New Zealand – Where is Phil now?

Steampunk HQ

Oamaru, New Zealand – Tuesday 25 March 2025

Steampunk HQ. I have previously, and erroneously, referred to it as the Steampunk Museum, which it clearly isn’t. It’s an art installation and gallery and it’s mad and fantastic, and we loved it.

Oamaru is a small town about three quarters of the way down the east cost of New Zealand’s south island. It’s probably most famous for its colony of blue penguins, which Eleanor and I planned to visit when we were in New Zealand in 2022 and down this way for my nephew’s wedding. Sadly, we couldn’t because of Covid; and we didn’t get to the wedding either.

It’s a rural and local administrative centre and the largest town in the immediate area. It has a lovely ‘old’ (by New Zealand standards) Victorian heart, with some excellent examples of the local stone buildings remaining, a number of which are sadly semi-derelict. The town needs investment, like so many other rural places. Hopefully tourism will fill some of the void.

Steampunk HQ is part of that recovery. It opened in 2011 and is a popular tourist destination. There are numerous installations, some interactive, and some audio visual, inside, but the best part was the amazing collection of original imagined future vehicles. It was all very ‘Mad Max’ and totally bonkersly wonderful. I took a few photos and below are some of them.

Australia next.

Christchurch to Dunedin to Christchurch

Christchurch, New Zealand – Wednesday 26 March 2025

On Monday morning, we did what has now becoming routine, and left Christchurch after rush hour and the school run had finished. We’re staying within walking distance of the city centre, as I will discover when I return, and Christchurch traffic has not improved in the 14 years since I last visited. Our destination is just outside the city of Dunedin, about five hours south.

We missed the first place we planned to stop at, the ‘Book Barn’, a vast second hand book shop recommended by our Christchurch hosts. We didn’t see the sign until after we had driven past. Much of the drive south is a flat straight road, with the occasional ‘S’ bend as the road crosses the main train line. then back again a few kilometres further on. Unlike the trip from Blenheim to Christchurch, where we did the reverse as we travelled by train.

It’s not the most thrilling of rides and I felt a bit for Paula who did all the driving; practice she will make perfect after we go our separate ways tomorrow. The only excitement was crossing really long bridges over the frequent and very wide rivers, and stopping for lunch in a garden centre just south of Timaru. You can (usually) trust a garden centre lunch. We were, as expected the youngest people there, and we’re all in our 60s.

THE highlight of the journey was the Steam Punk Museum in Oamaru, about two thirds of the way down the coast. We stayed for a while and I took too many photos for this post, so will do a separate one next. Needless to say, it was fun!

Our final stop was to see the Moeraki boulders. I was warned that they were underwhelming and to be honest, they very much were. They are interesting and unique and worth seeing, but keep your expectations in your backpack, and maybe keep that in the boot of your car, locked of course. I wanted to see them as I don’t think there is anything else like them anywhere else in the world and for me that alone is a reason.

The ‘boulders’ are a small number of almost spherical rocks, slowly disappearing into the sand of the beach and I’m sure years ago they were much more spectacular. If you do want to visit, try and get there early in the morning to avoid other visitors, especially tours. There weren’t many people when we visited, but each one wanted a photo standing on the rocks, so I had to wait one-by-one as they did so. I was muttering with frustration by the time I got my ‘turn’.

They are cool though, and I especially liked the boulder lying at the top of the beach by itself that has been split open by a small landslide and you can see its hollow core. as if it’s a museum exhibit.

My sister lives on the Otago Peninsular in the hamlet of Portobello, a thirty-minute drive east of Dunedin’s city centre. They’ve only recently moved there from not too far from Nelson at the top of the South Island. Though there are a number of houses, a lot are holiday homes and it feels quite remote, but the house has a lovely view from the deck and the remoteness suits my sister and her family.

Just before we left New Zealand, back when we stayed here for seven months in 2021/2022, we were going to come down to Dunedin for my nephew’s wedding. Sadly we ended up not coming due to the ongoing Covid pandemic. Though it was largely over in New Zealand by then, we didn’t want to risk the confined spaces of flights and wedding venues as our return to London was immediately after the wedding. I hadn’t seen my nephews in years and had never met the eldest’s wife until today.

We had dinner with my sister, her sons and daughter in law and a very nice evening catching up. It was also Eleanor and I’s last night together for 16 days, which seems like an epically long time for us to be apart, so the evening was spent with that hanging over me. I will miss her.

We woke to an empty house on Tuesday morning as my sister had gone to work. After a quick breakfast we took a leg stretching walk down the waterfront where I found this fantastic local bus stop; I love those chairs. It was a lovely day for a walk and it is very pretty here under the sun. I expect on a windy, rainy winter evening, it’s not quite so jolly.

At the end of my sister’s road is this lovely feature made when the road was cut through, and now known as Pineapple Rock, for obvious reasons.

