New Zealand – Where is Phil now?

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.

Challenge House

Anyone reading my blog over the past few weeks will have noted I have some antipathy to Auckland’s Central Business District, particularly the rampant, seemingly unregulated, and frankly, hideous construction that blights the city centre, and has done for years. It seemingly never ends; and I’m not talking about the work being done to build the new underground light rail system, which is something the city desperately needs. What the city doesn’t need right now is more commercial and residential blocks.

I absolutely agree with and understand that a city centre needs to move as its demographic changes. The city centre; particularly Queen St, is no longer the primary retail centre of Auckland it was in the 1960s and 70s, and it hasn’t been since suburban shopping malls arrived in New Zealand. As retail moved out to the ‘burbs during the finance boom in the 1980s the centre became further aligned with business and new office blocks and shiny towers to mammon went up almost as fast as the older buildings came down. Buildings by the corporate raider Ron Brierley (jailed for possessing child pornography) and investment bankers such as Fay (accused of tax avoidance and insider trading) and Richwhite (only accused of tax avoidance) were erected to show how important and flush they were with other people’s money.

Admittedly the Fay Richwhite Building completed in 1992 and now known as 151 Queen St or the SAP building is one of the better constructions. I worked in a slightly less lovely office block next door in the 90s and was slightly jealous of its shininess; until someone jumped off the roof in the midst of the financial crash that followed the boom, when other people wanted their money back.

There has long been a move to include more residential living in and around the centre, though the explosion of cheap and poorly built blocks of tiny flats for overseas students wasn’t what most people had in mind. This appears to have changed for the better with more attractive and thoughtfully designed (read more expensive) blocks, such as the one we live in, now being built. However, there appears to be a lot of inner city flats for sale (there are 1198 Auckland City apartments on realestate.co.nz today) and walking around the city I see a lot of apartments that appear to be vacant. Like cities and towns all over the world, absentee and second home owners buy property they rarely use, pushing up prices for everyone else and leaving city centres void of much needed life.

As I wander around the construction site that used to be Auckland’s heart I wonder if the work going on to build new towers for offices and flats is a final attempt by the monied class to remove the last remnants of a working class presence in the city. There seems to be a desire to finish the job started in the boom of new wealth in the 1980s to demolish the last of the small workshops, the warehouses and factories where the less privileged slaved for poor wages before schlepping back home to the suburbs. Each decade sees more of the old working city disappear and I find this monumentally sad. Blandness will eventually reign supreme.

I worked for a Brierley owned subsidiary when I arrived back in New Zealand in 1988 after a couple of years in London. Brierley bought the business, asset stripped it; flogging the good bits to another one of his companies, then making the warehouse and retail staff redundant. The building I worked in just up from the city centre, on Hobson St was demolished in 1991 and is still a small shabby car park to this day.

I walk along Wolfe Street on about 25% of my walks through and around the city because I love this derelict and half demolished building. It used to be Challenge House and was sold in the early noughties to be demolished for some new thing. However, there were issues with the consent to demolish so nothing happened and the first three floors were eventually turned into a very rough car park. The demo of the car park first finally started sometime in 2018 but stopped soon after. This is what it looked like in October of last year. It was graffitied and messy, with dangling plastic secure fencing on some levels, but no razor wire and no scaffold and no work being done.

Almost the entire block is now being demolished to make way for a ’multi-level commercial project planned to maximise gross floor area ratios’ (whatever that means in normal people speak). Naturally the developers are backed by overseas finance with a company registered in that bastion of financial openness, the British Virgin Islands; not that I’m suggesting they are carrying on with the property development and financial standards set by their predecessors (accusations of tax avoidance etc). A couple of the old buildings in the block will have their frontages preserved in a new found rush for facadism in Auckland, though that is as it says, just a façade. Nothing much is preserved and even that small amount is not by choice.

The block includes the building that housed Food Alley a very popular hawker style food centre which I used to enjoy eating at when I was working in the city. it was a good place to meet friends, buy a beer and food from the multitude of, primarily Asian, food stalls. It was the closest Auckland got to Singapore style eating and that has been taken away. Maybe it was too radical for the good burghers of Auckland city.

Weirdly, when I looked the address up on Google Maps, the shadow from one of the older towers casts a darkness over the building site; as if Google or the Gods don’t want to acknowledge the development is happening; or maybe its just the CIA have hidden something.

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When I was walking past last week I was shocked to find that the demolishers have come back, razor wire is all around the site and scaffold is now up and work has commenced on pulling this old, and frankly ugly, mess down. I took a few photos over the fence to remember the place as it will be gone when I’m back in New Zealand; possibly, I thought that last time I was here too.

Though I’ve just called it an ugly mess, I am a little saddened by this, this graffiti covered relic of a bygone era was unloved by many but it was symbolic of the rush to knock down the old and rebuild with the new, even if the new had never been planned, financed or even agreed. ‘Pull it down’ they say, ‘once it’s gone it’s too late to protest and they will accept our cunning plan for a replacement. Bastards.

