Urban Rambling

There was a shiny yellow thing in the sky surrounded by blue which was a quite curious phenomenon, I’ve seen this phenomenon once or twice in the UK and I was curious to see if the local Aucklanders have seen it before but that could come later, I had to take advantage of what is known as sunshine for an urban ramble, or urban tramp as the Kiwis say.

There is a walk designed by Auckland City Council that starts at Onehunga (Pronounced: On ee hunga) on the shores of Manukau Harbour and ends on the shores of the Waitemata Harbour at the city centre and basically forms a 16km (10mile) north-south path across the Auckland isthmus and takes in One Tree Hill and Mt Eden which are extinct volcanoes. This looked all right but following a designated path using a map could be rather boring and I might spend more time making sure I was on the right path than taking in the scenery so I made things more interesting, I would walk across Auckland with no map..... I also had the target of climbing several volcanoes en-route and I couldn’t ask anyone directions.

I got the ferry to Auckland and for the first time ever in New Zealand got a train ticket and went into the Britomart railway station which is a modern underground complex which I was very impressed with, everything was shiny and the walls were up lit with many different colours. From the top of the escalators looking down to the platforms you could be mistaken for thinking you were really really far from the railway but this illusion is merely due to the narrow gauge railway in New Zealand. New Zealand uses 1.067m gauge rather than the more standard gauge of 1.435m as used in the England, Wales and Scotland, but not Northern Ireland. The train to Onehunga pulled into the platform and immediately the diesel engines made a noise so loud that a bystander had to approach me to tell me: “That thing’s [unprintable word] noisy.” Maybe he thought I was deaf, because I could definitely hear it too. I got on the tiny stainless steel clad train and luckily there was enough headroom for me, just, and off it went to Onehunga.

Onehunga was a big industrial estate as far as I could tell so I attempted to look around for my first destination which was a big blue wobbly thing that mermaids live in called Manukau Harbour. The problem was that I couldn’t see beyond Onehunga because it was full of buildings, this issue was to prove an irritant at other times in the trip too. As it turn out the edge of the harbour is called the Southern-Motorway and the concrete barriers preclude any views over the water, oh well, northwards it is then. 

(Manukau Harbour is behind here. Nice pylon.)

I looked out for a tall green pointy thing called One Tree hill and made a start towards it and got there to find it wasn’t One tree hill but some gardens with a big house in, this was rather pretty but most importantly I got a view of the real One Tree Hill, hurrah. 

(The place I should be at)

 

I zigzagged my way across to one tree hill and began ascending to the summit. There were deciduous European trees planted, sheep grazing, stone walls and an archery range, this had the feeling of a small tourist beauty spot on the edge of the Peak district but surrounded by a huge city. At the summit I looked for the tree on One Tree Hill, but there isn’t one! Just lots of people, drivers who can’t park and an obelisk. 

 ((N)one Tree Hill. I wish I'd coined that phrase)

 (Jesus loves 'u'. Who or what is a 'u', this just seemed inane to me but 'POOP', now that's good humour)

Off to my next destination, Mt St John. I went via Cornwall park but alas this wasn’t Cornwall-like enough to remind me of home.

‘I’m not sure where here is but Mt St John must be around here somewhere’ was my predominant though for the next hour as I found lots of houses but no volcano. I only wanted to climb it because I was in St John Ambulance in the UK and it is called Mount St John (Not that its prefix made me more attracted to it, nor did the fact there were livestock there). My perseverance and inadvertent near circumnavigation of the volcano was worthwhile; the summit was smaller than One Tree Hill but obviously didn’t use the same naming structure otherwise it would have been called Lots Of Trees Hill. 

(Mt St John crater, most of urban Auckland is not like this)

 

This was my favourite volcano of the day because it was in the middle of the city except I couldn’t hear or see it and the trees and grazing animals made it seem more like tame British moorland. If ever I move to Auckland, which is unlikely, being near Mt St John will be a big draw, I’d be able to leave the city without leaving the city, great. 