We drove into Dunedin and parked in a supermarket carpark in the town centre. Free parking is always good. We had a final early lunch and then it was time for (almost tearful) farewells as Paula and Eleanor headed off in the car to continue their tour of the lower south island and I took my small backpack, I’d left the big one at my friends’, and walked around Dunedin for an hour before getting one of the two daily buses back to Christchurch. Weirdly, I seem to have no photos of Dunedin, other than the below.

I discovered, a bit late, that there are some great brutalist buildings in Dunedin, particularly as part of the university. Annoyingly I didn’t really get the time to find them, though I did find the back of the hospital. There is some interesting architecture in Dunedin, a good mix of local stone buildings from the Victorian era and 60/70 construction, with a few modern buildings mixed in.

It’s a nice little city, and I want to come back again. Not least as it plays a huge part in New Zealand’s musical history, especially with Flying Nun Records in the early 80s when I was going to see a lot of bands. I remain a firm fan.

The bus ride was long and slow, but perfectly fine. It was my first time alone for a few weeks and time to mentally unwind and prepare for the next part of the trip was welcome. An opportunity to reset my brain and outlook and prepare for thinking and planning by myself.

I stayed the night at my friends’ house again, joining them, and winning, the local pub quiz, which was a lot of fun and very unexpected. On Wednesday morning I headed off with my big backpack and walked to a barbers about halfway to the centre where I had the remains of a winter beard shaved off. I didn’t want an extra coat in the hot climate of Delhi – forecast of 38 degrees towards the end of my time there.

After the shave I walked back to the art gallery and used their free bag store to leave the big and small packs. After pretending to look at some exhibits I’d seen just a couple of days ago, I grabbed a coffee and snuck out the side door in search of the brutalist council building I’d seen on Sunday. The art gallery building is beautiful.

As I previously noted, I couldn’t find the council building, so I just enjoyed an hour of walking around the city, before collecting my bags and catching the bus out to the airport for the next leg of my trip; a day in Brisbane to hopefully see all three of my ‘kids’ in the same place at the same time, a first in over 10 years. I’m excited, but pensive.

Onwards.

Christchurch

Christchurch, New Zealand – Sunday 23 March 2025

We have two nights in the same place for the first time in five nights and, as we’re staying with old friends of mine, it’s a good opportunity to unwind, unpack and throw some clothes into their washing machine.

As I will be moving around via public transport a bit more than Eleanor and Paula will be, I’m using my trusty travelling back pack, the one I started my travels with 13 years ago. The backpack means I’m carrying fewer clothes than they are and the next time I have more than one night in the same place is in three countries and five days’ time, in Delhi.

My friends lost their house to the tragic 2011 earthquake (earthquakes seem to becoming a trend on this trip, which I’ve just noticed, and is completely accidental) and it wasn’t rebuilt until 2016. It was rebuilt almost exactly as it had been, and has been decorated wonderfully. It’s such a funky place and I’m so glad they could rebuild back to how it used to be and so glad they had room for the three of us to stay.

I only visited Christchurch once after the earthquake, before I left New Zealand at the end of the same year. That was with work for a quick trip from the airport out to the production centre for the printing company I worked for and then back to the airport and home to Auckland. I haven’t seen the inner city in the 14 years since then. A lot of the centre has been completely rebuilt, though there is still work to be done. The city looks pretty good, though of course that has come at a huge cost; financially, politically, socially and emotionally.

We started our day at the new art gallery (free parking for us). We drove past a very nice bit of brutalist architecture that I promised myself I would come back to when I return to Christchurch on Wednesday after separating from Eleanor and Paula in Dunedin. Annoyingly I couldn’t find it!

I liked the gallery, it’s modern and bright and the rooms are well spaced and paced and there were some good pieces. I particularly liked ‘The Civil Servant’ (at least I think that is what it was called, I can’t find anything on the internet).

We left the gallery and walked around the new centre of the city. So much of the area was destroyed in the earthquake that there are still buildings waiting to be safely demolished and numerous building sites and blank spaces where buildings once stood.

The city has supported some fantastic murals, some of them massive, as part of the rebuild. It’s really pleasing to see authorities embrace the value that high quality large works of art on buildings can bring. When I go back, which I will, I will do a proper street art and brutalist building photo walk.

The spire of the cathedral collapsed in the quake. It was the spiritual centre of the city and a well loved building. There have been discussions and plans and court cases and challenges of court case results for years, and there has not yet been an agreed plan as to what to do with the cathedral and the land it sits on. Sadly it’s still fenced off as the remaining structure is deemed unsafe.

We walked through the new shopping precinct so I could visit the bookshop as I’m trying to find a couple of New Zealand music books: Boodle, Boodle, Boodle (the making of the EP by The Clean) and Peter Jefferies’ The Other Side of Reason, neither of which I found anywhere in NZ. I also wanted to visit the new Flying Nun Records shop. Tempted as I was, I didn’t buy anything.

We lunched in the new Riverside food court, which was not dissimilar to any of the modern, independent food courts we have visited in other countries or parts of the UK. There was a wide range of interesting choices, with all the usual international flavours represented. I had a Thai dish and it was very nice, as was the local ale I washed the food down with.

