Thames and the Pinnacles.

I shall start off my three week trip by not starting it at off all but here’s an honorary mention to the trip which was the first attempt which I aborted after two nights because of illness:

I had ventured away from Auckland and for the first time found myself in a new town, Thames (pronounced Temz, like the English river), and able to explore as I pleased. My perambulation took me in a dead straight line along the main street which was full of shops with awnings, I liked the awnings, and the slanted parking spaces that oblige drivers to drive into forwards and reverse onto the road, this I didn’t like. At the end of the main street all of three minutes was taken up so I decided to make a ninety degree turn and walk down another dead straight road to the seafront where I made another ninety degree turn then sidestepped the dead straight seafront road so I could walk along the mangrove-clad seafront. The view was somewhat obscured by the mangroves but it turns out that there isn’t too much of a view over the Firth of Thames anyway so I turned my attention to a miniature railway that goes along the seafront in a vague figure of eight design and has quite an intricate station and goods yard layout, nice.

(The first and longest swing bridge (NZ), rope bridge (UK) on the Pinnacles ascent)

 

Thames is a small town best known for and basically exists because of gold. In 1867 a single flake of gold was discovered in a waterfall near Thames and within months the Thames gold rush began. This led to large scale mining, for its day, around Thames and caused the population to balloon to eighteen thousand people compared to a measly just under seven thousand people today. This also led to the creation of the 'Thames School of Mines and Mineralogical Museum' museum which I decided visit. Two more ninety degree turns and three more dead straight roads later and I was there.

Initially a Sunday school the School of Mines building was quite satisfyingly, in my opinion, converted from religious to educational purposes and the interior remains as it was when the school closed in 1953 and it looked and felt pretty much as I’d expect a Victorian school interior to look. Some of the rooms even looked capable of research into phlogiston. The mineralogical museum was rather well stocked and even had some specimens all the way from Cornwall. I could have spent all day staring at the mineral samples, especially galena, a shiny blue ore of lead that draws your attention almost as well as fire does, but people would think I was weird. I suppose I could have set the place on fire for a valid excuse to stare because everyone stares at fire but the police would probably arrest me for arson, damn.

 

(Some steps on the packhorse route)

My reason for staying in Thames was to ascend the Pinnacles. These are a set of peaks in the Coromandel Peninsula which although not the highest in the local area they have sufficient cragginess to make them stand out from the surrounding hills and still offer rather spectacular views. I drove up the gravel road to the start of the track and in the process had all the rust proof protective coating chipped off the underside of my car by small stones and then began the ascent. The track follows an old packhorse route up the mountain that supplied kauri tree loggers with supplies. The logging began in the 1870’s and they were so successful that by 1928 they had removed all they could and therefore put themselves out of work and destroyed native woodlands, well done. The summit was pretty cold and windy with poor visibility, pretty galling for the walk I had just done. I had the option of waiting to see if the weather would improve from this cold horizontal drizzle so I could have a good view or to head back down the mountain to comfy chairs and a heated TV room with a free DVD library. Needles to say three hours later I was eating chips in a comfy chair watching TVNZ 7. 

 (The pinnacles, shrouded in drizzle)

The Pinnacles walk was very enjoyable and if you like walking then I recommend it, it can be done easily as a day walk or you can stay in the hut near the summit overnight which offers enticements such as cold showers and people who might snore all night so I settled for staying in Thames instead. I decided to head back to Auckland the next day because I was feeling quite ill but before that I ended up watching ‘Death at a Funeral’ which is a light hearted British comedy, which is rather funny.

North Island trip.

This blog has been pretty quiet of late but all that is about to change. I have been travelling around the North Island for the last three weeks and in lieu of my own computer I have only been able to access public computers for half an hour or so or have had to pay as much as $2.00 for half an hour, but now I’m back in Auckland with a permanent internet connection.

The trip took me in a clockwise(ish) route around the North Island, I visited most of the main towns and travelled 3,154.7km (1,971.6miles) along some of the most boring and most interesting roads in the country. A map of where I travelled is below:

I shall update this blog in sections every few days and during this time you will hear about a railway that goes to nowhere in particular, why all goats should die, how to move a Cornish engine house over 300 metres whilst keeping it in one piece, the first thing you notice about Rotorua, wind turbines in Hawkes Bay that only blow air around, the suburb of Camborne which differs somewhat from the Camborne I’m so ‘dearly’ acquainted to in Cornwall, GTA imitation in Wanganui and many more exciting things that happened.