(Jesus loves 'moooooooooooo.' (This is also an inane phrase.))

 

Mt Hobson was my impromptu next target and it only required one road straight to get to it but still this didn’t stop me walking past the first two entrances due to Auckland style signposting, I mean, seriously, a short sign behind a brick wall or sign at the end of a housing estate off the main road where people walk is stupid, why did you do this council workers, why. There was a great view from the summit as I could see the city centre and the Coromandel peninsula. The sun was starting to set now so off to the final salient green bit, Mt Eden.

(Mt Hobson and a metaphor for rambling without maps)

 

I was beating the setting sun to Mt Eden when I saw the first half of the sign ‘Mt Eden Gardens. No access to Mt Eden.’ Despite the resultant detour down a cul-de-sac I got to the summit of what should be called ‘Medium Amount Of Trees Hill’ in time to watch the sun setting over the city which was an amazing view and was a great 'not quite over yet' to the walk. A friendly Californian took a picture of me at the summit and then seeing the time and not wanting to be near the hordes of people at the summit I set off to the ferry terminal in the city centre. 

 (The summit of Mt Eden)

The final sprint, or by time point a rather painful slog, to the ferry went well, all I had to do was head for the tall concrete pipe pointy thing with multicoloured lights on it until I got to Queen Street. Queen Street is downhill towards the sea which is darn brilliant after the walk I'd been on. It took fifteen minutes to walk its full length and forty minutes waiting at pedestrian crossings but get to the ferry I did and the day was over, phew.

(Queen Street, the final straight)

What a great day, I'd turned a 16km (10mile) walk into a 26km (16 1/4 mile) walk and I was totally exhausted but was it worth it? Despite the fact I am unable to move my legs and am in constant pain now the answer is an overpowering yes. Now, bring on Wellington.

 

(Orange line - Where the coast to coast walkway goes.

Red line - where I went.

Background map courtesy of Auckland council.)

To Kaukapakapa

The only person I know who bought their driving licence is my grandfather who bought his UK driving license in the 1930’s and now in the 2010’s I’ve bought my driving license too, a full New Zealand driving license for $52.10 and twenty minutes of my time in an AA centre. A recent change in the law means that a person holding a full UK driving license is just given a full New Zealand license as long as they can provide a UK passport, proof of permanent address in New Zealand and, of course, their UK driving license.

Following this and unrelated to it I took my new car for a drive. I wanted to experience some urban and rural driving so I chose to head from Takapuna to Kaukapakapa to the North West of Auckland. Before I set off I noticed stickers on the accessories like the alloy wheels that said 'racin’ function'. Yeah, like I’ll be doing any racing, or spellin’ like that. A two litre engine is cavernous and my finances aren’t, so I set myself the challenge to see if I could drive about making good progress without exceeding 2,000rpm.

One of the first things I realized was how glad I am that I took out comprehensive insurance, the driving quality and the road design quality is terrible. I set off in a general northerly direction along roads that are built to the width of football pitch and this, as far as I can tell, is how all roads are built here. Soon I found myself having to make a right turn across five lanes with two lanes of traffic moving in each direction and a median lane (no man’s land) in the middle, this must be what it’s like for pilots taxiing their aeroplane onto the runway prior to take off, I thought, but some idiot in a car won’t drive into them.

The next obstacle was a set of traffic lights where without warning the two lanes merge to one immediately after the junction, this happens a lot. Merging in the UK means finding a gap in the cars and fitting your car into it or allowing a gap to form in front of your car for a thankful motorist to move their car into, this happens mostly seamlessly. Not in New Zealand though, you all have to drive side by side until one car cannot physically continue or another driver realizes that there is a car in their blind spot that they are about to turn into...

I continued along the road when suddenly I realized that all the other drivers and I were straddling across two lanes and in lieu of road signs or road markings had to make a snap decision over which lane to go into and the rules for this as far as I can tell are that the person who changes lanes latest, without checking their blind spot and aiming at as many other cars as possible wins. I don’t know if these are the unofficial rules, I just presume they must be. After waiting an inordinate amount of time for a green light you continue to see this sign in front of you: ‘You should’ve chosen the other lane.’ Well, at least you can do U turns wherever you want in this country.

