It rains a lot in Auckland, even in summer. You’ve basically got three options for rainy day activities. Find something to do indoors out of the rain. Find something where you get wet anyway so it doesn’t matter that it’s raining. Or if you’re hard enough, embrace the rain, put your jacket on and get outdoors.
Indoor Activities in Auckland
Snowplanet
The weather is the same everyday at Snowplanet, when you’re skiing indoors you can totally avoid the rain. This is great for kids and teenagers. Snowplanets Winter Wonderland offers tubing and snow play for non skiers, and the slopes include a beginners area, an intermediate area and a terrain park that will keep advanced riders entertained all day.
Kelly Tarltons
This aquarium is one of Auckland’s top indoor activities. Close to Auckland CBD it’s popular with tourists and local families. It’s a great day out with kids in any weather. In addition to the usual sharks and stingrays they have an excellent penguin area. Best of all you it can’t rain on you when your all ready underwater.
Auckland Museum
Auckland Museum is a world class Museum. With constantly changing exhibits housed in the stunning Auckland Domain close to the CBD. There is plenty of activities for younger kids and lots of great stuff for adults too. If you love Museums this is a good one. If your not that fussed with history this museum is good enough you’ll probably enjoy it anyway. Bring an umbrella if it’s raining as you’ll have to walk from the car to the museum, there is no shelter and and on a busy day it might be a 5 minute walk.
Auckland Art Gallery
Auckland Art Gallery is a magic place. It’s even better on a rainy day, somehow it adds to the mood. With an incredible and ever changing selection of the best of New Zealand art and exhibitions from around the world there is something for everyone. The gallery itself is amazing, perfect for a date on a rainy day.
Archie Brothers Cirque Electriq
It’s 10 pin bowling with attitude, great food and a bar, yet somehow still perfect for kids and teenagers. And it’s indoors so perfect in any weather. One of Auckland’s newest attractions located inside the new Westfield Newmarket mall. It’s not cheap but it is a great fun and you won’t even know it’s raining.
Spookers
Bring a change of underpants. Spookers haunted theme park will literally scare the shit out of you. With options to scare the whole family or really really scary R16 packages there’s something to scare everyone. If you wet your pants you can always say it was the rain. The scariest thing in South Auckland.
Butterfly Creek
Rainy Auckland days might make you sad, but butterflies will make you happy again. Butterfly Creek is located next to Auckland Airport. It’s grown to include a lot more than butterflies. Attractions now include crocodiles and kiwi, as well as a dinosaur exhibit. This activity is perfect for families with young children on a rainy day. It’s also close to the airport so great to keep the kids amused on a long stop over.
Blastacars Drift Karts
Drifting is fun, drifting is fun, you can’t say drifting is dumb. Not after you’ve filled a rainy day drifting at blastacars anyway. It’s awesome fun for anyone who likes to go fast, especially for those who like to go sideways and fast at the same time. All under a roof so you can enjoy this most bogan of activities in any weather. Well worth a trip to West Auckland.
Sylvia Park Mall
You can take a train here from Britomart, or there’s plenty of car parking if you’re driving. It’s New Zealand’s largest mall, it has all of NZ’s chain stores plus a few international ones that aren’t available elsewhere in NZ. There’s a movie theatre complex, a food court and plenty of bars and restaurants. And best of all there’s a roof over all of it to keep the rain at bay.
Plane Spotting At Auckland Airport
Park up at Auckland Airport and watch the planes take off and land. It’s great on a rainy day, especially if you’ve someone special in the car with you steaming up the windows. You never know your luck, you might even end up in an Airport Hotel to finish what you started.
Activities where you’ll get wet anyway.
You won’t mind the rain if you’re doing one of these fun activities, where you’re going to get wet anyway.
Wero White Water Park
Wero White Water Park is man made whitewater rafting and kayaking at it’s best. This is an awesome activity right next to Manukau town centre. With rafting activities suited to young children and adults alike with a optional 10m waterfall, Wero has something for everyone. Rainy day or not you’re going to get wet if you come here, so be prepared.
Parakai Hot Springs
Hotpools are perfect for a rainy day. Parakai Hot Pools is an old school waterpark. They are a little run down but are still awesome fun. They have two great waterslides and haven’t yet discovered health and safety so they’ll still let you make a chain and slide down together.
Watch out for nudie night on the first and third thursday of every month. No shit they really do have nudie night, in fact it runs all day. They call them Naturist Swim Days. Even with your pants on this place is seriously a great time, and good exercise too – if you’re running up the slide tower over and over, all day.
Best of all the water is really warm so you won’t mind the rain one bit. Just make sure you find somewhere dry for your towel. No one like a wet towel.
Surfing
Go surfing. Once you’ve got a wetsuit on all the rain does is keep the crowds away. You’ll have a blast. If you’ve never surfed before West Auckland‘s Piha beach has a great surf school and they can rent you everything you need. There’s no better time to learn to surf than right now, don’t make excuses just do it, unless you’re reading this at night time – then maybe wait till the morning.
Outdoor activities you can do in the rain.
Hiking is great on rainy days. Just make sure you have a good jacket and watch out if your crossing streams that might flood. My favorite rainy day hikes are
- Whatapu – it’s wild and empty in in any weather but seems even more wild and empty in the rain. You can walk for miles along the beach, bare feet, togs and a good rain coat. Maybe a thermos full of coffee waiting for you in the car. It’s a good time, alone, as a couple or with kids.
- Kitekite Falls – located in the hills above Piha beach these is a great forest walk to a waterfall. If it’s been raining hard for a long time you want to watch the river levels but it is a great walk. The bush keeps most of the rain off until you get to the falls. If you do the walk at night there’s glow worms on the river banks.
- Hunua Ranges – So many tracks to choose from. The Hunua ranges regional park is actually pretty big (big enough this man got lost for 3 days) The Wairoa Dam loop on the southern side is a local favorite. So is the Hunua Falls track. There’s something about special about hiking through NZ’s native bush in a misty rain.
- Go for a run at Mission Bay. There’s way less people on rainy days. I’ve never tripped over a baby stroller or been hit by an electric scooter on a rainy day.
Or you could just stay in your room and learn Jiu Jitsu online.