a final outing. This time we took the ferry to Birkenhead, another area across the harbor from Auckland, but further west than Devonport, for a nice walk about — with both of us bootless. My foot felt great (got the official thumbs up Tuesday with x-rays to show the fracture healing).

View of Auckland from ferry as we headed out

We went under the Auckland Harbor Bridge which we climbed many years ago.

While the town center of Devonport is pretty much right at the harbor, we had to do a quick hike steeply uphill to get to the center of Birkenhead.

Heading up into town through one of the reserves

We didn’t have a map of Birkenhead like we had for Devonport, but the public library was able to help us out.

Birkenhead Public Library near town center

Word art sculpture outside of the library

Inside of the library

One of the things that we knew we wanted to do was to walk through the Le Roy’s Bush Reserve that we’d read about. It is a walk through a rain forest setting along a stream and by a waterfall. Naturally, it (a boardwalk) within the park was being rebuilt, so we were only able to walk through a small portion. However, with the aid of maps from the library, we found other areas of Birkenhead to explore.

A painted owl statue near the town center lookout

View of Auckland from town center lookout

We walked to the War Memorial Park where the memorial is behind glass and the park focuses on sports activities

From the park we walked down to Kendall Bay for a wet, and sometimes muddy walk through Kauri Point Centennial Park and Chelsea Heritage Park, by the Chelsea Sugar Factory and then back to the wharf to catch the ferry back to Auckland.