The building on the other side of Wolfe St, number 6, was for sale in 2018, I’m not sure if anyone bought it. Built in 1912 it has been vacant for 23 years, and it still is. I wonder who owned it and whether it had been land banked until the money was right, though why it couldn’t have been repurposed for something and saved I don’t know, surely there would have been some value in restoring a heritage building? Perhaps I’m just a fantasist who longs for days past?

Challenge House was nothing special; so much so I couldn’t find a photo on the internet of when it was built or being used as it was intended. So, given its current state it has to go.

Few of the other remaining early twentieth century buildings left in town are ‘special’ either, but that doesn’t mean we need to get rid of them. There is an excess of commercial and residential property in the city, and now its largely unaffordable, few see the city as a retail destination either. We just don’t need any more large buildings; investment should be made in preserving and re-purposing the last remnants of Auckland heritage, while there is one.

Challenge House is dead. Long live Challenge House.

10 days left

Monday 14 February 2022 – Auckland city.

Though I (we) don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, it was worth noting February 14 in 2022 for two reasons. Firstly, six months ago, on 14 August we finished our time in managed isolation and were free to roam new Zealand (for three days before the Auckland lockdown ruined any plans we had), and secondly, we were going to fly to Christchurch for a week long holiday that afternoon, but…

I cancelled that trip last week due to the rise in cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in New Zealand. Though the daily infection rate is still very low (981 today) compared to the UK (35,000) it’s on the rise and the risk of getting ‘pinged’ and told to isolate for 10 days is rising with it. We can neither afford to have to isolate in hotel somewhere in the south island, nor do we want to miss our flight back to the UK on the 24 Feb, in 10 days. Perish the thought we actually got sick with Covid.

The primary reason for the trip south was to attend my nephew’s wedding in Dunedin where he is a student. It would have been the first time I’d have seen him, his brother and parents (his mother is my sister,) for a few years and we were really looking forward to having all the New Zealand based family together for the first time in ages. Due to Covid related risks none of the Aucklanders (mum, sister, son and other nephew and niece) are heading down to the wedding, which is a real shame. Eleanor and I were also looking forward to seeing some parts of New Zealand we haven’t seen before, Lake Tekapo for me, and hanging out with friends in Christchurch, a city I haven’t really visited since that terrible earthquake in 2011.

The days and weeks since we came back from Waiheke have been a real drag; with returning to the UK on the horizon, Eleanor working until last Thursday and the threat of Omicron growing exponentially I have really struggled with motivation and have done very little other than lie about reading a bunch of books; hoping somewhat for enough inspiration to get me out the door. It has been quite hot and extremely humid over the past week and having air-conditioning didn’t help me out of the flat’s front door.

I’ve been missing a destination, after roaming the city off and on for weeks I’ve not only run out of steam I’ve also run of interest. It isn’t the nicest centre to walk in at the best of times (and with all the construction at the moment it isn’t the best of times). I need somewhere other than the library to visit, a café or bar for instance. The kind of bar I could find in London, or any British or European city doesn’t seem to exit in Auckland. I want a bar or café with a sofa, or a comfy corner chair to relax into; and these just didn’t seem to exist. It’s all backless bar stools at high tables, benches or criminally uncomfortable wooden or plastic chairs. These things are fine when hanging out with a group of mates (except for those bloody bar stools), however they’re hopeless to lounge in with a good book for a slow hour over coffee or a glass of pinot and I like a lounge, and I want to lounge in comfort.

Recently my friend Martha introduced me to the atrium of the De Brett Hotel House Bar and subsequently we’ve been occasionally meeting there for a mid-morning coffee. The coffee is good too. Eleanor and I went there for a glass of wine one evening after work last week and it’s exactly the sort of place I dreamt about. Quiet, decent wine and comfy chairs, it looks fab and the music isn’t as awful as pretty much everywhere else in Auckland; i.e. not 70s/80s and 90s ‘hits’. It also had the feel of a place where I could sit with a book and headphones over a drink and I wouldn’t feel like other punters were staring at me like I am some sort of bookish loaner freak.

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One of the books I read was ‘Flâneuse’ by Lauren Elkin. Eleanor was loaned a copy by a London friend before we left but didn’t get a chance to read it so got a copy out of Auckland Library, of which we are now both members. I enjoyed it more than Eleanor did, I think.

One of the things the author mentions was the pleasure found in getting ‘lost’ wandering a city, something I still like to, and can do in London. I enjoyed the aimless, almost lost wandering in some of the places I have visited on my travels; places like Singapore, Hanoi, Paris, Barcelona and Valencia and I need to do more of this. It’s something that is seemingly impossible to do in, or near, Auckland’s city centre. Of course part of the reason for this is I’m pretty familiar with the city as I’ve lived here most of my life. Though having said that. I still like to place the blame for this squarely on the domination of the skyline by the sky tower. One of the benefits of walking under low cloud and in light rain is the absence of the sky tower.

