11 Unusual Things to Do in Auckland
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11 Unusual Things to Do in Auckland
Sky Tower and the War Memorial Museum are the itinerary. Jumping off the Sky Tower, snorkelling the country’s first marine reserve, and queuing for hangi at a Saturday market most tourists never hear about are the actual weekend. This is a doing list, not a looking list, our hidden gems guide covers the overlooked corners, this one covers the eleven things worth actually booking, walking, or eating your way through.
The eleven, at a glance
| Activity | Area | Cost | Booking |
|---|---|---|---|
| SkyJump / SkyWalk | Sky Tower, CBD | SkyJump ~$215, SkyWalk ~$165, combo ~$350-380 | Required, online |
| Harbour Bridge Climb & Bungy | Westhaven Marina, Herne Bay | Verify at bungy.co.nz | Required, online |
| Goat Island snorkel | Leigh, ~90km/1.5hrs | Free reserve, gear rental extra | Self-drive, no booking |
| Coast to Coast Walkway | Te Wero Bridge to Onehunga Bay | Free | None |
| MOTAT heritage tram | Western Springs | Adult $19, child $10 | Not required |
| Otara Market | South Auckland | Free entry, cash for food | None, Sat 6am-noon only |
| K’Road LGBTQ+ crawl | Karangahape Road | Bar prices | None |
| Auckland Beer Mile | Kingsland | Per-drink | None |
| Silo Park food market | Wynyard Quarter | Free entry, food trucks pay | None, Fri-Sun only |
| Riverhead Forest mountain bike | NW of city | Free trail access | Bring/hire own bike |
| One Tree Hill’s real story | Cornwall Park | Free | None |
Jump off the tallest thing in the country
SkyJump is a wire-guided base jump from the Sky Tower’s 192m outer deck, not a bungy, you free-fall at up to 85km/h and the cable does the catching. SkyWalk is the tamer version, a harnessed loop around the same deck with no rope leaving your body. Adult pricing runs roughly $215 for SkyJump, $165 for SkyWalk, and the combo ticket at $350-380 beats booking each separately, though check current prices at bungy.co.nz before you commit, the operator withholds firm numbers until you’re in the booking flow. Photos and video are included in the price, skip the upsell.
Is SkyJump the same as bungy jumping?
No. Bungy uses an elastic cord that recoils you back up; SkyJump runs on a fixed guide wire that decelerates you smoothly to a landing pad, closer to a controlled zipline drop than a rebound. Both operate out of the same AJ Hackett booth at the Sky Tower base and both cancel in high wind, so build a weather buffer into your day if this is the one thing you came for.
The other AJ Hackett thing, five minutes from downtown
Auckland Harbour Bridge Climb and Bungy operates out of Westhaven Marina in Herne Bay, close enough to the CBD to pair with a Viaduct or Wynyard Quarter afternoon. Pricing isn’t published, verify current rates at bungy.co.nz before you book, but booking direct rather than through a reseller reportedly saves around $40 plus a free T-shirt. It runs daily 9:30am to 4:30pm, closed Anzac Day and Christmas Day. The bridge climb alone takes about 90 minutes; add briefing and gear time if you’re doing the bungy too.
Snorkel the reserve that started the whole idea
Goat Island, off Leigh, became New Zealand’s first marine reserve in 1975, and four decades of no fishing means fish that don’t scatter when you swim over them. It’s about 90km and 1.5 hours north of the city, self-drive is genuinely the best option since public transport barely reaches Leigh; compare rental cars if you don’t already have wheels. Bring your own mask and fins or rent locally in Leigh village, the water’s clear enough close to shore that you don’t need a boat to see the appeal.
Do you need a car to get to Goat Island?
Effectively, yes. There’s no direct public transport route from central Auckland to Leigh, and the reserve’s whole appeal, close-in snorkelling without a charter boat, only works if you can get yourself to the car park above the beach. Pair it with Matakana’s Saturday farmers market on the same drive if you’re making a day of it.
Walk the city coast to coast, on foot, no car
The Coast to Coast Walkway runs about 16km from Te Wero Bridge in the Viaduct to Taumanu Reserve on Onehunga Bay, crossing the isthmus from the Waitematā Harbour to the Manukau, passing the Domain, Mt Eden’s crater rim, and One Tree Hill along the way. Budget around 4 hours 20 minutes for the full distance, and the whole route is reachable by public transport at either end, so you can walk one way and bus back rather than doubling the distance. It’s the closest thing Auckland has to a single walk that explains why the city sits where it does, two harbours, one narrow strip of volcanic land between them.
