Auckland Botanic Gardens is a 64-hectare garden located just 20 minutes from the city or airport. It is home to over 10,000 plants from around the world and offers free entry. The gardens aim to contribute to the community's wellbeing and appreciation ...

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I came here on Valentine's day last year for the first time with my partner and our daughter, who was one at the time.  We were going through hard times, my partner's job had been cut due to the recession, and a year on work was still scarce, and things should have looked very gloomy indeed. However, walking around the gardens we couldn't help but feel happy, content, and hopeful. There are endless rows of roses all ablaze with colour, there are little paths to get lost down, and an exquisite and wild area just for threatened native plants.  They're so expansive, you could easily spend the entire day ambling around and still feel like you've left something for next time. We were lucky enough to catch the Stoneleigh Sculpture in the garden, so dotted around were works by Phil Newbury, Colleen Ryan-Priest, Tui Hobson, John Edgar, and countless others. It was spectacular. We stopped to have a picnic, much more frugal than one we might have enjoyed in years past, but delightful, while watching our little girl point to birds and walking around us with with little wobbly steps... We decided that day how to tackle our future and made huge plans, some of which have already come true, like our wish for another baby! We've got a little newborn son now, my darling man is at a job which means something more to him then the corporate slavery he had hitherto been accustomed, and the aforementioned girl is a confident and boisterous little lady. I can't wait to take us out here again for a sunday picnic, amongst the roses, which will be all abloom.  While I don't love the long drive out to the Botanical gardens, I do have to say I love the place. Maybe we'll move closer!