Devonport
Devonport is twelve minutes from downtown Auckland by ferry and it is the cheapest good decision a visitor to the city makes. What you get for the fare is a Victorian seaside town, two volcanic cones you can climb in an afternoon, a hill full of tunnels, and the best view of Auckland there is — which is the one taken from outside it. It is one place, not three. You land in the middle and walk to everything.
Last updated 7 September 2026
Why it matters
The name is the story, and it is a naval one. The settlement was first called Flagstaff, after the signal station put up on Takarunga in 1841, and New Zealand’s official history records that it “was renamed Devonport in 1868” — taking the name of Britain’s naval base at Plymouth. On why, it is careful, and so are we: “The proximity of the naval store shed and the Harbour Commission’s magazine was the probable reason for the name of Britain’s naval base being applied to the district.” Probable, not certain. Some sources put the renaming as early as 1859; we lean to 1868 because the official history says so, and we cannot settle it beyond that.
What makes it more than a piece of trivia is that both Devonports are still naval bases. The Royal Navy describes its own as “the biggest naval base in Western Europe”, in use “since 1691”. Auckland’s has had a naval station since the 1840s and is today the only base from which the Royal New Zealand Navy operates ships. Two towns of the same name, eighteen thousand kilometres apart, both still doing the same job after a century and a half. And the flagstaff that gave this one its first name stood on the hill you can walk up from the wharf. The naming, the maunga and the navy are one story, and you can see all three of them from the ferry.
The older story is the one the hills tell, and it is not a museum piece. Takarunga and Maungauika are two of the fourteen tūpuna maunga — ancestral mountains — returned to the mana whenua of Tāmaki Makaurau in the 2014 Treaty settlement, and they are governed by the Tūpuna Maunga Authority, not by a conservation agency or the council. Administration of Maungauika passed to the Authority from the Department of Conservation in January 2019. That is not an administrative footnote: it is why the summits are closed to cars, why the gates have hours, and why a great deal of what you will read elsewhere about who looks after this place is out of date.
What it’s like
The crossing is short enough that people stay on deck for all of it, and it does something to the city: at twelve minutes’ distance Auckland finally reads as a whole, a low sprawl with a spike in the middle and a volcano behind it. You land at a wooden wharf into a main street of two-storey verandahs, bookshops and ice cream, and it is small enough to cross in a few minutes. Then the ground goes up. Takarunga is a short walk up from the wharf and rises to a tihi of sixty-six metres, which does not sound like much and is enough to put the entire isthmus in front of you.
Maungauika, at the end of the peninsula, is the stranger of the two. It is a hill with the inside taken out: gun emplacements, magazines and a system of tunnels dug by prisoners between 1888 and 1914, laid into a headland that watches the harbour entrance. Above ground it is grass and sea wind; below it is cold, low and dark.
How to visit
This is an Auckland Transport ferry, not a tourist boat, and that changes everything about the fare. Unlike the Rangitoto crossing, Devonport is an inner-harbour service, so the fare caps apply — NZ$50 over seven days on an AT HOP card, NZ$20 a day on contactless. Both AT HOP and contactless cards work, you tag on and tag off, and there is no booking.
Sailings run roughly every 20 to 30 minutes, more often at the peaks, from about 5.45am until 11.30pm from the city — so an evening in Devonport and a late boat home is a real option, which is not true of anywhere else in this guide.
Auckland Transport does not publish a single Devonport fare anywhere on its fares pages, and points travellers at its Journey Planner instead. What it does publish is a day-trip ticket at NZ$23 an adult and NZ$13 a child, sold at the machines and the service centre at the Downtown terminal. Tag on with a card and you will pay less than that — we simply cannot tell you the exact figure, because AT does not print one.
Children under 5 travel free. Children aged 5 to 15 travel free at weekends and on public holidays with a registered AT HOP card, and seniors with a concession travel free after 9am on weekdays and all weekend.
The wharf is about to be rebuilt, and it will take three years. Auckland Transport announced on 7 August 2026 a project that “will cost $31 million and be completed over a three-year period”, with construction starting in December 2026. It is staged so that ferries keep running — but “Pier 2 and the terminal waiting area will be closed while this important renewal work is underway”, with a temporary waiting facility instead. If you are reading this after December 2026, expect a building site at the Devonport end and check before you travel.
Neither summit takes a car, and both have been shut to private vehicles for years. The Tūpuna Maunga Authority states that Takarunga’s “tihi (summit) and the summit road… were permanently closed to all private motor vehicles including motorbikes and scooters in March 2018”. Both are easy walks instead. Visitors with limited mobility can be given a gate code for Takarunga on 09 379 1340. Gates on Takarunga run 7am to 8.30pm in summer and 7am to 7pm in winter; on Maungauika, the vehicle gate is 6am to 8pm and you can walk in from 6am to 10pm.