I know I could get out of the centre and catch a bus out to Howick in the east or Beachaven in the north (I know the west pretty well) where I could lose myself fairly quickly, but who wants to walk in Howick or Beachaven? Not me. There is probably nothing wrong with those places, but I don’t want to walk suburban streets I want to walk in an urban centre, where there is some life and activity, some culture and some grit, and life goes on 24/7…

I finished reading ‘Flâneuse’ as a period of bad weather arrived, the wind, rain and cloud bizarrely inspiring me to get out to try and take some photos. I managed a couple of short walks, but missed the worst of the weather, which was a shame as the rainy city was what I wanted to photograph as I’m a bit sick of the constant nice weather. Weather forecasting in New Zealand is an even more inexact science that it is in the UK.

As I was wandering around I decided to buy myself a new Canon 50mm lens, the ‘nifty fifty’, it is very cheap and probably my favourite lens. The one I bought second hand in the UK before we left isn’t as sharp as it should be and I broke the one before that. I ordered one online last week and will collect it later today. I will do some comparison shots between the two, hopefully it will prove the lens I have is too soft; it’s either that or I cannot hold a camera steady anymore which would suck massively. I will sell one when I get back to the UK, they seem to hold value there better than here. I guess having some ‘spare’ money is the only benefit of not travelling to the south island, though I still need to be careful with the cash. My sabbatical ends soon and I start work again on 7 March, (in three short weeks, where did that time go!) but I won’t get paid until the end of the month.

I walked around the High St area, which is pretty much my favourite small bit of Auckland.

Then up to, along and around the back of K’ RD (Karangahape), avoiding the record shops on the way.

As always once I am out, I enjoyed taking photos again and wish I could do more. However, I’m still suffering from a mental block, a lack of desire to do anything more than lie about reading. I found writing this post chore enough and it’s taken four days to get it to print. I had to make myself do something as I want to write and photograph more but just can’t. I’m hoping a return to the UK will boot me out of this ongoing and frankly rather tedious lethargy.

Anyway, I will close by saying it’s not all doom and gloom in my head and there is plenty I’m excited about and looking forward to.

Happy Valentine’s Day lovely xx

A big view of Auckland

Sunday 16 January 2022 – Auckland.

Looking like a junkie’s dirty syringe waiting to inject gambling into the veins of Aucklanders, the Sky Tower thrusts into the sky above the city, the early morning dream of a well funded architect compensating for a small penis.

Visible from everywhere in the city, at 328 metres, the Sky Tower is the tallest building in New Zealand, the southern hemisphere (surprisingly yet to be unclaimed as Australian) and the 28^th tallest structure in the world. It is an important communications tower and popular tourist attraction but its main purpose is to act as a giant phallic advertisement for the casino it sits above. Before the tower there were no casinos or seemingly a need for a casino in Auckland.

Photo taken in October.

It was constructed between 1994 and 1997 and was, at the time, deeply unpopular with the people of Auckland; though I suspect most are, at best, ambivalent about it now. Approval was railroaded through with all the false commitments of economic benefit you would expect from an international gambling empire; the promised ‘world-class’ conference centre is being built now (delayed due to Covid). I hated it when it was first built and have a love/hate relationship with it now I’m used to it dominating the skyline. It’s hideously ugly, but also beautiful in a brutalist, functional fashion. For all my dismissiveness, it does have a great view over Auckland, and much as I never want to contribute to the casino’s vast profits I would still recommend going up the tower to look at one of the world’s prettier cities when viewed from on high.

The threatened cyclone had failed to materialise by mid-afternoon so, as the sky was relatively clear and Eleanor had a handy discount voucher, we took the opportunity to visit the towers viewing decks, one of the few items left on Eleanor’s Auckland to-do list. The tower is close enough that if it fell over the tip of the mast would likely hit the far side of the apartment block we live in, so it didn’t take long to walk there.

There are five (I think) publicly accessible levels in the tower; level 51 is the first viewing deck, 50 is the café, 52 the revolving restaurant, 53 access to outside activities and 60, the top viewing deck.

The automatic lift, with a viewing window in the floor, took us directly to level 51. Eleanor didn’t step onto the glass and I can’t recall doing so either. It was weird watching the journey up the lift shaft, it felt very sci-fi.

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As you can imagine, the view from Auckland’s tallest building is wonderful, from this height on a clear day Auckland is a lovely looking city, the two harbours almost mirror-like in the sun. The central business district almost looks grown up. I took a few photos though the heavily tinted and solid looking glass.

Just like the lift there are windows in the floor allowing a clear view down to the ground 200 or so metres below. I stood on the glass, though it was tentative and I didn’t stay for long. A nearby sign advised the glass was as strong as the concrete floor I was more than happy to walk on. Perceptions eh?

We caught a second lift up to the floor 60 viewing deck, there were fewer people up here which was nice, not to say that level 51 was crowded min. Very restricted numbers allowed up the tower during Covid.

