Sightseeing with BLBM #10 - Botany Downs, Auckland

biglipsmama (63)in #travel • 6 years ago

Botany Downs is a suburb of Auckland sitting in between South and East Auckland One part near East Tamaki in the South, the Other end hitting the boarders of Howick and Pakaranga.

This is the only suburb in Auckland that I have come across that has little suburbs inside a suburb which can be quite confusing at times especially for mail.

As you have Botany, Botany Hub, Botany South, Dannemora, Point View, Willow Bank, Baverstock, all these areas actually had one name years ago when it was all farmland before the housing boom in the area in the late 1990's to early 2000's which was called East Tamaki.

Botany Downs is know for a few things, being multicultural, having many little parks, jammed packed housing roofs nearly touching your neighbors where you can see in through your neighbors windows as you are that close, leaky house syndrome, and home to one of the biggest malls in New Zealand.

Botany Town Centre

Botany Town Centre opened just before Christmas in 2001 with beautiful decorations hanging from the ceiling oozing lavishness everywhere you turned in this indoor out door mall concept that had taken designs from around the world it was the first of it's kind when opening to delight the Auckland Jaffers people came from as far north as Wellsford and as far south as Hamilton (to people I remember talking to over the years) just to visit the mall as it was nothing like they had near them at that time, over the years bigger and newer malls have been popping up to satisfy peoples needs.

With restaurants/bars/cafes, a mix of normal and high end retail stores, movies, supermarkets, the town center has seen stores come and go, over the last 17 years, the mall has also made areas for children to give them an enjoyable experience apart from being dragged from store to store.

Kids can navigate thru the little maze, sit on toad stools to have their morning or afternoon tea or even their lunch, peer thru the hobbit house, play snakes and ladders or have a game of chess. For green thumbs they may want to look at the Town Center vegetable patch with the local cafes donate ground coffee bean waste to make the garden grow.

Across the road on one side of the mall you have Botany Hub which is a smaller shopping with a few stores and a small Asian Food Court.
Across the road on another side of the mall you have Botany Downs Secondary College which was built in 2004 which was a much needed addition to the area with many students having to go to schools in either Howick or Pakaranga being the public schools as there was only private religious Colleges/High schools in the area .

There is also a walkway to Kilkenny Drive Culvert which consists of a playground and outdoor gym equipment for people to be able to exercise and watch the kids at the same time.