Auckland (Pt. I)

At last…we finally arrived in Auckland - so long our destination! - and will see some friends, get our bikes serviced, and hire a car to spend a few days travelling around Northland, the top bit of New Zealand.

We stayed one night in Papakura, a neighbourhood on the edge of Auckland and caught the train into the city, getting off at Greenlane to cycle to our friend Kiri’s house in Mount Eden. Riding through Cornwall Park, high up on One Tree Hill, an old volcanic peak gave panoramic views of the city. In Mount Eden, traditional wooden houses sat next to more contemporary designs in amongst lots of trees. We arrived late morning at Kiri’s and loved her home that she shares with her partner Dan and four friends in a quiet and lovely spot. The house and garden are up on a hill, looking southwest with a fine view over the city and is full of plants and light. It was great to see Kiri again and she treated us to a lovely warm welcome - a cuppa and toasties and it was so nice to catch up.

Kiri kindly offered to store some of our stuff so we could leave what we don’t need for our short trip to visit Northland (we ran out of time to visit by bike). Bidding goodbye, we cycled 25mins toward the city to drop our bikes into Benny’s Bike Shop, to have our bikes serviced. The issues we were having - mainly brakes, gears and ‘strange noises’ would hopefully be nothing serious. Benny seemed confident the issues were pretty common and normal and that the bikes looked ok (and better than some he’s seen). We chatted with Benny about NZ, the trails, places he has cycled and we gained some useful knowledge and tips. Benny also has a tremendous moustache (which he rocks), and it is also the logo of his shop.

Free of panniers and bikes, we headed off down the hill into the city. The central business district (CBD) of the city is much like other cities, populated with high rise office buildings, mixed with older buildings, some heritage architecture and chain stores. Much of the central area of city is laid out on a block system, easy to navigate and leads to the quay/harbour, where commuter passenger ferries leave to travel to other parts of the city. The iconic Sky Tower always looms overhead. We noted how large the roads were often several lanes deep, and how they dominate the city.

We walked about - now approaching early evening - and happened upon a bar called ‘Andrew Andrew’. As it was calling to Lilz (whose name is Andrew), and it was Happy Hour, it seemed like we were meant to stop in. Best of all, after getting our celebratory-we’ve-reached-Auckland drinks, we found they had an old table style arcade machine by the fire with Pac Man and Donkey Kong! It was free! We were lost for an hour or so in nostalgia. Lack of youthful finger dexterity and slightly sticky controls meant no high scores were achieved but our level of fun exceeded!

Afterward, we wandered through the quayside area, filled with many eateries and lit by creative outdoor architectural lighting, before heading uphill to the Karangahape Road to find somewhere to eat. The Karangahape or ‘K-Road’ is a vibrant mix of dive bars, convenience stores, cafes, fast food outlets and eateries punctuated by other shops and stores. The international cuisine, mainly Asian and Indian, provides a large choice. We stopped at a small Thai place and had a red curry and a pad Thai. Both excellent. We’d enjoyed our first wander in Auckland.

We awoke to a sunny day. After checking out we walked through the city to the car rental place to collect our hire car at 10am. As the city bustled with people heading into work, we stopped at Scratch Bakery for breakfast, which was busy with commuters having their morning hit of coffee before heading into their offices. Most of the cafes in the CBD had queues, so seemingly a popular routine for many Auckland folk before work.

Once we had wheels, getting on to the nearby freeway was simple enough and Amanda navigated us onto the Highway north, aiming for Whangārei (pronounced Fan-ga-ray: we’d learned a ‘Wh’ is a phonetic F sound, a bit like the ‘Ph’ in philosophy).

A temporary farewell to Auckland, we will be returning in a week, before leaving the country.Leggi altro