If you aren’t excited then you should be...

Piha and Kitekite waterfall.

There is a place called Piha on the coast west of Auckland region and this was my destination for the day. I set off on a course through the city which I had etched into my brain with many mental trial runs because when the road signs mostly don’t say where the roads go and every road looks pretty much identical to the next you need to know precisely where you are going. All was going well until I reached a roundabout, fine, you would have thought, they work to precisely the same rules and in the same direction as roundabouts in the UK which I have navigated happily and without incident for six years. But getting all a-posteriori about this, I have to say they’re pretty awful over here, New Zealand drivers don’t seem to know how to use them. When approaching a roundabout in the UK you scan all the entrance lanes and immediately you can tell which exit each driver is going to take when they are still fifty metres from the roundabout and 99% of the time you will be absolutely correct. The remaining one percent of drivers I shall quite presumptuously and unscientifically accuse of being Kiwi drivers on holiday in the UK. Anyway, I ended up sitting waiting to pull onto the roundabout, letting gaps go by and making attempts to pull out as people meandered their cars in front of mine. But eventually I made a successful break for freedom and left the driver behind me to make reason of the strange twirly thing in front of him.

There were no other roundabouts on the roads to Piha, this was good. The roads leave Auckland and head through the Waitakere ranges which border the urban extent of Auckland but despite this proximity they are very well forested and quite undeveloped, it’s not uncommon for people to go missing here and never be found. I don’t think there is a British equivalent to this, everywhere is too urban. I drove through the Waitakere’s sub-tropical flora and unlike the UK there were no little villages with post offices and naively presuming ‘Thank you for driving carefully though our village’ signs as you leave the village.

 (Piha Beach)

The road arrives in Piha at quite an altitude and I got several quite good millisecond views of Piha beach and Lion Rock as I guided my car down the steep winding road to the beach car park. I parked my car and began walking towards Lion Rock, this is a large stack raising roughly one hundred metres out of the beach and at every high tide it becomes an island. There is a path that climbs to the top and this was where I was aiming for, however, there was a river in the way, a deeper than the water proofing on my boots type river. Being too lazy to take my boots off and walk across, I found a narrow section, stared at it for a bit, took some steps back, narrowly avoiding walking into someone, took my run up and jumped. Thud. You didn’t think I wouldn’t make it did you? With my still dry feet I headed straight up Lion Rock. Unfortunately you can only climb half way up the rock because a land slip nearer the top makes it too dangerous to continue. It must be extremely dangerous for New Zealand to deem somewhere unsafe. I spent the rest of my time on the beach wondering where the original path went and never worked out where it could have gone, it must have been a big landslide! 

(Lion Rock, only partially climbable)

(The current path stops half way up the right hand side of this picture and the closed way up is somewhere in the picture above, I think I can see a 'path' but not a path)

There was a good view of Piha from half way up the rock, the houses were all spread out and based on some desultory plan. The town wasn't good on the eye from the outside but looking away from the town from within probably would be a good view, hence why people want to live there.

(Piha, a town with some houses in-between trees)

I decided to head back to the car now and go to the Kitekite waterfall in the hills behind Piha. This was a fairly easy ramble following a stream and it led to some good viewing locations of the falls. This was a pleasant walk through trees, the ubiquitous view-blocking trees of New Zealands 'scenic' areas, and was very relaxing. 

 (Trees)

All was well, then I heard the voices of people and children and they were getting louder and then they arrived and were being where I wanted to be and making noise! I moved on to the base of the falls and there were more people there, the worst kinds, children and whole family groups and they were having fun and taking pictures and laughing and splashing water and forcing me to politely stop through my own volition to avoid being in their pictures. Grrrrrrr. Why can’t they all go home and stop sharing the Waitakere’s with me, why! Maybe I should avoid coming here on the first day of the school holidays to avoid slight irritation next time. The falls were quite impressive, they weren’t a single drop but six distinct steps where the water runs over the rocks. When the area was logged a dam was built at the top of the falls to contain enough water to release and wash logs down to the base of the waterfall. This was a common practise to transport logs but at Kitekite this was met with mostly broken logs, I can see why, and they never used it for the same purpose again. 