After lunch we were driven to the airport where Paula collected the rental car she will drive us around in for the next few days. We returned to our friends’ house and then were driven up into the Port Hills that overlook the city and separate it from its harbour at Lyttleton. The Port Hill road was badly damaged in the earthquake and sections of the road remain closed, and will never be reopened to cars. It made for a nice walk, and there is a good view down to Lyttleton, where we visited next.

Up here you can still see the damage that the quake caused, with bits of road just hanging off the cliff.

It was nice to see the famous cable car is back in operation.

Lyttleton is a small town, part bohemian and part port worker. It’s a nice town and after a very short walk to see the sights we stopped for a drink in a very nice little bar with a decent soundtrack going.

On the way back to our friends’ house we drove through the eastern part of Christchurch where a number of suburbs had stood alongside the River Avon before the earthquake. All that is there now are a few trees and the drop sections of footpaths that used to be the start of a driveway. The entire suburbs has been bulldozed and will never be rebuilt as the ground is just too unstable. All those people moved from their homes. So sad. It was a stark reminder of the recent history of this city, and the work that has been done to repair the damage and the soul of the place.

Blenheim to Christchurch on the scenic train

Christchurch, New Zealand – Saturday 22 March 2025

The cost of picking up a rental car in one location and dropping it off in another is just sheer lunacy, at least it is in New Zealand, I’ve not done it anywhere else. When I was planning this holiday I discovered the cost of renting a car in Picton, where we got off the ferry from the North Island, and leaving it in Christchurch where we all flew out from, was five times the price of just renting and dropping in Christchurch itself.

Luckily, there is a fantastic train between Blenheim, where we stayed last night, and Christchurch. The train is a scenic tourist train and is therefore not cheap, but even for the three of us it was still less than half the difference in the car rental. It was a no brainer really.

There is only one train a day, in the early afternoon, so we killed the morning over a leisurely breakfast in a café not too far from the motel. There isn’t much to Blenheim town centre and I think we saw most of it when we walked there for dinner last night. We did a quick circuit of the town centre then waited for the train over a glass of local pinot gris in the station.

The train arrived a few minutes late and was, surprisingly, but not surprisingly, pulled by a big old diesel engine. Which did make sense when we started slowly grinding up through hills towards the coast on the single train line that runs from Picton down towards Christchurch.

The train was full and I would guess that we were almost the youngest people on the train, which was mostly full of foreign tourists like us. There were definitely some Americans, we could hear them.

As this is a scenic train, the main carriages had larger windows than normal, but the best feature for me was an open carriage which meant no window reflection.

The one downside to the open air carriage was that it was right behind the engine and the diesel fumes got quite oppressive when the train was slowly winding up hills or through speed restricted tunnels. When the train was at full pace there was plenty of wind-blown hair action going on.

The train line mostly follows State Highway 1 all the way from Blenheim to Christchurch, and we were soon grinding our way very slowly up and over the bone-dry Wither Hills. It was a spectacular start to the journey.

I spent a lot of time standing in the outside carriage, occasionally with a glass of wine in hand. I was shocked to see so many other passengers sleeping, or reading or worse – staring into their phones. The early stages of the journey were spectacular, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the countryside.

Admittedly it is a five and a half hour journey and there were some dull bits as we worked our way through the farmland of North Canterbury, but crikey – how could you not be looking out the window at the start!

Once through the hills and passing through the small town of Seddon, we were on the coast which we followed the rest of the way, criss-crossing with the highway all the way south. This was taken through the window from inside the carriage.

It’s remarkable that this train journey exists. A 7.8 magnitude earthquake near the coast devastated the land, the road and rail line in 2016. Fortunately this is a fairly rural area and the earthquake occurred in the middle of the night, meaning only two people lost their lives; tragic as that still is. The rail line was closed for two years and though the highway has been fully open for some time, there is still significant work to be done. I’m glad we weren’t in a car.

Past Kaikoura the view settles into the sea on the left hand side, flat farmland with snow capped mountains popping in and out of sight on the right. Small towns ‘flash’ past as the not particularly fast train rumbles on through.

We cross some spectacular riverbed/flood plains on extremely long bridges. I was sitting in the cabin when I took this one through the window.

Soon enough we were pulling into Christchurch Station, slightly late as the train in front was on the single platform. Hard to believe this is the second biggest city in New Zealand! We were met on the platform by an old friend, who we are staying with for the two nights we’re in town.

The journey is fantastic and highly recommended if you’re looking for an alternative way of travelling from Picton to Christchurch or one of the stops in-between.

Cook Strait crossing

Blenheim, New Zealand – Friday, 21 March 2025

The Interislander Ferry left it’s berth in Wellington Harbour on time, at 8:45am. We’d arrived as requested at 7:45 for an airline style check-in and the big bags were taken off our hands and stowed somewhere on the ship where they store big bags. It was great not having to lug them around. The ferry is pretty big, it’s a vehicle ferry and it was full of all sorts of vehicles and all sorts of people.