Take a torch for the tunnels — and know that we cannot tell you exactly what is open. The Authority’s own page says work to maintain the tunnels and structures “is currently underway”, without saying which sections are closed, and the only dated notice we could find is from December 2019 and said that work would finish in April 2020. So the sentence may be current or it may be six years stale, and we could not establish which. Go expecting some sections to be fenced, and take the torch anyway.
Making the most of it
Do Takarunga first and Maungauika second, and not the other way round. Takarunga is the orienting view — the isthmus, the harbour, the volcanoes, all of it laid out so that the rest of Auckland makes sense afterwards. Maungauika is the one you want to linger on, and it is the one with the tunnels, so it should not be the hill you are hurrying over to catch a boat.
Take a real torch, not a phone. The tunnels are the best thing on the peninsula and the least forgiving of a flat battery. They are low, unlit and genuinely dark, and a phone screen lights about a metre of them.
Go into the Navy Museum even if military history leaves you cold, and especially if you are a New Zealand resident, because it costs you nothing. It is the other half of the naming story — the reason this suburb is called what it is — and it sits on the beach between the two hills, which makes it a natural halfway stop rather than a detour.
Stay for the last boat. Devonport is one of very few places in this guide where the return journey is worth planning around: the ferry runs until nearly midnight, and Auckland from the water after dark is a better sight than Auckland from the water at two in the afternoon. Eat in the village and take the late one.
Look at the Vic on your way past. The Victoria Theatre on Victoria Road was built in 1912 and is still a working cinema; the trust that saved it calls it “the earliest purpose-built cinema still in existence in the Southern Hemisphere”. Whether or not that survives close examination, it is a 1912 picture house you can buy a ticket for tonight.
Nearby
Rangitoto Island is the obvious pairing and the two are linked by the timetable as well as the view: the early Fullers360 sailing to Rangitoto calls at Devonport on its way out, so the island can be reached from this side of the harbour rather than the city. The catch is that they are different kinds of day — Rangitoto is a two-hour climb on a booked, time-specific ticket with no food on the island, and Devonport is a village you wander. Doing both properly takes two days, not one.
Cheltenham Beach sits on the far side of Maungauika and is the swimming beach most visitors never find, because it faces away from the ferry and you have to walk round the headland to reach it.
For everything that needs a car and a full day, see Day trips from Auckland. Devonport is the opposite of those: no car, no planning, no booking.
A final word on Devonport
If you have one spare half-day in Auckland, spend it here. It costs a ferry fare, it needs no booking and no car, and it gives you the two things the city itself cannot: a view of Auckland from outside, and a hill you can walk into. Take a torch, do the hills in the right order, and come home on a late boat.
Andrew + Margaret
- Auckland Overview
- Rangitoto Island Overview
- Day trips from Auckland Overview
- Where to stay in Auckland Practical
- Cost of visiting New Zealand Practical
- Tūpuna Maunga Authority — Maungauika Official
- Tūpuna Maunga Authority — Takarunga Official
- Auckland Transport — ferry fares and the caps Practical
- Torpedo Bay Navy Museum Culture
- NZHistory — how Devonport got its name Culture
Do I need to book the Devonport ferry?
No. It is an Auckland Transport service running roughly every 20 to 30 minutes from about 5.45am to 11.30pm, and you tag on with an AT HOP card or a contactless card. This is the opposite of the Rangitoto ferry, which must be booked for a named sailing. Devonport is an inner-harbour route, so the NZ$50 weekly and NZ$20 daily fare caps both apply.
Can I drive up either of the hills?
No, and this has been true for years. The Tūpuna Maunga Authority states that Takarunga’s summit and summit road were “permanently closed to all private motor vehicles including motorbikes and scooters in March 2018”. Both are straightforward walks from the village. Visitors with limited mobility can be given a gate code for Takarunga on 09 379 1340.
Who looks after North Head — is it still DOC?
No, and a good deal of what you will read says otherwise. Maungauika is one of fourteen tūpuna maunga returned to mana whenua in the 2014 Treaty settlement, and administration passed from the Department of Conservation to the Tūpuna Maunga Authority in January 2019. DOC no longer has a page for it. Tourism New Zealand’s own site still tells visitors it is “managed by the Department of Conservation”, which is more than seven years out of date and leaves mana whenua out of the picture entirely.
Are the tunnels open?
We could not establish this, and would rather say so than guess. The Tūpuna Maunga Authority’s page says maintenance work on the tunnels and structures “is currently underway” but does not say what is closed, and the only dated notice we could find is from December 2019 and said the work would be finished by April 2020. Take a torch and expect some sections to be fenced.
How much time does Devonport need?
Half a day on foot covers both maunga and the village. A full day adds the Navy Museum — free to New Zealand residents, NZ$15 for international visitors 18 and over — and Cheltenham Beach on the far side of North Head. Because the ferry runs late, an evening visit works too, and Auckland from the water after dark is the better version of that view.