One of my favourite places in urban New Zealand is Devenport on the north shore of Auckland. The houses are a mix of wooden cottages and modern architect designed houses. As you would expect by the name there is a large navy base there but there are small shops, cafés and safe swimming beaches as well as a number of art galleries.
this is a typical wooden cottage probably built in the fifties and typical of lots of the small houses in New Zealand. I sketched this on our visit in 2010.
Roberts31 