The urban density was lowering by now and there were overtaking lanes going up hills, except there weren’t because the left hand lane was used as a car park so the overtaking lane was the only lane. Finally I left the urban area and the houses disappeared, suddenly I was driving through wilderness, by British standards anyway, I there were kilometres between passing cars. It was difficult to keep within the 100kph (62mph) national speed limit because the roads are so wide so compared to the UK it felt like I was going really slowly, but as this kept revs down I was happy.

I arrived in Kaukapakapa which for the most part is composed of long driveways with letterboxes where they meet the road and presumably these are linked to far away houses; this is how I presume the American mid-west to be like but Kaukapakapa has more grass. Eventually buildings appear next to the road and this culminates in a newsagents (or ‘dairy’ as they’re known in New Zealand), fire station, off license (liquor store), primary school, cafe, a railway level crossing and the last petrol station for 47km.

 (Kaukapakapa; the cafe and tumbleweed are just out of view)

I had a Snickers bar from the dairy for lunch because they lacked vegetarian sandwiches and made my way back to Takapuna. I got back fully intact and without needing to call my car insurance company but most importantly did I manage to keep my car below 2,000 rpm without holding up traffic? Almost entirely yes!

New Automobile

I sold my VolksWagen Golf last month, cashed in the remainder of my annual car insurance and had a healthy sum to buy a newer car in New Zealand, wonderful stuff, or so I thought. My aim was a manual estate car with a mid size engine around 1.6 – 1.8 litres and to cost under $2,000 (£1,000). Alas, I was surprised on all counts; manuals are rarer than automatics are in the UK, estates are called station wagons (American Influence?), most estate car engines start at two litres with three litre engines are very common and when compared to the UK the equivalent car in New Zealand costs usually between two and three times more after converting currencies. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

There are three main ways of getting a car in Auckland, all of which I attempted; through a car dealer, the Ellerslie car fair or on Trademe.co.nz, the New Zealand equivalent to Ebay.co.nz, which they barely use over here. They also don’t have Amazon in New Zealand. 

Firstly, to the Ellerslie car fair: Basically lots of people turn up here and try to sell their car every Sunday. One of the benefits of the car fair is that people are often desperate to sell and the prices can be somewhat lower than elsewhere, the downside being that you could buy a wreak of a car and have zero comeback. The only support is that for a small charge the AA (Automobile Association) will undertake a check of your prospective car and say if it appears mechanically sound or not. Being the cautious type and not finding any suitable manual estate cars I headed home car-less. In the mean time I approached several car dealers and the starting conversation normally went like this:

“Hi There, I’m looking for a station wagon”

“Right.”

“that's under $2,000”

“Yep.”

"with a 1.6 or 1.8 litre engine"

"Errrr, ok."

“that’s manual.”

“Oh.....”

Had I mistakenly gone into several hardware shops and asked for a left-handed screwdriver? No, but I may as well have done, this car combination I was realizing was very rare and after nearly three weeks of searching I might have to buy a go-kart, oh sorry, I meant to write automatic there. One garage had a two litre, 1998 Nissan Primera estate with automatic transmission for only $3,500 (£1,750). A quick check on Ebay UK shows the equivalent to be about $1,800 (£900) which is quite a difference.This was quite unusual for a garage to actually have a semi suitable for me car so I took a look and it had alloy wheels and everything was electric both aspects I would rather do without but a somewhat suitable car nonetheless. It drove well and seemed a good deal so I told the salesman I’d let him know in the next day or two if I’d take it.