Ride the tram nobody mentions
MOTAT, the Museum of Transport and Technology, runs two separate sites connected by a working heritage tram, and admission ($19 adult, $10 child 5-15) includes the ride, which also continues on toward Auckland Zoo. Most visitors buy a ticket, walk the nearer site, and never realise the tram is included and running the whole time. Open 10am-4pm daily, last entry 3:30pm, closed only Christmas Day. Budget 2.5-3.5 hours if you’re doing both sites and the tram properly, check current hours at motat.org.nz .
Show up for Saturday morning the way South Auckland does
Otara Market runs Saturdays only, 6am to noon, and it’s the essential everyday stop for Pasifika culture in a city that’s home to more Pacific peoples than almost anywhere else in the world. Expect hangi, island doughnuts, chop suey, and stalls selling produce and goods you won’t find on the Viaduct waterfront ten minutes’ drive north. Get there early, the good food sells out and the market itself winds down by late morning.
K’Road’s bars are older and stranger than the murals suggest
Everyone mentions Urge Bar, open continuously since 1997 and New Zealand’s longest-running gay bar, but K’Road’s LGBTQ+ scene runs deeper than one address. The Eagle stays chilled early and gets cruisier later, Family Bar has run drag and karaoke nights since 2006, G.A.Y. leans toward drag and artistic shows, Caluzzi Bar & Cabaret does full drag cabaret, and Bamboo Tiger at 335 Karangahape Rd runs live music most nights. None of it needs a booking, just a Friday or Saturday and a plan for getting home, since regular buses stop around midnight and the half-hourly Night Bus only runs Friday and Saturday nights specifically, a taxi or rideshare is the safer default on weeknights.
Drink your way down Kingsland
The Auckland Beer Mile runs through Kingsland, anchored by Saint Leonard’s, with Galbraith’s Alehouse and Urbanaut both worth the detour along the same stretch. It’s walkable end to end, no car needed, and pairs naturally with a Western Springs or MOTAT afternoon since Kingsland sits right between them. If you’ve got a car and want to push further, Hallertau out near Kumeu is the same idea with a longer drive attached.
Eat at the market that only exists after dark
Silo Park in Wynyard Quarter runs a food-truck market Friday through Sunday, 2pm to 11pm, with live music alongside it, a different scene entirely from the daytime marina crowd wandering past the superyachts. It’s free to enter, you just pay per truck, and it’s a five-minute walk from the free Karanga Plaza tidal pool if you want to swim before you eat.
Mountain bike the forest that isn’t under the rāhui
Riverhead Forest sits northwest of the city and gets a fraction of the foot traffic the Waitākere Ranges do, partly because it’s under separate management and isn’t caught up in the kauri-dieback rāhui restricting interior Waitākere tracks. Trail access is free, but bring or hire your own bike, there’s no rental stand on site. Verify current track status before you drive out, forestry land access changes without much warning.
Visit the tree that isn’t there anymore
One Tree Hill’s summit pine wasn’t the original tree, that was a tōtara felled by settlers, and the pine that replaced it became a protest target itself: chainsaw-attacked in 1994 by Māori land-rights activist Mike Smith, attacked again in 1999, and finally felled on 26 October 2000. The summit stood bare for 16 years until nine native trees went in during 2016. U2’s 1987 song “One Tree Hill,” off The Joshua Tree, is named for this exact hill, Bono wrote it after the death of Greg Carroll, a Māori roadie who’d shown him the summit in 1984, it’s a U2 song, not a Crowded House one, whatever your dinner party keeps insisting.
Is One Tree Hill worth a special trip if you’ve already done Mt Eden?
Yes, but for the story more than the view. Cornwall Park around it is free, open from 7am, and pairs easily with the Coast to Coast Walkway if you’re already passing through, but the summit itself is worth ten minutes even on a tight schedule, mostly to stand where a chainsaw protest and a U2 lyric both happened and see how little of it is actually marked.
Pair two or three of these with the classics you’d already planned, our 3-day Auckland itinerary has a route that fits SkyJump and Goat Island around the museum and a gulf island without wrecking the pace, and the Auckland place page has the key facts if you just need the essentials before you land. Check rates on Booking.com for a central base, Kingsland or K’Road puts you walking distance from half this list.
One last practical note: SkyJump, the Bridge Climb, and Goat Island all cancel or get miserable in wind and rain, so if Auckland’s weather turns on the day you’d planned one, swap it for MOTAT’s tram or Otara Market and save the outdoor stuff for whichever day the forecast actually cooperates.