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Most people were wearing masks on 60, unlike the floor the below. I took a photo out towards our apartment block, the white building touching the bottom left corner of the park.

This photo was taken in December out the bedroom window, as I said earlier, we are close and the tower is tall.

After circling the deck a couple of times, with me pointing out places of interest, or places where we had visited we took the lift back down to 51, then walked down to level 50 for a glass of wine and a relax over the view in the café. There was only time for one before we were tossed out at 6:00 closing.

It was still early so we walked to the Park Royal Hotel near the Wynyard Quarter and had a final couple of glasses of wine for the weekend (I had one more Man O’ War syrah) and the best fish and chips we have had in the city. It was a great end to a great weekend.

Waiheke weekender

Sunday 16 January 2022 – Waiheke Island, New Zealand.

Waiheke; an island of sun and sand, vineyards and restaurants and cafes, all connected by Auckland’s friendliest bus drivers. What else could you ask for in a weekend away?

Waiheke Island is the largest of the Hauraki Gulf islands and about forty minutes by fast ferry from downtown Auckland. It’s extremely popular with wine tourists, hen parties and other, less-alcohol focused day trippers. We spent the weekend there and it was a highlight of our time in New Zealand. Unsurprisingly, other than family and friend time, the moments I have enjoyed the most have been when we have left the city behind.

Over coffee earlier in the week a friend told me her brother and sister-in-law, who we’ll be staying with in Christchurch* in three weeks, were doing up an old bach (holiday home) on the island. I said we were going over for a day trip and was advised to contact them about staying there, which they happily agreed to.

It was finally time to break the backpack out from its long slumber, the last time it was used was in India in 2016. I love this backpack and can’t wait to be donning it for some sort of adventure in the future, pandemics and finances willing.

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We left for the ferry as soon as Eleanor finished work on Friday afternoon. We arrived at the ferry terminal 30 minutes before the ferry, joining the end of an ever growing queue before getting on a full ferry. Those at the end of the queue, being forced to wait for the next ferry. It looks like the island is going to be busy.

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Not being familiar with the location of ‘The Shack’ as our friends called their bach, we took a short taxi ride from the ferry. As the driver dropped us off he asked if we were sure this was the right address. The Shack is on a section that our friend’s US based brother bought to build on when he returns to New Zealand in a few years. The Shack will be demolished and a new house built. In the meantime our friends are making it habitable for use as a bach without spending too much money on it. We are the first to stay there. It sits just above, and has a view over, Sandy Bay and we loved it. It is very much my sort of place; informal, quirky and a bit ramshackle. A bit like me really.

I have seen some before photos and could see quite a bit of work had been put in to get it to a liveable state. My favourite interior design feature was this life-sized Donald on the loo door, and I now want one for my flat in St Leonards. Great for those suffering from constipation. I also particularly loved the astro-turfed floor.

The view from the deck is fantastic.

After unpacking we walked up the road and caught the bus into Oneroa. The first of six excellent bus rides with the nicest bus drivers in the world; they even wait for you to sit down before taking off, amazing! A number of the bus stops had mini-libraries in them too.

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We had dinner booked at Vino Vino in Oneroa but were too early for our reservation so had a drink in a nearby bar. I think the state of their wind break is a visual summation of the place; no vaccine passports, no masks and the worst wine on the island. We won’t go back. Imagine having that view for your customers and caring so little.

Vino Vino was exactly what I want from an island break restaurant; a stunning view, great service, the best ceviche I’ve ever had and great wine, including the first glass of syrah from local winery, Man O’ War. A syrah I will now dream of, as at $50 a bottle I won’t be drinking it often. We enjoyed our evening and were the last out the door. They cleaned their windbreaks too, just sayin.

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Saturday dawned wet, the first rain we have seen for a while, it wasn’t unexpected and we enjoyed hanging out in the Shack for a few hours until it stopped later in the morning. The rain was welcome.

We caught the bus to Ostend and visited the Saturday market where we shared a waffle for late breakfast.

The first stop on our unofficial ‘wineries on the bus route tour’ was the Tantalus Winery. We thought about going to Te Motu, and probably should have, but half the bus got off there so we went to the next winery on the bus route. We didn’t particularly enjoy the glass of wine we had at Tantalus so only stayed for one.

We walked up to Heke, a recently opened brewery/distillery/restaurant 100 metres up the road. It was busy and we got a high-table in the very noisy bar. I had another Man o’ War syrah, accompanied by some great fries and bread for second breakfast/early lunch. I mostly liked Heke, if the bar staff weren’t so loud it would’ve been nicer, credit to the staff for great service given the number of people there. The fries were great too. I tried a glass of one of their Waiheke whiskies. It was alright, a nice full round flavour but still a bit rough, though it was certainly drinkable. In a few years it will be a more enjoyable experience. Life is too short to not enjoy what I’m drinking. Eleanor had a gin and tonic with their gin which was very nice.

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We caught another bus to our final destination, Onetangi Beach. We had dinner booked later in the day so took our shoes off and walked along the almost empty beautiful beach, feet dipping in out of the warm sea as the tide washed up and down.

