t122_Auckland Domain

Auckland Domain

Auckland Domain is the city's oldest park and is spacious and diverse. Wintergardens and Auckland War Memorial Museum are the two main feature of the Domain. There are formal gardens, duck ponds, large green open spaces edged by mature trees, bush walks and statuary. The park is home to one of Auckland's main tourist attractions.

Auckland Domain hosts sculptural works by some of New Zealands leading artists

Steel plate - The enormous swooping steel hawk showing a powerful guardian of the land.

Regeneration - The sculpture is intended to form a support for vines growing over the frame to form a lush arbour. Flowering in the different seasons of spring, summer and autumn, they will suggest the constant renewal of life, reflected in the title Regeneration.



Spring - this sculpture is to commemorate the volcanic origins of the Domain, with the grooves on the rocks, reminding us of how water is crucial for growth of living things.

Millennium Tree - a controversial gift to Auckland in 2000 by the New Zealand Chinese Community

Transformer

Graftings - nestled amidst the plants of the fernery, they represent indigenous birds 

Arc - ancient European petroglyph representations of people in a boat

Numbers are the Language of Nature - Imagine a giant pattern of golden triangle pillows stacked on a concrete wave base. This artwork was definitely the most impressive one of the sculpture walk.

the park is with large green open spaces

lots of giant and interesting trees in the park

頑皮的老爸帶頭 小孩也跟著頑皮

the most impressive tree in the park - an excellent photo spot

some picturesque walking route (Lovers Walk,  Nikau Walk and the Glade Path)

historic gardens

the Three Muses (司文藝、音樂、美術的女神繆思)

Bronze statue of horse-riding Valkyrie on top of The Valkyrie Fountain

Duck Pond

The duck pond, fed by an underground spring, went on to become Auckland's first water supply

看誰悶氣悶的久 黑尾巴比較厲害!

Winter Garden

The Winter Garden has three principal parts:  the Tropical House, the Temperate House (Cool House), and the Fernz Fernery.   The Tropical and Temperate Houses are greenhouses occupied by plant life partial to their respective temperatures.

Between the glasshouses is an enclosed courtyard with fish pond, fountains and classical marble statues



lovely fish in the fish pond



The 'Tropical House' maintains at 25-30° degree Celsius

a circular pool at the entrance of the 'Tropical House'

今午(18/06/2015)到Auckland Domain的Winter Garden觀賞巨花 titan arum 官方時間最後半天 最近幾天應還可看到 可能開始凋謝

巨花 titan arum來自印尼的蘇門達臘島 又名 屍臭花(cropse flower) 因有惡臭味(近距離聞)

花高可達3公尺 九年前開過一次花 花期很短 下次開花不知何年何月

The 'Tropical House' features cycads (蘇鐵屬植物), giant palms and lush-petalled exotics

giant palms

interesting insect-catching leaf (捕蟲葉)

bright and beautiful flowers

The 'Cool House' contains masses of brightly coloured flowers in an ever-changing display of seasonal blooms, making this a popular wedding venue all year round

A cacti section in the 'Cool House'

bright and beautiful flowers

Orchids

destinctive and beautiful leaves

edible vege

Fernz Fernery, a sunken scoria quarry and an award-winning native garden

A wide collection of New Zealand ferns grow in the Fernery

Auckland War Memorial Museum

The Museum is a MUST-GO place when visiting Auckland Domain. It is one of New Zealand's most important museums and war memorials. Its collections concentrate on New Zealand history (and especially the history of the Auckland Region), natural history, as well as military history. The museum is also one of the most iconic Auckland buildings, constructed in the neo-classicist style.

museum rear side

museum front side

The floor of the entrance foyer(門廳) is made of terrazzo (marble chips embedded in concrete to form elegant patterns). It depicts a compass, which tells you the directional orientation of the building – the front entrance faces due north towards the sea

The spectacular stained glass lead light ceiling directly above the entrance foyer shows the Coat of Arms of all British Dominions and Colonies during World War I. From the north east corner clockwise they are: (east wall) Gibraltar(直布羅陀), Kenya, South Africa and New Foundland(紐芬蘭); (south wall) Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand and Australia; (west wall) India, Ceylon(斯里蘭卡), Malaya and the Straits Settlements(英屬海峽殖民地); and (north wall) Channel Islands, Fiji, Jamaica and Malta(馬爾他).

Kave (女神木雕) - greeting visitors entering the Pacific Lifeways gallery. a goddess from the island of Nukuoro in the Caroline Islands. Made from the wood of a breadfruit tree and standing over two metres high, Kave is thought to be at least 160 years old.

an impressive collection of special ceremonial items including a small, late 18th Century Tongan figurine(小雕像) once owned by the first king of Tonga, Taufahau, which represents an ancient Tongan god. There are only four such figurines still in existence, three of which are housed at Auckland Museum.

另類精美木雕

Vaka - The largest exhibit in Pacific Masterpieces is an outrigger(舷外以防翻船的樑架) canoe, from the island of Tikopia in the Solomon Islands.

Polynesian Mask - The most striking exhibit is the Malagan mask called Kovabat si mi Marada which dates back to the 19th Century and comes from the Taber Islands off Papua New Guinea

Another impressive item in the gallery is a striking red feather cloak, which comes from Hawaii. The cloak belonging to King of Hawaii, is reputed to have used half a million feathers from 80,000 birds

這次造訪沒看到斗篷 也許是愛鳥人士的抗議而被移除...

迷你小船木雕也別具巧思

Maori Meeting House

interior of Maori Meeting House

Food Storage House

The new Atruim, Fijian kauri clad bowl, consists of 7 storeys and transformed the internal courtyard from 1800m2 of temporary buildings to some 9000m2. A stunning architecture.

ERNESTO CORTAZAR - Eternal Love Affair