We had an average breakfast and a terrible coffee as soon as we got on board, then discovered the proper café and got a much nicer coffee once we were settled and on the way out of the harbour. We wanted to beat the rush for food, but patience should have been exercised instead. I was desperate for a caffeine fix mind as the machine in the ‘departure lounge’ wasn’t working.

We were lucky with the weather; it was a stunner of a day, warm, calm and clear. Everything you want for a crossing of the Cook Strait, the band of water between New Zealand’s North and South Islands. We were heading south, across the strait and down through the Marlborough Sounds to Picton; about 3 hours and 30 minutes away. It’s about 93 kilometres in total, with two thirds being inside the sounds.

Eleanor and I have done the journey before, but I was keen to share it with Paula, as on a good day like today, it’s a stunner of a trip. It lived up to the reputation I’d given it as well.

The ferry sort of hugs the southern coast of the North Island for a while, providing some great views of the rugged coast line. I spent a lot of time on this part of the journey trying to spot dolphin pods, or even better whales; but sadly, other than a few seagulls, there was no other wildlife to see today.

As we approach the top of the South Island it is almost impossible to see the narrow entrance to the sounds from the strait and it sort of pops into view at the last minute.

The highlight was undoubtedly the final hour navigating through the stunning Marlborough Sounds. The water turned a deep turquoise as we weaved between the hills that plunged dramatically into the sea. Small isolated homes appeared occasionally along the shoreline, accessible only by boat.

As we approached Picton we carved through a monstrous pod (swarm? herd?) of jellyfish.

I’d tried to arrange a shuttle ride from the port in Picton the thirty or so kilometres to Blenheim, where I’d booked us into a motel for the night. I thought the booking had failed, but the driver was waiting for us with a sign with my name on it as we got off the ferry and collected our bags. It was an expensive ride.

We had a fairly simple motel, it was comfortable, quiet and perfectly fine. We weren’t planning on spending a lot of time in the rooms. The shuttle driver had recommended the St Clair Vineyard for lunch so we took a taxi there and were lucky to get a table – only because we’d booked ahead just before leaving the motel. It was very busy.

Marlborough is wine country and there are a significant number of vineyards in the surrounding area. Some brands, like Cloudy Bay, are very well known in the UK. I think it would be fair to say that sauvignon blanc is the primary grape variety grown here. Marlborough sauv blanc is available in most places in the world that sell wine.

St Clair wasn’t a wine producer I’d heard of before so I was keen to sample some of their product. We’re not huge fans of sauvignon blanc, much preferring the pinot gris variety of white wine. We also like a gewürztraminer, which is less well known in New Zealand, though St Clair had a very nice one.

Fortunately the vineyard only allows bookings for a couple of hours so we were turfed out nice and early. I could have sat there in the sun drinking cold wine and eating cheese for hours; though would have been broke and a bit ‘under the weather’ if that had happened.

Our South Island adventure was off to a cracking good start.

The ‘art deco capital of the world’

Napier, New Zealand – Wednesday, 19 March 2025

When planning our New Zealand travels, Napier was high on the list – especially after missing it on our previous trip due to Covid restrictions. What makes this city particularly fascinating for me is its remarkable architectural story, born from a terrible (and probably terrifying) event.

On 3 February 1931, Napier experienced a catastrophic 7.8 magnitude earthquake that lasted just 2.5 minutes but completely transformed the city. The earthquake tragically killed 256 people and almost totally destroyed the city centre, as well as causing severe damage to residential areas and the surrounding countryside.

By 1933, Napier had completely reinvented itself as an art deco city. Embracing current design trends, with a local flavour, the city was rebuilt from the ground up. Remarkably, much of that 1930s rebuild remains behind and walking through the city centre today feels like stepping into a perfectly preserved 1930s film set.

With over 140 well preserved art deco buildings, the city now markets itself as the “Art Deco Capital of the World.” I would love to visit when they properly celebrate this and ban all those pesky modern cars that park in front of all the interesting bits.

We arrived in Napier after a 5 hour drive from Rotorua, and with only an afternoon in town we were out looking at buildings soon after dropping our bags in the motel, which was directly over the road from the beach. It’s always relaxing being near the sea.

We loved Napier, and I wish we’d had more time to just walk around the city centre and admire the beautifully maintained buildings under a nice blue sky. There is a (mostly) friendly vibe here.

I took a lot of photos as we walked.

It’s a small city centre and with little time we focused on the central streets. There are a couple of locations away from the business and commercial centre, though we didn’t really have time to visit them. I would have liked to have seen some of the residential properties. I’ve saved those for next time.

Late afternoon we stopped for a drink and a sit down at Community Burgers, a really nice little bar that I would’ve been very content spending more time in if I hadn’t had a burger for dinner last night. A rare bar playing decent music.