Then up some steps; lots of steps,

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to a great view over Onetangi from the top.

A hundred yards up the road we arrived at Casita Miro, our destination for the rest of the afternoon and my favourite place of the weekend. Casita Miro is a restaurant and small winery, heavily influenced by the flavour and art of Spain it serves tapas and makes a remarkable albariño, of which we had a couple of glasses.

Access to the winery is via a dusty brown gravel road with grapes growing down one side. Walking under the warm lazy, humid sun, if I squinted my eyes I could easily place myself on a similar road in rural Spain.

From the winery entrance to the tasting room is a long wall where a neo-Gaudi extravaganza is being created. Seeing the wall completed is reason enough to return when we are back in New Zealand next.

We relaxed for a couple of hours over a couple of glasses of wine and a mid-afternoon snack of manchego cheese with crackers and jelly. As the vineyard is quite small the vintner only produces a limited amount of each vintage each year and these are only sold in the shop. It was tempting to buy some, though they are expensive. It seemed much better to drink some wine in situ, enjoy the experience and have the memory to take away, and look forward to coming back with more money in the wallet.

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Reluctantly we left the winery, walking back down the stairs (they seemed steeper and longer) and along the beach to our final destination of the evening, Restaurant 370, over the road from that fabulous beach.

We met a couple of friends for a drink outside before heading in for an enjoyable dinner, and a final Man O’ War syrah.

A tropical cyclone had been forecast to brush the east coast of the North Island late Sunday or Monday. We had been keeping an eye on the weather all day with the idea of going back to Auckland after dinner if it looked like the wind would make the crossing unpleasant. It didn’t, so we had a final night in the Shack before catching the first ferry back to the city on Sunday morning. It was a lovely smooth and unexciting ride back to the city and reality. Boo hiss to reality.

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*We are flying to Christchurch on 14 Feb for a week in the South Island. With the omicron variant of Covid-19 only just making an appearance in New Zealand, we are hoping we’ll still be able to do this trip. However, the SI trip concludes three days before we fly back to London so we may be forced to re-evaluate that decision. I hope not.

Karangahake Gorge

Thursday 6 January 2022 – Waihi and Karangahake Gorge, New Zealand.

Karangahake Gorge is close to the top of my ‘Favourite places to visit near Auckland’ list. It has everything I want in a destination; lovely bush, an interesting history and the ruins to support that history, a good walk and a great river. Its main downside is it’s also on lots of other ‘Favourite places to visit near Auckland’ lists. It is hugely popular. We drove though the gorge on the way from Auckland to Whangamata, where we’ve been staying with friends for the past four nights. I had planned to stop but it was very busy as we passed through so we decided to stop on the way home instead; aiming to arrive earlier in the day to avoid the worst of the heat as the walking path is very exposed to the sun.

We managed to make the gorge as we drove home, but again far too late in the day for the full walk, it was another hot and busy day. Tottenham (Eleanor’s football team) were on the telly first thing in the morning so we had to stay and watch the match before we left.

As it was so late in the morning, and we had missed the early walking opportunity, we stopped for brunch and a quick look around Waihi as it was on the way. Waihi is a gold-mining town close to the eastern end of the gorge and, like the gorge, is interesting from a New Zealand perspective.

The Cornish Pumphouse was built on the edge of Waihi around 1904 to service the nearby Waihi Mine, New Zealand’s most profitable gold mine. It was modelled on the pump houses used in Cornwall in England to pump water from tin mines. I love this building, it stands on a small rise right on the edge of the town and can be seen for miles.

The open-cast Waihi Mine is no longer working and you can see a landslip on one side of the mine. If there was time I think a tour of the place would be really interesting. Another ‘next time’ activity.

The Karangahake Gorge was formed by the lovely Ohinemuri River which runs through the gorge. The gorge’s history is heavily linked with gold mining, though not in the same way as Waihi with its huge open-cast mine. Here, tunnels were dug into the hillside and the mined rock was dumped into the river. Pump houses pushed the water and rocks through large batteries which crushed the rock exposing the ore. The remains of that old industry lie all along the river side and I’d like to come back one winter, when it’s cooler and less busy, and photograph them again. At its peak, around the start of the 1900s, gold from the gorge made up 60% of the gold found in New Zealand. Prospecting still goes on in the area, but not to the same degree and it is all hidden away.

My favourite bit! I’m a huge fan of trees growing in and around ruined man-made structures, and I never tire of finding them.

We crossed the swing bridge over the Waitawheta River, a tributary of the Ohinemuri River just so I could take the above photos. From memory there is a good walk up the tributary that is less busy than the main path, though we didn’t really have time to do either today.

