Walk Auckland and clear the isthmus

FOG hides the world map and reveals only the streets you physically walk. Auckland is a narrow isthmus full of old volcanoes, and the water shapes everything you can cover.

An isthmus, not a plain

Auckland is squeezed between the Waitemata Harbour on the east and the Manukau on the west, and in places the gap between them is only a couple of kilometres. That geography defines the walking. Roads bend around inlets and bays, and there is almost always water within reach. It also means dead ends: peninsulas and bays that you walk out to and back from, which clears a spur rather than a loop.

Then there are the volcanoes. Around fifty cones and craters sit inside the urban area. Mount Eden, One Tree Hill, Mount Victoria in Devonport, Rangitoto out in the harbour. They are short, steep climbs with views from the top, and they punctuate what would otherwise be a fairly ordinary suburban street pattern. Queen Street runs down a valley from Karangahape Road to the waterfront, which is why walking back up it is more effort than you expect.

A day that covers a lot of ground

Start at the Britomart end of Queen Street and walk the Quay Street waterfront east toward the Wynyard Quarter and the Viaduct, then come back and climb Queen Street to Karangahape Road, which is the best street in the city for wandering. From K Road drop south into Ponsonby, comb the streets either side of Ponsonby Road, then continue to Grey Lynn.

For a second half, take the ferry to Devonport, walk up Mount Victoria and North Head, and comb the small streets of the village. It is compact, flat apart from the two hills, and fills in quickly. Alternatively skip the ferry and walk the Coast to Coast route south from the waterfront over Mount Eden and One Tree Hill down to Onehunga on the Manukau, which crosses the entire isthmus in about four hours.

How the fog behaves here

The central suburbs, Ponsonby, Grey Lynn, Kingsland, Mount Eden, Parnell, are old, tightly gridded and pleasant, and they clear at a good rate. The city centre itself is small enough to cover in a couple of days. Beyond that Auckland spreads a very long way north over the Harbour Bridge and south toward Manukau, in suburbs built around cars and cul-de-sacs, and progress there is slow.

The harbours are the interesting part visually. A partly revealed Auckland has a distinctive shape, with cleared streets running out along peninsulas and stopping abruptly at water. You are never going to fill in a solid disc here. The map ends up looking like fingers. The volcanic cones make holes in the same way, since you can walk over them but not through them.

Weather is mild all year and rarely stops you. Auckland is famously humid and rains in short heavy bursts, often several times a day, and wind off the Tasman can be strong on the west side. It is a year-round walking city, which is a bigger advantage than it sounds compared to places with a real summer or winter shutdown.

What FOG does while you walk

FOG keeps revealing with the app closed and the screen off, so a walk over a cone or along the waterfront gets recorded without you touching the phone. No account, no sign-up, no cloud, no analytics, no ads, no tracking. The map stays on the device and you can export your data.

Exploring is free. One purchase of USD 5.99 unlocks unlimited ranks, every character and history import. There is no subscription. History import takes Google Timeline exports and GPX files, so old runs around the Domain or along Tamaki Drive can be brought in and revealed on the map.

Ranks climb with the area you cover, from Wanderer through Scout, Pathfinder and Explorer to Voyager. There is also a collection of 241 countries, 3,390 regions and 7,342 named places, earned only by standing in each one.

Questions people actually ask

Start with a dark map.

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