Walking back to the motel for a break before convening again for dinner, we had the only unpleasant moment of the entire trip. We got engaged in a random conversation with an oldish man, who stopped us on the street. He was clearly drunk or on something, and it started off being just a bit weird but moved on to him making an extremely racist comment, at which point we left the conversation. This resulted in him telling us to ‘F off’ and us returning the compliment, before heading off in different directions.

Luckily, we only let it ruin our day for a few minutes, and after a planned rest, we walked to the beautiful Masonic Hotel for a very nice dinner and a settling glass of wine, or three.

Auckland to Wellington, via Rotorua

Wellington, New Zealand – Thursday, 20 March 2025

Our trip to New Zealand was always going to be a short one, with not enough time to do all the things we want to do. Naturally, any time spent in New Zealand has a family focus, but I also want to show Eleanor, and on this visit, Paula, some of the good bits, which are mainly outside of city centres. When Eleanor and I were here last time we had numerous plans to see the country, all of which were thwarted by lockdowns, or in the end when we were due to fly back to the UK, Covid-related nervousness. This time there were no such restrictions, self imposed or otherwise, though now, time time itself is the restriction.

Paula hasn’t been to New Zealand before, so it was important that we dropped Rotorua into the road trip. We also wanted to visit Napier, a place we had to drop last time. There wasn’t much else in the north that I wanted to show off, and with limited time, the South Island is where visitors should go. So that was where I focused my planning energies; not that I would get to many of the best places myself.

I split the road trip into two sections; with me renting a car for the North Island leg and Paula renting a car for the south. Car rental in New Zealand is not terribly expensive, unless you want to return the car to a city different to the one you collect it from. Then it’s madly expensive. I broke the trip into two to save us some money, and Paula could collect and drop off the car from Christchurch airport, saving hundreds of pounds, which we could spend on getting the scenic train from Blenheim.

We waited at Mum’s until the morning rush hour was over before saying farewell and thanks, and then set off for day one of our less than grand tour of New Zealand. The rental car is huge by my standards, yet still only a medium-size SUV, a Mazda something or other. I’m not a car person. It was white and everything worked perfectly well and it ‘seemed’ reasonably economical. At least it was comfortable to drive, other than being comparatively huge. Here it is, parked outside our cabin in Rotorua.

Our first stop was at Hobbiton, something that Paula specifically wanted to do. We had tried to book tickets a couple of weeks ago, but it was sold out. We arrived with the faint hope there would’ve been cancellations. We were wrong, it was packed. Oh well. It was sort of on the way and at least it was a nice day (so far) and the countryside is pretty.

I was really surprised at how good the roads were, and that the motorway out of Auckland, and later in the trip, into Wellington had been massively extended while I’ve been away. I’m not an advocate for building more roads in most instances, but there was a real need to improve on what existed and it has made a huge improvement to journey time, and to road safety and emissions.

We spent the first night in cabins in a tourist park in Rotorua. Accommodation anywhere is expensive and with a lot of nights away we are staying in a mix of cheap and (hopefully) cheerful and mid-market places. This was definitely at the cheap and cheerful end of the scale.

After dumping bags, we drove to Kuirau Park in the centre of the small city. Rotorua’s claim to fame is thermal activity, it’s a hot bed of activity (apologies for the pun). Boiling, steaming pools, geysers, it’s all here, there and everywhere in Rotorua, often popping up in residents’ gardens. There are some fantastic thermal parks here, but most require time and money and we were short of time. Kuirau Park has a few free examples of thermal activity and is worth a visit and we saw some quite cool stuff, well I think there was something cool here; hard to tell with all the steam!

We timed the visit to perfection. Heading back into town it absolutely poured with rain, the heaviest rain I’ve experienced in a long time. Luckily the downpour was short lived and we did park right outside the café we went to for dinner.

The next day, Wednesday, we were back in the car early for the five hour drive to Napier, stopping at the spectacular Huka Falls for a look and a walk before taking breakfast and a much needed coffee in Taupo.

The drive to Napier was lovely, especially the winding Mohaka Gorge section through beautiful native forest with the river running below and alongside the road.

We were really looking forward to visiting Napier, it is the most preserved art deco city in the world and was going to be our main holiday when we lived here, before Covid ruined it for us. Napier deserves its own post and that will come next.

Paula finally got to drive on New Zealand roads the following day, I know she’d been dying to get behind the wheel, but country roads in New Zealand are not the best, or they never used to be. They are much better now and I was just being stupid. Paula drove us all the way to Wellington, our final stop on this leg of the road trip.

We stopped in Hastings for breakfast and took a short detour to the Hastings suburb of St Leonards, just because my flat is in St Leonards on England’s south coast; next to Hastings, and we found it all quite amusing. I like my St Leonards more.

The drive to Wellington was great, especially from the passenger seat. We arrived late afternoon and had a bit of ‘fun’ finding our hotel, and somewhere to stop in the very busy street. We did a quick bag dump and then I took the car back to the rental company and that was the end of road trip one; only three days, but we saw a lot and enjoyed ourselves.