We dropped down to the edge of the Ohinemuri River for a quick look before walking back to the car and continuing on the with journey home. I think Eleanor was pointing to my finger being over part of the lens…

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We made a final, brief stop in the town of Paeroa for the obligatory photo by the giant Lemon and Paeroa (L&P) bottle, the town’s main tourist attraction since 1968. L&P is a soft drink that used to just be lemon and carbonated spring water from the town, but it’s been owned by Coca Cola for years and probably has loads more ingredients than is necessary. L&P isn’t sold or well known globally, but it is ‘World famous in New Zealand’.

Eleanor seems thrilled to have her photo taken near a New Zealand icon.

And that was it, the end of four great nights away, our first holiday in ages.

The Mount

Wednesday 5 January 2022 – Whangamata, New Zealand.

Famous for its small peak, glorious beaches, great surf, and drunken New Year’s Eve violence, Mount Maunganui has been a must go summer holiday spot since the invention of beer cans* for any young New Zealander with the means to get there and beer to drink.

I’ve never been to ‘The Mount’ for the New Year festivities but I have visited on a number of occasions over the past 30 or so years. The last time was the middle of the noughties when I used to do day trips to the nearby Port of Tauranga for work. I left Auckland early enough in the morning to get there for a run round the Mount, a quick swim in Pilot Bay to cool down then in to the office before most of the local staff turned up. It was usually a good day out.

Pilot Bay is one of two beaches at the Mount and is on the inside of the small isthmus, with the main surf beach on the outside. It’s a great place for a quiet swim and is family friendly. Eleanor and I started the 45 minute walk around the Mount from here.

We were in Mount Maunganui for the afternoon visiting friends who recently moved into a home mid-way between the two beaches. It is a 2 ½ hour drive from where we’ve been staying in Whangamata. It was another brutally hot day so Eleanor and I were advised the best thing to do in the midday heat was to take the easy and reasonably shaded walk and experience some of the fabulous views and the sea breeze that whips round the point. We weren’t the only people making use of the breeze, though not all of them were on the ground.

Leaving Pilot Bay there is a short and gentle climb which is pretty much the extent of the uphill walking all the way round. There were a few walkers but nothing like the crowds that filled the main shopping street. This is a very popular tourist spot and it gets extremely crowded over the few days around Christmas and the New Year.

As you near the tip of the point the stunning view over the Pacific and the bush lined white sandy beaches on the other side of the fast running harbour entrance comes into view.

The view all the way around is magnificent and I took quite a few photos.

Three quarters of the way round the almost complete circular path is a great view down the surf beach towards Tauranga. Eleanor enjoyed the view as well.

As the circle came to a close there are some steps that start the path up to the top of the Mount, I ran/walked up there ages ago and it’s tough going. It would be brutal on a hot day like today as there isn’t much shade on the early section. I’m very glad** to be rather unfit at the moment, that and the heat were goods reason to not make the climb.

We had a cool down dip in Pilot Bay once we had finished the walk and then went for an enjoyable drink and early evening pizza with our friends before driving back to Whangamata. I’m not as comfortable driving as I used to be and was loathe to be driving on windy country roads in the dark, so was quite happy we made it back soon after I’d put the headlights on.

Another great day on this lovely little break we are having, though we head back to Auckland tomorrow. We may come back to Mount Maunganui and explore a bit more before we leave for London in seven weeks. We just have to see how timing works and what else we need to fit in, and time is disappearing quickly now.

* This may not actually be true.
** This is also not true, I’m not at all happy about being so unfit.

Wentworth Falls, Whangamata

Monday 3 January 2022 – Whangamata, New Zealand.

There was a brief moment after I entered the bush as the others walked on down the gravel path towards the cars, their scuffed steps and voices receding into the short distance, when all I could hear was nothing at all. It was as if all the birds had collectively held their breath while they guessed my intent and the gentle breeze stopped disturbing the trees to allow them to listen to me blundering about below. A half second or two of silence and then the wind ruffled the tops of the punga ferns and the bird chatter and song started up again. A brief moment of what seemed like total silence, a thin gap between human sound and nature, like a line drawn in the sand that I was allowed to cross. It was heavenly.

I love punga trees as much as I love quiet; The punga is a tall fern, almost palm-like, that grows in most low-land New Zealand forest. I love the vivid green of their fronds and how they spread out canopy like. I have been trying to take photos looking up into the mixed fronds of neighbouring trees with a bright sky above. It has been difficult, the punga is a low to mid canopy tree, meaning there is often a taller or even two taller trees growing above, between it and the sun. I’ve yet to find exactly what I want, and today was no exception, though, I’m happy enough with this photo and more importantly enjoyed stepping off the track to it.

With another scorching hot day and uneven waves that were no good for surfing and a little too rough for family swimming I was surprised but not that surprised to find a lot of cars parked on either side of the narrow road to Wentworth Falls. The car park is a ten minute drive from where we are staying in Whangamata and it was busy. Half of Whangamata must have had the same bright idea as us; a cool walk in the bush.

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I love the New Zealand bush. Though it’s just a bunch of trees and scrub, maybe some ferns and grasses; all grouped together there’s nothing like it anywhere else. Due to New Zealand’s long isolation from any other land mass there are plants and trees here that don’t exist anywhere else on the planet.