That evening on Trademe a 1998 Nissan Primera of the same make and model but a 1.8 litre instead of two litres was advertised, brilliant, and the owners had a full AA check and were selling because they were leaving the country so they had a good reason to sell. When I saw the car I found it was dark purple like the advert said but not much else was correct and there were no AA checks for it. So with all this uncertainty I decided this wasn’t the car for me. There is a whole range of cars on Trademe, it is not uncommon to find an advert for a car that won’t start or a car that according to the owner spews blue smoke from the exhaust when running and makes conversation in the cars vicinity impossible due to a loud grinding noise and it will only cost you $1,500 (£750). But it will sell, unlike in the UK where it’s normally cheaper to sell your car for its scrap value when they get to this state. Someone will buy it and repair it and keep it running, I don’t know whether this is due to economics or the New Zealand culture but whatever its cause it’s good to see far less wastage going on, this might be the way the UK deal cars in a few years once the double dip recession hits.

Next step was back to the car garage to buy the two litre Primera, at least that way I had the security of a dealer sale rather than private. I got there just in time because they were putting it through a deal for $5,000 but because they had all ready offered it to me for $3,500 they honoured this offer and I now have a new car. It took nearly two months but I'm back on the road again, phew.

(My new wheels, the remainder of the car came with them)

Rangitoto Island

“Hello my friend” boomed the bus driver, which made my conditioned indifferent response of “Hi there” seem quite inadequate, but at least it made me forget about having run to the bus stop for the bus only to find that it arrived late. Anyway $1.80 got me to Devonport where the ferry departs and where I bought a a pie, the sine qua non of Auckland bakeries, these are the equivalent to pasties in Cornish bakeries although the fillings are somewhat different. ‘I’d like a spinach and feta pasty please’ just doesn’t sound right.

Rangitoto Island

Rangitoto island (pronounced Rangeetoetoe) is a 600 year old probably extinct volcano that rises 260 metres out of the Hauraki gulf just to the North West of Auckland city centre. It is entirely uninhabited and is a public reserve managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC). 

 (Rangitoto Island From North Head, Devonport)

Upon arrival I searched my bag for rats, possums and other such pests and after finding none I began my jaunt towards the summit. The solidified lava that the island is made of is black and very little soil has had a chance to develop on the island so everything that isn’t living or man-made is black, the paths, the ground, the walls and the beaches, if there are any, are all black. The rock is also very sharp and has many jagged edges and protrusions which provided ample grip for my walking boots but which would be excruciatingly painful for anyone walking barefoot or who happened to fall onto it. This would not belie the name of the rock ‘aa’ pronounced ‘ah-ah’ although quite gallingly this is not correct etymology for the rock. 

After most of an hours walking up the narrow and winding path I reached the crater rim and there was an undoubtedly bowl shaped crater in the middle of the island which was pretty huge and was full of flora but not, as its shape would indicate, water. This was very impressive and very worth the climb to the summit. 

 (The crater, rather too large for one photo)

(Looking towards Auckland and Devonport from the summit)

I reached the summit some hundred metres further on and was admiring the view over Auckland and North Shore when a party of noisy school children arrived... Time to head on. I headed down a never ending board walk towards the lava tunnels, these are tunnels formed by flowing lava cooling and solidifying on the outside leaving a tube which eventually emptied of lava following the eruption leaving a tunnel. The path to these tunnels took me through quite a lot of woodland with little orange arrows knocked into trees occasionally to show that you weren’t wondering aimlessly through some section of nondescript woodland somewhere on the fairly large island. The thing I found most surprising about the tunnels was the lack of lighting, lack of non stick stainless steel cages and floors to shield you from potential danger, lack of garish multicoloured signs to warn you of the dangers of the tunnels, lack hard hats to borrow, lack of gigantic steel fences with spikes on the top and lack of padlocked steel gates with ‘danger keep out’ written all over them. But that’s probably just because I’m British. I was actually surprised by how regular the arched profiles of the tunnels were above me, a Cornish miner would have been proud of these.

 (Entrance to the lava tunnel, there were no Orks in here)

(The tunnel is Hobbit size by the end)

Using the light from my camera I traversed the tunnels carefully so as not to fall onto any aa and realizing the time I decided to stroll back to the ferry to Devonport so as not to be left overnight on the uninhabited island, I caught the ferry in good time.