With an early ferry booked in the morning we only had the one evening in Wellington so didn’t linger in the hotel once I returned. We took a roundabout walk catching the harbour, and the (in) famous Bucket Sculpture, the Beehive – New Zealand’s parliament building – before stopping for a decent curry in Cuba St.

After dinner we walked back around the harbour, stopping for the worst glass of wine we had in New Zealand at a waterfront bar. With this being the second disappointment at a harbourside venue, we have definitely learned the lesson, this time.

It’s an early start tomorrow for the ferry to Picton, but before that we go back in time to yesterday when we visit Napier.

Waiheke and Maungawhau (shine and rain)

Auckland, New Zealand – Monday 17 March 2025

On Saturday, Paula, our friend from London arrived in Auckland and we picked her up from the airport in Mum’s little car just after midday. Before picking her up, we drove to my ex-brother in law’s house to see him, my niece, nephew and his partner. We then dropped my niece at my sister’s on the way to the airport. It was good to catch up with my BIL, as I’ve rarely seen him on past visits to New Zealand as he was working in Australia. We had a family get together in the evening. My niece lives in Christchurch and was up for a few days and this was the only time we got to hang out together. As always, hanging out with my family is a stress-free affair, though I was driving, so avoided the wine after a single glass. It was the final family meal for this trip and it was sad saying goodbye to my sister. I made up for wine the following day.

An absolute highlight of any trip back to Auckland is a visit to Waiheke Island. We had the offer of the bach (holiday home) we stayed in last time but couldn’t fit in an overnight trip, though next time we will. We had good intentions of visiting a couple of wineries, but as is always the case, we enjoyed the first one we went to and didn’t move until it was time to head back into the city.

The day started quite early for a Sunday, the intention was to get the train from Mum’s to the city, but there was track maintenance and the trains weren’t running so I got some ‘pre-India’ Uber practise in instead. Mum is kindly staying with a friend and has let us have the run of her two bedroom apartment in the retirement village for a few days, so the three of us can stay together without having to pay for accommodation.

We had the worst coffee and an average, very uninspiring/uninspired breakfast at a city waterfront café (a lesson we failed to learn when we later had the worst glass of wine in New Zealand in a waterfront bar in Wellington.) We didn’t let it spoil the day. We had left early to avoid the rush. It was a glorious sunny end of summer day and we knew the vineyards would be popular and didn’t want to miss getting a spot in our favourite place. We had bought ‘executive’ ferry tickets, which meant we could use a special ferry. A group booking failed to arrive so there was just eight of us on the ferry and it was very nice indeed. We were welcomed with a glass of wine, which set the day off just right and compensated for the lousy breakfast. The journey through the Hauraki Gulf to Waiheke takes about 40 minutes and the sea was calm and the sky was blue and I could have spent all day on the ferry just enjoying the air and the small, and not so small, islands we pass on the way.

Eleanor and I loved Casita Miro, a Spanish themed vineyard, last time we came to Waiheke and decided this was the best place to start showing Paula New Zealand wine and Auckland island life. The bus ride from the ferry passes some lovely beaches along the way and this really does add to the joy of being out of the city, any city; even London. I like Waiheke a lot.

The mosaic mural at the entrance to the vineyard that was still being worked on last time we visited has now been completed and I love the Gaudiesque madness of the tiling along the wall and the other art works scattered around the gardens.

We grabbed a spot under a young olive tree and other than adjusting position as the sun moved around the sky, we didn’t really move for four hours. We just enjoyed wine and food and each other’s company. It was a lovely afternoon and I was so glad Paula enjoyed the place as much as we do.

The following day, Monday, brought us back to earth with low, thick clouds and persistent drizzle all morning. Though, I got an early opportunity to test my new raincoat, and it passed with flying colours. Thankfully

We waited for rush hour, and the school run, to pass and caught the train to Grafton, then walked to and up Maungawhau/Mt Eden. The view from the top over Auckland city is normally fantastic, but there was less of it today. Still it was a nice, if rather damp walk, and Paula got a bit of perspective of the city. I like it up here. A lot of work has gone into preserving the Māori history and the landscape of Maungawhau, and the other extinct (we hope) volcanic cones that make up the centre of Auckland City, all 53 of them… This is a well used tourist spot, though I noticed that tour buses have been banned from driving to the top.

We stopped for a very nice brunch in the café on the mountain before walking back into the city, passing near the Air BnB apartment we stayed in (and I hated) for three weeks when first arrived in Auckland in 2021.

It’s St Patricks Day today and Paula has had a pint of Guinness to celebrate every year since she was a teenager, so it would have been wrong of us to break that run in Auckland. We found an Irish pub (there is always at least one in every city) and Paula got her Guinness and Eleanor and I had a pint of something else as it’s not our thing. The pub was rocking for early afternoon, though sadly we couldn’t stay as I had to pick up a rental car at the airport for our road trip adventure to start tomorrow…

Auckland

Auckland, New Zealand – Friday 14 March 2025

This holiday was a long time in the planning. We started talking about it well over a year ago, though we didn’t start to book things until late in 2024. Unusually for us, we’re splitting the holiday into a couple of sections. We have one of our good London friends, Paula, joining us in Auckland tomorrow (Saturday 15 March) and all we’re going to road trip to see one of my sisters in Dunedin, which is close to the bottom of the South Island and from there we separate. I’m going to Brisbane in Australia for a night and then onto Delhi, India via Hong Kong ,before going back to London. Eleanor and Paula are going to road trip in New Zealand for a few more days before going to Sydney and Tokyo and then on to London. Eleanor and I will be apart for 16 days, the longest we’ve been apart since 2019, at least.

