All of
these things were going through my head as I headed out from the Base
hostel on a beautiful sunny morning, and as I was making the climb
toward Mount Eden my new cell phone rang. “Hello Ryan,” came an
unmistakably Kiwi accent, “welcome to Paradise.”
I had
the good fortune of having some family back home (big thanks to Lynn and Larry) who had made the
journey Down Under a few years ago, and were able to point me to a
few of their New Zealand friends. A few emails later, and now I'm getting a
bus in the early morning and heading out to Tauranga in the Bay of
Plenty for a spell.
I may
head back to Auckland in a few days time – then again, I may not,
and so I decided to conquer the city today as best I could. I pointed
out earlier that most people who have been here will say the same
thing: “Get out of Auckland as soon as you can. It's just a city.”
I believed it, but had to see for myself.
The
new hostel, Pentland Backpackers, is outside of the downtown core of
Auckland – the Central Business District, or the CBD – and in the
Mount Eden neighbourhood. I had a rough idea of where I was going
this morning, and after wandering until I found it and feeling like a
jerk for changing nearly two weeks worth of reservations to a single
night (which is a bit of a shame, since the dorms are a kind of
homestyle cozy and the bathrooms and kitchens are clean), I put on my
sunscreen and went out. And up.
Mount
Eden (Maungawhau in
Maori) is one of
several grassy knolls rising out of the centre of Auckland, and they
all have something in common: they're volcanoes. Now, it wasn't
likely to erupt this afternoon or anything (it's been 28,000 years
and counting), but the North Island, sitting nicely along the Pacific
Ring of Fire, has a bunch of volcanoes to its credit, some a lot more
firey than the ones scattered throughout Auckland (itself nestled on
the Auckland volcanic field). The climb up went along a narrow dirt
path alongside the road, circling the hill as it gained ground. The
highest volcano in the city (200m above the Pacific), the top gave a
panoramic view of the city, from the Sky Tower and the ocean behind
it to Manukau Harbour on the other end. At the centre of the lookout
is the crater, a grassy indentation plunging 50m down.
At
Marble Mountain back home, there's a ski run called Kruncher that
ends with a deceptive dip, and every time I used to do it, I would
almost feel my guts coming up through my mouth. Looking down into
this thing today, I figure if you tried to go down it, your feet
would come all the way out of your nostrils before you had the chance
to ponder the intricacies of literally being turned inside out.
The
day was fine, so with an actual map from the hostel, I set off down
Symonds Street (alongside Queen Street) heading for the CBD, taking
the time to poke around a cemetery from the 1800s and the University
of Auckland, which had plenty of buildings but not much real
university character. My path veered here, to Parnell, a separate
city district with some historic buildings and above average coffee
culture.
New
Zealand, and Auckland in particular, has a thing about cafes. They're
important here, and baristas have near Godlike status. There are
Starbucks around town, but I have a feeling that it's one of those
places that the locals turn their noses up to, and secretly (maybe
not even secretly) judge everyone who passes those doors and sets out
to write their novel over a mocha something or other. I went to one
of the cafes in Parnell, and did at least three things wrong. First
off, it was a chain; a New Zealand chain, but a chain nonetheless.
Second, I got a latte because that's something that sounded remotely
familiar; apparently the thing to get is a flat white, thicker and
with a smoother flavour than cappuccino. And finally, after going
about 20 feet down the road, I passed a branching road leading to
Parnell Village, a tiny Victorian area built onto sloping
cobblestones, with cafes that made mine look like the biggest hunk of
turd north of the Beehive in Wellington.
Still,
as I sat people watching, someone came up to me with a map and asked
if I was from here. She knew the answer as soon as I opened my mouth,
but still.
My
path dipped off the road at this point and into the trees of the
Auckland Domain, a 340-acre public park that dominates this area of
the city. There are a lot of green spaces in the city, but this one
takes the cake. In addition to all these massive trees with roots
weaving in so many weird and wonderful directions, the park also
houses the Auckland War Memorial Museum (a cool Greek
Revivial-looking building on a bare hill), and there's also the domed
Wintergarden, chock full of fountains and indoor plants. I skirted
the edges of the park first through the trees, stepping what felt
like miles outside of the city and into the wilderness of some
tropical jungle.
When I
hooked into the main park, I found the great stone Wintergarden, with
a crowd of people in tuxedos and dresses for a wedding reception. I
didn't find out until much later that the only reason the greenhouse
was open was because the reception was being held there (it ought to
have closed a few hours ago) – I walked right in, smelt the flowers
(I wish I knew the right words to describe the smells), and listened
to the wedding singers rehearse. I have to wonder though: are there
any pictures from that day that will come up in a wedding album in
years to come, where the befuddled bride will point at me and wonder
who was that dude in the shorts and with the Canadian flag on his
backpack?
Leaving
the wedding before I got into any trouble, I went along the outskirts
of the park, where a few groups had gathered for Saturday afternoon
cricket matches. I have no idea how the game is played, but after
watching it for a few minutes behind the sidelines of one team, I
figure it's something like bowling: you exert yourself a bit, and
then you sit on the sidelines and drink beer with your buddies. In
other words, it looks like fun.
There
were still plenty hours of daylight left after my afternoon stroll
through the park, so I continued, passing through the beautiful
suburb of Remuera, where people have money and you can tell. Not that
the homes are particularly lavish, but the neighbourhoods just have a
real sense of being something special. The sidewalks pass beneath
uniform trees, flowers are draped along the fences, and if you tried
to picture some idyllic neighbourhood, these streets would probably
end up beating it.
I
found another picture perfect grassy bump sticking out over the city
skyline, but it wasn't the last stop that I was looking for: One Tree
Hill, with a giant obelisk at the summit marking the grave of Sir
John Logan Campbell, a former mayor from the turn of the last century
who was dubbed “the father of Auckland” in his time. There used
to be a single tree on the summit as well, and that's the subject of
a whole lot of controversy (and a bit of a badass story of hacking
down the tree) when it comes to Maori and government relations. Apparently the nickname “None Tree Hill” has been kicking around
lately, since the tree was removed in 2000.
But my
hike up was unhindered by any finnicky politics, and in the dusk of a
New Zealand Saturday night, I hung tight to the path between the
winding road and the long stretches of sheep fields and surveyed the
city. And it looked pretty good – more than enough to remind me
that this is a special place, and that even if I never buy a thing of
Marmite, these are days that I'm going to miss someday, so it's best
to enjoy every minute in Paradise you're lucky enough to get.
The moon was out (only half full, but enough to realize that all the dark crap that you see on the face of the moon is, indeed, upside-down here) and crickets were chirping as I walked back to the hostel to finally cook some supper (tortellini tonight), after a long and tiring day. I don't want to look at a map scale to figure out how much I walked today; a Kiwi stopped for a chat as I was coming back (like they do, I guess) and asked me where I went today, and when I told him he said, “You didn't walk all of that?!” In my defence, even a thorough bus would have missed a lot of the little nooks and crannies. It took me two feet and a heartbeat to see some of the amazing things in Auckland, the city that everyone can't wait to leave – imagine what's waiting for me in the good spots.
Cheers,
rb
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