After a trip back with a friendly but less gregarious bus driver I was walking back to the house with the sun beginning to set and for the first time since I’ve been here I realized that it was just about slightly too cold to wear a short sleeved shirt outside and I had to put my fleece on, darn winter.

Bank account

I went to Devonport today to set up a bank account, just a single normal bank account with no special attachments, like I have done in the UK. There are four banks on the main street so I went in each one to see what they could offer me and unlike the UK it turns out that almost every transaction, withdrawal and deposit incurs a charge, even the privilege of maintaining a bank account incurs charges. Each bank has different services they charge for and the charge for these individual services within each bank depends on the account you choose with them and these services can have different prices depending on how they interact with one another. The following is not an exhaustive list and covers only one bank: 

 

New or amended automatic payment or bill payment authority: Via branch $5.00, Via internet classic $2.00 – Cash withdrawals (also refer to important stuff about card fees when you go overseas): Other bank (in New Zealand) ATM usage 75¢ [This fee is in addition to any base and transaction fees and no exemptions apply], Overseas ATM’s $5.00, Teller assisted (NZ or overseas) NZ$5.00 – Alerts: TXT alert 20¢, email alert 5¢ - Statements: Replacement statement $5.00, Statement over the counter $2.00 – Unpaid transactions: Dishonoured cheque $20.00, Unpaid automatic payment/bill payment/IRD payment/direct debit $20.00, Stopped cheque $15.00 – Special payments: Special answer on a cheque $25.00 [plus courier charges], bank cheque $5.00 [manual transaction charges may apply], other bank deposit or transfer $5.00 [plus cheque clearance and cash handling fees] – Supplying notes to non-[this bank] customers: First $1,000 (or part thereof) per transaction $5.00, Each subsequent $1,000 (or part thereof) per transaction $2.00 – Supplying coins to non-[this bank] customers: First $100 (or part thereof) per transaction $5.00, Each subsequent $100 (or part thereof) per transaction $2.00 – Staff assisted searches: Signature checking/faxing fee $15.00, Document searches $60 per hour [$15.00 minimum].

Then I have to decide if I want a debit or credit card, at a monthly fee, decide how extortionate the overdraft fee will be and choose how much I want to pay the banks for the privilege of allowing them to open an account for me. Phew. Anyway, blithely I said to one teller (cashier in the UK) “that account looks all right”  who then retorted with “This account will only work in combination with one of the other account types that we offer and these are the charges that occur between them and these charges depe........” I then remember him handing me a business card that was white and has some blue writing and black writing on it and I left the bank somewhat disoriented. I didn’t make a choice on a bank account today and it may take some time to think about it.

On the street I made a beeline for Subway and sure enough it was, apart from the dimensions of the shop, the employees and about 19,000km, absolutely identical to the Subway in Falmouth in Cornwall and this fact is entirely unsurprising. Eating the sub whilst looking over the harbour to Auckland I was thinking: Hopefully, by Monday, I should have a bank account.

(Auckland from my Subway eating location)

Auckland CBD

I can’t live in Auckland without actually going to Auckland so I jumped on the ferry at Devonport and headed over there. 

The first thing that struck me was how tall the buildings are, they are far taller than the buildings in the only city I’ve spent much time in – Plymouth – and they all looked mostly modern and glass fronted. I wandered off down Queens Street which is the main shopping street in Auckland; this is a long straight road with up to six lanes of traffic at some points and has many intersecting roads equally as wide which make up a the reasonably regular grid pattern of central Auckland. This means you can’t walk for two minutes without having to cross a road, which compared to the quaint safety conscious British pedestrian crossings is a far more visual, musical and scary experience. You press the large round crossing button and a slow regular drumming like noise begins, before the traffic had a chance to fully stop – bam – the drummer’s taken a shot of pure caffeine, his pet dog yelps and he strikes the drum at least a hundred times faster, the red stationary man is replaced with an animated green walking man and the procession begins. As you commence walking you see a wall of mostly Anglo Saxon, Eastern Asian and Southern Pacific faces inexorably walking towards you which you must weave you way through, at the same time the traffic on the adjacent road is given the green light to go straight ahead or turn to cross the pedestrian crossing that you are on provided they give way to pedestrians. Here is not safe, you only have priority... And then it's all over. Thankfully though through more judgment than luck I had a 100% road crossing success rate apart from when a bus nearly ran my toes over whilst waiting at a crossing on a corner.

