Devonport, New Zealand

Auckland’s must-visit ferry suburb

DEVONPORT, New Zealand, is an attractive old suburb on Auckland’s North Shore, a short ferry ride from downtown. This map of ferry routes shows Devonport as truly one of the most inshore destinations.‍

Map data ©2020 Google. North at top.

Devonport (Auckland) is the most important base of the Royal New Zealand Navy. And before that the Royal Navy’s New Zealand Squadron.

Whence its name, which is the same as that of the headquarters of the Royal Navy near Plymouth, in Devon.‍

The Naval Docks at Devonport (NZ) in the late 1920s or early 1930s. Light cruisers HMS Dunedin (sunk 1941 in the Atlantic) and Diomede are in front, HMS Veronica and Laburnum (scuttled in Singpore in 1942) behind, with HMS Philomel about to be overflown by a Fairey IIIF floatplane. From the L. M. Isitt collection of the Royal New Zealand Air Force Museum, image ALB862456012, CC-BY-ND 3.0 NZ.

These days, the suburb’s something of a hedonistic getaway. The old official and semi-official buildings have been repurposed into bars and cafes and offices, though the base is still there.‍