Photo: Ingolfson at English Wikipedia ()
A self-guided audio walk through central Auckland, a loop of a few kilometres that starts at Queens Wharf, where the cruise ships berth, climbs through the old town to Albert Park and comes back down to the water. It begins with the wharf of 1907 to 1913, the 1912 Ferry Building and the Chief Post Office that now fronts Britomart, then Emily Place, the last of the Point Britomart headland, where the Union Jack was raised over the new capital in 1840. Up the hill are the Gothic Revival High Court of 1865 to 1868 with Anton Teutenberg's carved heads, the timber Old Government House made to look like stone, the Old Arts Building with its kea and ponga motifs, Albert Park on the old barracks ground with its wartime tunnels beneath, and the Art Gallery of 1887. Back down Queen Street come the Civic Theatre of 1929 with its starry auditorium ceiling, the Town Hall of 1911 on its triangular site, St Patrick's Cathedral, the 328-metre Sky Tower, and the Viaduct Harbour and Wynyard Quarter, the fishing basin and tank farm turned public waterfront. The wharves are never far away, so you can turn back from any stop.
16 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 629 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 127 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Queens Wharf, Ferry Building, Chief Post Office, Emily Place.
Auckland High Court, Old Government House, Old Arts Building, Albert Park, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.
Civic Theatre, Auckland Town Hall, Queen Street, St Patrick's Cathedral, Sky Tower, Viaduct Harbour, Wynyard Quarter.
The reinforced-concrete finger wharf of 1907 to 1913, once Auckland's main overseas passenger wharf; Shed 10 is now the cruise terminal.
What is left of the Point Britomart headland, where the Union Jack was first raised over the new capital on 18 September 1840.
The Gothic Revival courthouse of 1865 to 1868, whose carved heads by Anton Teutenberg include the Ngāpuhi chief Hōne Heke.
The former barracks ground laid out after an 1881 competition, with 3.5 kilometres of 1941 air-raid tunnels beneath its lawns.
The 1929 atmospheric picture house with a starry-sky ceiling and plaster elephants, panthers and monkeys in its decoration.
The Gothic Revival cathedral of 1884 to 1907, where a glass floor panel shows the foundations of the 1848 scoria church.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 16 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 16 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Auckland — Tāmaki Makaurau from the Waterfront to Albert Park, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
16 narration points, including Queens Wharf, Ferry Building, Chief Post Office, Old Government House and Albert Park. That is about 36 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~2½ hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 16 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.