 

(Kitekite falls)

I headed back to my car along the longest section of wooden steps in the whole world and drove back home though Auckland. Not via a roundabout this time.

It’s only noisy if people can hear it.

Would I like to go off roading today? YES!

A bit more than two hours later I was at the meeting point with all the other off roaders and much to my chagrin there were no Land Rovers. They were all Japanese vehicles like Mitsubishi and Toyota which from an engineering and off-road capability may even outcompete Land Rovers, but that’s not the point, they just aren’t Landys. In the UK if you say you go off roading then expect the question “what type of Land Rover have you got then?” because no one seriously buys a foreign 4x4! Well, some people might have a Suzuki Vitara but only because of lack of money which is an acceptable reason but apart from that nothing short of a full frontal lobotomy is a good reason not to have a Landy. Anyway, not being able to call them Landys, because they wern't, led to a predicament, I kept blaspheming by calling the 4x4’s ‘cars' by mistake.

I took my seat in the passengers side and we headed off down a ‘paper road’ which is the equivalent of a green lane in the UK and this took us to a proper public highway which was also the beach. In the UK beaches are beaches and roads are roads and they never mix. You can drive on the beach on Pendine Sands in Wales but one major difference between here and Wales is that here you’ll be splatting insects and not tourists on the windscreen.

 (Paper road to the beach)

We left the beach after several minutes of travelling and started driving down tracks that led through the sand dunes and into an area used for training by the New Zealand military so there is ordnance, exploded and unexploded, in the area. We were intercepted by the local ranger which I found strange because usually I am the one on the rangers side of things by doing conservation voluntary work or just being irked by the noise of the engines, especially motocross bikes, they are sooooo irritating. The ranger appeared unperturbed by us, I suppose though that being in the New Zealand wilderness which is vast and unpopulated compared to the UK there isn’t anyone close enough to be irritated by us and the military regularly blow the place up anyway so we weren’t causing any bother to anyone. If a Mitsubishi Pajero has its 3.5litre V6 engine gunned in the sand dunes and no one (who finds it annoying) is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Yes it definitely does, and a darn good sound too! The ranger also told us about two unexploded 500pound bombs that are in some unknown location around where we were driving. I hoped not drive into either of them and to be a long way from one of the other drivers if they should somehow manage to detonate one, preferably the others should drive about five hundred metres, at least, ahead of the 4x4 I was in.

 (Unexploded ordnance and/or being hunted, this is proper countryside)

We drove around some small dunes and ponds for a while, which was darn good fun, and then headed over to the ‘hundred footer’ or if you prefer the metric system, like I do, the ‘thirty point four eight metre-er’. As you can probably guess this was a thirty metre high sand dune which was considerably higher than all the other dunes that we encountered on the trip. One by one we all descended the slope, as well as a dog who did it in a tenth the time it takes for a 4x4 to get down. This was more spectacular than it was fun, but it was still fun, driving around the smaller dunes was much more varied and faster moving, but at least I can say I’ve done the hundred footer now. 

(Looking down the 100ft'er)

We headed back to base then and everyone gave it some welly so we got back in no time. Time to wash all the sand of the 4x4's, re-inflate the tyres and have a barbecue before we all departed back to Auckland.

(Giving it some welly)

Getting back to Auckland I found the Mitsubishi to be comfortable, warm and it had automatic transmission so there was no clutch to do terrible whiplash inducing gear changes. How awful, this was very un-Land Rover like, I mean it could at least have given me reduced hearing for a week due to a noisy engine but it didn’t! It gave an altogether pleasant drive both on and off road which Landys just patently don’t offer and that's what makes Landys so great.

(The only tidal public highway I've ever been on)

(Definitely a road - speed limit sign on the beach)

Off roading was over for the day and what an awesome day, good enough on it's own to make me want to immigrate here! Now, off to the Christmas/birthday party I was invited to. Not to denigrate the birthday party bit, it was very enjoyable and full of great people, but yes it really was a Christmas party in July! Only in New Zealand, Merry Christmas everyone.

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!