Considering the circumstances, our time in Auckland was good. I have an unwell family member, thought it’s not the right time to speak on this, and my aunt’s husband, who has been sick for a while, passed away in hospital during our visit. I guess I’m of an age where visits back home are not always going to be a bundle of laughs.

We arrived in Auckland on Friday 7 March on a warm and sunny day, a welcome relief after what seemed like three months of cold and grey in London. Most of our time in New Zealand, and for me Brisbane and India, was spent under a cloudless sky. It was so nice to be warm again.

With only a week in Auckland we had a fairly full schedule, we wanted to see friends and family as well as revisit a few of our favourite spots from when we lived here during the Covid lockdown of mid 2021 to early 2022. On revisit some of those places brought a happy smile, but some just were a bit ‘meh’, I guess we’ve moved on since the days of lockdown. Our favourite places remain favourites though and it was a joy to walk around and even more of a joy to sample the huge variety of delicious pinot gris wines available in NZ. None of that pinot grigio pish they sell in London.

Highlights

Spending time with my family. It was great seeing mum, my sister, niece, nephew, aunt and my son and grandson. I’ve been away from family for 13 years and it’s been three since we were last ‘home’, though my sister and son have visited us in London between. I’m conscious that every visit is important and getting to hang out with family, even for a few days is precious and not to be taken for granted.

The afternoon we arrived we went for a nice walk from my sister and son to nearby One Tree Hill. Auckland is blessed with a number of great parks and green space and during the early days of Covid in 2021 we took numerous walks here. It is a go to place whenever I come to New Zealand.

Millie, my sisters dog came with us. She looks like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but she’d have your legs off in a flash if she took a dislike to you.

As with every visit back to New Zealand Mum and I visited Muriwai Beach. We scattered dad’s ashes here in 2007 and it’s an essential part of any visit. Muriwai had long been a happy place before then and it’s somewhere I would be happy to have some of my ashes scattered as well. I think about these things now I’m in my 60s.

It was a hot and sunny day and Muriwai was at its best. There had been a significant weather event here in 2023 with major damage to property (and a couple of lives sadly lost) due to land slips.

The area where we scattered dad was closed off and almost unrecognisable as a large chunk of it had slipped down hill. Fortunately the famous gannet colony was largely unaffected and the council have repaired access to the viewing platforms. It’s the end of gannet season and it was a pleasant surprise to see a few still nesting their young.

On the Saturday, my son took Eleanor and my grandson for a short road trip up to a small farm holding owned by one of my son’s friends and his partner. D is an old boyfriend of my daughter and now a good friend of my son. D is English and I stayed with him and my daughter on a few occasions when they lived in Bristol, he’s a nice guy and it was fun seeing him on his farm. Eleanor finally go to try feijoas, a fruit that is very much a part of late summer in New Zealand. She wasn’t that impressed, which is fair enough as I’m not either.

As well as growing a lot different fruit and vege for a market garden stall, D has a couple of calves and chickens. My grandson had fun too, in fact we all had a good time.

A secondary reason for visiting the farm was it’s location, not to far from the town of Warkworth. Warkworth is one of the key locations for the NZ TV series ‘The Brokenwood Mysteries’. We are slightly obsessed with Brokenwood, though no-one we spoke to in NZ knew much about it. We stopped for a drink in one the bars in Warkworth which is the location for one of the bars in the series. We were a little excited about this.

We also found the church used in the series not too far from mum’s place in Henderson.

Though it was a particularly wet day, which we were very unprepared for so subsequently got completely drenched, mum and I had a nice walk and lunch in Devonport on Auckland’s north shore. We caught the train into town and then the ferry across the Waitemata Harbour and walked to the Navy Museum where we had a damp lunch, before getting the full soaking on the way back to the ferry.

I ended up buying a new rain coat and throwing away the cheap jacket I’d had for 20 years that I found was no longer waterproof. Last time we were in Devonport we had ice creams that melted over and down the side of the cone as it was so hot and sunny. It was the only day where the weather impacted on the day’s activities for the entire month I was away.

Eleanor and I like to walk. We walked a lot when we lived in Auckland for seven months during Covid and then I sold my car soon after we returned to the UK in 2022. We walk a lot in London, and I was doing longer walks than usual to build a bit of walking strength for this holiday, particularly when I go to Delhi in a couple of weeks. We walked a lot around Auckland, it was nice, especially on those clear and warm days.