Before I go further, and leave any wrong impressions ‘the bush’ is what Kiwis call a forest; large, small or any size in between, if there are a bunch of trees together and those trees are primarily New Zealand natives then it is the bush. A pine forest is not the bush, it is a forest.

The bush is generally considered to be ‘safe’, and I say this in quotes as it’s not entirely safe; the bush can be dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing, get lost or fall or otherwise hurt yourself away from other people, there are vast tracts of densely forested and unpopulated bits of New Zealand. However, New Zealand has no land animals that will kill you; there are no snakes, no majorly poisonous spiders, no crocodiles, no tigers/lions/other large cats/wild dogs with large teeth, nada. You can yomp around in the bush in bare feet to your heart’s content and nothing is going to fatally bite or sting you. There aren’t even any stinging nettles. However, there are lots of spiky things and some grasses with really sharp edges, so walking out of the bush with dried blood on your legs is not uncommon.

Unlike the south east of England, and due to its volcanic and tectonic birth, the New Zealand landscape is very bumpy; steep sided valleys are everywhere, which means there are a lot of rocky fast running streams, and these often lead to some pretty fabulous waterfalls. I used to take a lot of photos of fast running water, lots of lovely tripod mounted long exposures to blur the running water. With no tripod those photos are impossible, though I still enjoyed watching and listening to the water.

The bush was lush and cooling, it took us most of an hour to walk to the falls, mostly along a gravel path with a gentle gradient until close to the destination when, as you would hope when you are going to a waterfall, the path became a lot steeper. This is old gold mining country and there are a few bits of the old works still around. Though we didn’t have the time to do a proper explore I did find this huge stone wall, and I can’t tell you what it was for either. A mystery stone wall, with yeas of scratched graffiti and a punga stump in front of it.

The falls have a have a total drop of 50 metres and are in three stages and would be fabulous after some heavy rain, though were pretty spectacular as it was, though hard to capture on a wide-angle lens at that distance. There were a few people at the viewing areas so we didn’t linger and hog the selfie spot. It would’ve been nice to just stand and listen to the water pounding on the rocks below, the wind in the trees and the gentle song of the birdlife, but it was not to be; too many humans.

We walked up to the top of the falls to take a look at the view over the bush and out to sea. Glorious. I could spend all day here if I could, but sadly that was not the case today. Onward, upward (in this case downward to the car) and enjoy it while you can.

Three Songs, No Flash. The Beths @ Whammy Bar

Wednesday 12 January 2022 – Auckland

Before I start here is a quick note for anyone who landed here from a Google search while looking for information on The Beths Whammy Bar series. I couldn’t find the stage times elsewhere. This was from the Wednesday night performance so may not reflect the following nights.

Other than Friday 14 Jan, all five Auckland shows are sold out.
Doors at 7:00, the support band, Lips were on stage at 8:00 and The Beths on soon after 9:00.
A vaccine pass was required; most of the punters were wearing masks (yahoo).
Whammy has been proactive and installed some much needed, and very efficient, air-conditioning. The staff were great too.
Capacity has been reduced from 210 to 170 which made a massive difference to space.

The most important thing you’ll want to know; was the Wednesday gig any good? Hell yes, of course!

After the obligatory ‘Hi, we’re The Beths from Auckland New Zealand’, the band started with the fabulous oldie ‘Happy Unhappy’ with its poptastic ‘oh-uh’ opening, before launching into a set that seemed to have more tracks from the first LP than the second. All the ‘hits’ were there as you would expect so I doubt anyone will leave disappointed their favourite song wasn’t played. They introduced three new songs, unusually closing the encore with one of them, the very un-Beths like rager ‘Silence is Golden’, a track I’m looking forward to hearing on record.

If you have not heard The Beths and you like indie pop with great musicianship and witty songs with the best vocal harmonies New Zealand has produced since The Muttonbirds, then you definitely need to check them out. Then go buy some records. They are a great band, seem like lovely people and deserve to be huge, though not stadium huge as I hate stadium gigs. The Beths are doing a good old fashioned five night residency at the freshly post-lockdown re-opened Whammy Bar on Auckland’s K’ Rd.

My favourites ‘Future me Hates me’, ‘Uptown Girl’ and ‘I’m not getting excited’ were played at pace and were fabulous, as was ‘Jump rope gazers’. With so many people masked up the crowd singing along was slightly muted too, an unexpected bonus!

Australian artist Stella Donnelly was supposed to play the support slot but was unable to attend due to the travel restrictions. The Beths played one of her songs ‘Tricks’ in tribute, I thought that was the weakest song of the set.

We saw a great The Beths set at Heaven in London in August 2019, along with 1100 other people, though this much more intimate venue really suits their personalities. The on stage and audience banter worked so much better here and at times it felt like it was a sing-along with mates rather than a public show. With fewer people than normal Whammy Bar was the best it has been, the sound was excellent, particularly at the back and the lighting was not too terrible for photography, though I still had to convert to mono as the colour cast was pretty bad 🙂

I stayed at the front taking photos for the first three songs before heading to the raised area at the back to stand with Eleanor to enjoy the rest of the show.