One thing that I like about the shop fronts in Auckland, and the rest of New Zealand that I’ve visited so far, is the permanent shop awnings that they have which extend out to the edge of the road. You rarely ever see this in the UK apart from some retractable awnings outside grocers. Almost every shop front is covered so you can saunter along the main streets without the need of a rain coat when it rains, as it does a lot here. They can seem somewhat disproportioned with the massively wide roads and, as in Auckland, the twenty or thirty storey high glass fronted buildings on top of them. But I like it and think it’s a shame this kind of thing doesn’t happen more in the UK.

The Sky Tower

The Sky tower in Auckland was somewhat of a letdown to me, it’s the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere at 328 metres and is well decorated at the top but the bottom three quarters are made ostensibly from concrete sewer or drain pipe sections like you see on construction sites. I can only assume that during maintenance or repair of the city’s sewer system they had a few too many sections of concrete pipe remaining and in lieu of any other options the foreman decided to pile them vertically on top of one another to save space, and the tower was born. Maybe I’ll change my view on this but so far the likes of the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth and the under construction London Bridge Shard in London are far more attractive.

 

After the crowds and the crossings and cars driving on pavements (a whole post will be dedicated to driving soon) I was rather glad to get back to the peace of Belmont. Cities definitely aren't my cup of tea so hopefully the rest of New Zealand will be.

Getting Here

It’s 18,329km between Heathrow and Auckland airport, half the planet away and on the two opposing hemispheres to where I started, I got there in a climate controlled aircraft flying at an altitude of eleven kilometres with a ground speed of over 800kmh^-1 taking in total just over twenty seven hours which is an amazing feat of engineering, international co-operation, organization and many other countless factors. But it’s excruciatingly boring and takes far too long.

I walked the dog and left my family at St Austell station at lunchtime on the 1^st June for a six hour train journey to Heathrow airport, this went normally and I got through security and boarded the aeroplane in good time, what more is there to say about that. The first leg of the journey took thirteen hours followed by another eight hours, that’s twenty one hours of being sat in the same seat with the same view. The choice of Airline TV programmes was a bit dismal, one episode of the Simpsons, one episode of the big bang theory etc etc. The film selection was quite varied and some quite good films were available and I ended up watching ‘Little Fockers’ whilst flying over Afghanistan and the latest Indiana Jones film whilst flying over Australia, which is a country far too big for its own good, it took four whole hours to fly over. The flight between Sydney and Auckland was somewhat better due to it being mostly empty and getting a window seat. It’s a strange thing to be eating breakfast with a view of the waves eleven thousand metres below whilst watching a feature length episode of Family Guy (it was the best there was) on the TV in front of you. Upon arrival I adjusted my watch to GMT+11, moved the date to the 3rd and realized Thursday had passed me by without me noticing, how odd.

Customs went fine, they were even polite enough to clean my walking boots for me, following this I was greeted by my Aunty and cousins at the airport, I was finally actually in Auckland! It’s winter here but the warm breeze that greeted me upon leaving the airport was more like a pleasant late spring breeze in the UK (Cornwall any way) and this apparently is cold for Auckland. We sent off to Belmont in the car and the next thing that struck me, with potential literal connotation, was a car reversing at high speed the wrong way down a motorway slip road! The general quality of driving didn’t improve much from then on, driving here will definitely be interesting. We arrived at the house safely and I was introduced to my room which has a view of the Auckland harbour bridge and the Sky Tower, nice.

Later after fifty hours of being awake I went to bed.