We visited the Winter Gardens in Auckland Domain. They were closed when we were here last time, and my memory said they were more crowded with plants than they were this time so I was a little disappointed. They were still nice to visit though.

We walked down one of the tree lined paths from the Domain back into the city. I love the trees in Auckland, especially the big old Pohutukawa’s, the New Zealand Christmas tree, and there are some great sprawling examples in the domain. When we were living here I started a folk horror short story that was set among these trees, though I never finished it. I had a good start and a good middle, and even a good end. I just couldn’t find may way from the middle to the end at the time. I must revisit it one day; walking here reminded me of the story.

Auckland has a wonderful seafront and we very much enjoyed a couple of bars and cafes in the Wynyard Quarter as we lived nearby. This trip we found a new bar at Westhaven Marina, a location that has been in desperate need of a place to stop for a coffee, a meal or a glass of wine. We had a couple of really nice walks near the sea; something I miss when living in London, and weirdly while I love walking the seafront at St Leonards, and can’t wait to get back there, it’s not quite the same as walking here. It’s the city person in me I guess.

The trip and my main memories seem to be related to bars. The wine in New Zealand is spectacular, and so much cheaper than in the UK, especially with the exchange rate as it is. We’ve also become quite fond of the old fashioned (whiskey based) cocktail and had a couple of nice ones. Friends recommended a new rooftop bar at Number One Queen St, which we managed to get a table late one afternoon. The view over the ferry building and harbour was just stunning, and their old fashioned was very nice too.

Last time we were here I was introduced to the joys of Debrett’s Kitchen a small bistro attached to Debrett’s Hotel, a very old Auckland establishment. As well as making a very nice old fashioned, and a damn good flat white, its just a cool place to hang out. It’s always been quiet when ever I’ve been there and the music has always been good. My favourite drinking hole in Auckland.

And a final highlight for me was mince on toast. Not something I see in the UK very often. Eleanor thinks it a combination of weird and disgusting, but I thought this one was fantastic!

Farewell New Zealand

Thursday 24 February 2022 – Auckland.

Neither with a bang, nor a whimper we leave New Zealand on the 18:15 Emirates flight to Kuala Lumpur; destination Dubai, then onto London three hours later. Six months and 24 days after we landed in Auckland and were whisked directly to a managed isolation hotel, not passing go on the way. We spent two weeks in that hotel and then the city went into a full hard lockdown 2 ½ days after we left its front door for the one and only time on 14 August. The city eventually opened up just before Christmas, almost four months later.

I’m not going to call the trip a failure as it wasn’t really, but from my perspective it wasn’t a great success either. Eleanor made much more of the trip than I did, which is absolutely a good thing, though it wasn’t really the holiday she, nor I, were expecting to have. I don’t really feel as rested as I should after six months away from work, and Eleanor worked virtually the whole time we have been here. I really feel for her, we both start working again in just over a week on Monday 7 March (how can it be March already?)

Of course this whole trip was blighted by the real and perceived risk of Covid and the necessary restrictions of the New Zealand Government, so it was just a case of unfortunate timing on our behalf. A part of me wonders if we should have delayed until things got better, but I’m not really sure when it will be a good time to travel again. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but ultimately I think we did the right thing in coming.

I didn’t do a lot of what I normally do when I come back to New Zealand. Not once did I go to Piha or Karekare and I only ventured into the very fringes of the Waitakere Ranges when I walked along Exhibition Drive, and I’m almost embarrassed to even suggest that Exe Drive is even a fringe of the Waitaks. Not having a car didn’t help, though of course I could have rented one, and did on a few occasions, and we were offered the use of cars as well, I just didn’t take those offers up. I never had the right headspace to get out there, though the few times the effort was made it was fine and enjoyable and not as stressful as expected.

Headspace and desire were an issue for most of the last six months. I have struggled with motivation and finding the energy to think about things, let alone do them, was almost impossible some days. I loved managed isolation and we made so many plans over that time of things to do when we were free, so going almost immediately into lockdown was a bit of a blow, and I underestimated how much of a blow it was. I definitely didn’t do the people I love and the country the justice they deserved. It will be better next time around, I promise you this.

Overall I’m glad we came, I loved spending time with family and I got to see plenty of my grandson and son, my Auckland sister and her two children and spend loads of time with mum. They, particularly mum, were the main reason I came, not going for walks in the bush or mountain biking or travelling around sightseeing.

We did get out of the city a couple of times and I very much enjoyed the few days with friends in Whangamata and the weekend we had on Waiheke. They were proper highlights of the trip and gave me opportunities to take photos and write notes that were positive and excited as well as just being fun times in themselves.

We took one final walk around Wynyard and the Viaduct last night, and I enjoyed a final glass of Man o’ War Syrah outside the park Royal Hotel. We liked it there a lot.

We are looking forward to being home in a few (too many!) hours, and will spend a month in London before moving back to St Leonards where we plan on staying for a while as we figure out what’s next, where our next holiday will be and when we come back.

I’m not going to miss the humidity though.