I have not heard support band, Lips, before. I thought they were OK, they had some good songs, the first couple and the last were the standouts for me.

While Covid rates are (thankfully) incredibly low in New Zealand we all know how virulent the omicron variant is and we won’t know it’s in the community until it’s in the community. Getting Covid right now, just before we head off on holiday, and then back to London would be just so ironic. With that in mind I (we?) was a little tentative in the hours before the gig; this was only the second show we’ve gone to since Feb 2020 when we saw Penelope Isles in St Leonards. The last gig we went to was Deathcrash in July 2021 and it was a fully seated, socially distant event held in a Hackney church. The lack of shows was not through lack of desire; there were none in the UK before we left for New Zealand, and when we arrived in Auckland we went straight into lockdown. Gigs have just started again and we were so glad we got to go this one before we leave. It was originally scheduled for September and had been postponed twice before.

For a return to standing gigs we couldn’t have picked a better one. It was a fun show; great band, good sound, busy but not packed venue, and most importantly smiles round (as far as I could tell as the majority of the audience were wearing masks).

Whangamata, New Zealand

Thursday 6 January 2022 – Whangamata, New Zealand.

For the first time in an age I feel refreshed. A break from the city combined with four nights of solid sleep had me almost perky when we arrived back at the flat. We’ve just returned to Auckland after a fabulous time staying with friends at their bach in Whangamata. The quiet, sea air and stress free environment, matched with great friends and good food and wine was the perfect antidote to the noisy and fume laden city we live in.

It was about 20kms into the journey south, I was driving and Eleanor was in charge of the music, when the stress and anxiety that had built over the last few weeks started falling away. I almost felt physically lighter as the emotional load seeped though my skin and was sucked out of the car windows. The further from the city centre we travelled, the better I was feeling. I just knew we were going to have a good break, even when we caught up with the first traffic jam of the day.

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A bach is a New Zealand holiday home, often found near the sea. The glory days of the traditional one or two room bach made of wood or fibrolite with a tin roof are long gone. Some of the new places are bigger than the average house and as, if not more, expensive. Old friends Michael and Jan’s place is closer to the traditional bach than most, but it’s still large, with four sleeping spaces and a good sized kitchen/living area. It backs onto an estuary that flows along the southern edge of the town of Whangamata and is 100 yards from the surf beach. Whangamata is about 2 1/2 hours south east of Auckland and has a permanent population of about 2000 and a peak summer population of 25,000. It is peak summer.

We didn’t do much in Whangamata itself, it’s a small town with little of interest other than being located alongside a glorious 2km Pacific Ocean beach with occasionally good surf and a sea that is eminently swimmable in summer. For a short summer break who needs anything more than that? We seemed to busy the whole time we were away and only managed to take one walk up the beach; to the northern end, where we met our friends at a café on the main street and enjoyed one of the best breakfasts I’ve had in New Zealand. The sun burned the tops of my feet as we ate, thankfully not badly. The tide was very high when we set out so we had to make the occasional dash up a sand dune. In places we could see the damage this tide was causing the dunes and could imagine what Whangamata will look like as the sea level rises.

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Unlike Eleanor and I, this couple, mutually dressed in black and wearing the same model shoes, seemed to be having less fun walking the beach. I was laughing at them (inside of course).

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After breakfast Michael drove us to a bush-clad lookout over the town with a cool tree-shaded 15 minute walk around a headland. The tree line has changed since some of the lookout spots were defined leaving few clear wide open views over Whangamata and the ocean, though there was plenty to see and with a 30 degree day the tree shade and light breeze was very welcome. With or without trees the view was stunning.

Michael also showed us nearby Onemana where his family used to have a bach. What seems to be typical of New Zealand beaches there was little shelter here; as the beach was closed due to dangerous surf we didn’t linger. The leaning trees are an artefact of using a wide angle lens, the trees were standing nice and upright 🙂

Unlike the harsh daytime the evening light was warm and soft and welcoming and I used the camera a few times. I imagine the early morning light was equally as good, though until the last day I didn’t see any early mornings, sleeping to beyond 7:30 each day. Sleeping-in is part of my rest and recovery routine, photography should be as well I suppose, but I have never seem to manage morning photography.

On our final day I was up earlyish and managed to get one final body-surf in before we left for home, stopping in Waihi on the way. Waihi will be the subject of a near future post.

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Though I’ve not been working since July and we’re staying in a rented apartment in Auckland rather than our usual home in the UK, these past five months have never really felt like a break, especially as Eleanor worked for four of them. This was our first proper holiday in such a long time, and it was just so enjoyable. I can’t remember the last time we went away, it was pre-2020 anyway. We should do a lot more of it; now we are allowed to again.

Thanks Jan, Michael, Paul and Lisa!