I’ve been living and working in Auckland for a few months now. Long enough to feel like more than a tourist but short enough to still feel new and sometimes lost. I’ve really enjoyed my job in health insurance here and my office recently had a Fitbit challenge where the competition for the most steps got pretty fierce. My team was stellar from the start with daily steps averaging over 20,000! I was always under average compared to my team’s scores and so when it came to the final week when our scores really mattered, I knew I had to step up (sorry) and show that I was a winner too.

Having noticed that people tend to walk the most when they are on vacation, I figured it was time to plan a tourist day in Auckland. Raise your hand if you’ve heard of someone who lost a lot of weight on vacation cause they spent their days walking the streets in beautiful European cities. (I’m sure I’ve heard of a few.) I built up a plan of touristy things that I still hadn’t yet checked off on my list of must-dos in Auckland which included a few must-try restaurants.

From my flat in the Kohimarama neighborhood I started with breakfast at a recommended cafe in my area, Cafe on Kohi, only a 30 min walk from home. I added walking to the top of Mt Eden which is an amazing lookout point of the whole city on top of an old volcano- coast to coast views! I planned for lunch at a recommended burger place, Burger Burger, and a visit to the Auckland War Memorial Museum. All told, the trip was 24km with a projected 33,000 steps door to door. (That step estimate turned out to be pretty accurate.)

My plans were exciting enough to entice two of my Fitbit challenge teammates to join me. It felt right to use this day of walking as an excuse to wear activewear all day, which lead to some fun activewear poses all along the walk. See this funny activewear video for our inspiration. We had a great time on a lovely day out and I hope you enjoy these photos from our walk as much as we enjoyed taking them.

Breakfast to start the day right

First activewear pose of the day: we're just getting started

The funky bridge at Mission Bay

Couldn't have asked for a better day!

Just stopping for a quick stretch on Tamaki Dr

A city for sailors

The crew on top on Mt Eden #squad

Contemplating how far we've come on top of Mt Eden

Amazing views of Auckland from the Mt Eden crater.

Stretching? or pointing to One Tree Hill?

Delicious lunch at Burger Burger in Newmarket.

Can't miss the Auckland museum!

Penguin pose in the Auckland museum

The last few kilometres are the hardest.

The moral of this story is that keeping active doesn’t always have to feel like work. Take advantage of great weather, take advantage of what your city has to offer and at least walk to brunch cause you’ll enjoy your bacon that much more. Also, wearing activewear all day is kind of the best!

P.S. Together, our team set a hard pace to beat on the weekend and we managed to hold the lead all week to win the challenge. We won with a six day steps average of over 33,000!