AUCKLAND - NEW ZEALAND

20th - 23rd Aug 2011

City of Sails

Auckland, known as the 'city of sails' due to it's seafaring history, is a large sprawling city of 1.2 million inhabitants. It accounts for over a quarter of the entire NZ population. It consists of several districts spanning the isthmus between the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea, and has harbours for both; Waitemata Harbour to serve the Pacific and Manukau Harbour to serve the Tasman side.
What I saw was mainly the city centre and quayside areas plus a couple of the outlying districts, Newmarket and Ponsonby. There are indeed some very pleasant and wealthy looking residential areas but, certainly in the city centre, I thought it was, for the most part, rather tacky. Lots of grotty fast food establishments, loads of 'liquor stores', gambling joints and dirty bars with a few decent shops and watering holes on the quayside. Lots of urban grot.




Left: A friend of mine in the UK had a little dog like this. He called it Birmingham. Why? Because it was mainly black and brown with a couple of white patches.
Auckland centre reminds me of Birmingham. All the taxi drivers are Indian and there seems to be a preponderance of Asian, Oriental and Polynesian inhabitants. They call it a 'vibrant ethnic mix'. Smart it is not.






The outstanding structural feature of the city is the SkyTower ( right ). It has a complex around it's base consisting mainly of rather naff bars and casinos. The tower itself is quite elegant; 1076 ft high to the masthead tip with a 'sky deck' observation platform at 722 ft. So it's about half the height of the CN Tower in Toronto, but it's the highest structure in this part of the world ( I think ). High structures are not best suited to these shaky earthquake prone islands, although serious earthquake proofing is built in here.  It has a revolting, sorry revolving, restaurant.

A.J.Hackett, he of bungy jumping fame, has introduced two additional money spinners to the tower. You can jump from 636ft up on the end of a sort of abseiling wire. This is the Sky Jump, or at the same level walk around the outside of the tower  on a 1 metre wide unrailed grating platform ( attached to a safety line, admittedly ). This is the Sky Walk. At $225 and $140 a go respectively, I happily resisted both temptations.

....there seemed to be plenty of takers for these expensive adventures. NZ seems to have become the undisputed world leader in profitably getting people to leap off tall features and structures. After rugby and sheep-shearing it is their national passion.  

...and on the main observation level ( 610 ft ) it has a glass floor. A bit of a copy of the CN Tower.

On a nice day there are certainly good views from the Sky Deck. This ( right ) is looking over the quayside and harbour to the north-east. Rangitoto volcano ( island ) in the distance. The Auckland area is made up of many lowish extinct volcanos. Well, they anticipate more volcanic activity....but when is anyone's guess.

....and this ( left ) looks over the Westhaven Marina and Harbour Bridge to the north which, of course, courtesy of Mr Hackett again, you can also climb up to the top of and jump off with a bungy ( surprise surprise ). I don't think there is a single static vertical object over 150 ft high in NZ which you can't bungy jump from.

....and west towards Eden Park ( centre right ), the stadium soon to be a focal point of the forthcoming World Cup rugby tournament.....I predict the All Blacks will win, and watch out for Tonga.

Left: This is the War Memorial museum in Domain park to the south-east. It is a decent museum and one of the few Grand looking buildings in the city. It has three floors. The ground floor is devoted to Polynesian culture; lots of big canoes ( waka ), carvings, weapons, masks, tools and Maori paraphernalia. The first floor is natural history with, like Te Papa museum in Wellington, an excellent section given over to volcanoes and earthquakes featuring a simulated volcanic eruption and tsunami off the coast of Auckland. The top floor is a war and weapons museum also featuring a war memorial hall. Well worth a visit. There is another exhibition which I didn't get the chance to visit and which is, apparently, brilliant namely 'Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World'. It is housed in converted storm-water and sewage holding tanks out to the east of the docks. There is also another good one, the 'Voyager Maritime Museum' near the marina. OK, the city does have some interesting things to see.

The country is really winding itself up for the World Cup rugby which kicks off on, I think, the 8th Sept? Lots of flags on display all over the place ( as per right ). I have a horrible suspicion that hotels are already over-booked, restaurant prices will go through the roof, there will be queues for everything and a shortage of expensive transport amongst other things. The sale of the new style 'Adidas' sponsored All Black rugby shirts has already caused riots because Adidas are/were selling them for $225 each in the country when they were available 'abroad' for half that price. Adidas have been accused of being greedy. Well I never!

So that, in short, was my Auckland experience. Lots of potential there, but I think Auckland centre has suffered from some pretty bad architectural and environmental decisions in the past. It isn't that bad a city really, but was my least favourite place of all the towns, cities and countryside areas that I visited. I suspect it was because the other places were all so pleasant.

My tour of NZ has been great fun and a big eye-opener. It is a new country with so much potential and so much space to accomodate investment and enterprise. All the places that I have been to on this world journey, so far, have had their good, less good and even bad points. NZ has more good than most. As I'm sure you don't need to be reminded, all this is only my snotty opinion but I will summarise anyway. NZ offers plenty of entertainment in many areas ( especially leaping off and out of things ) but is, perhaps, lacking, at present, 'top end' facilities, culture and occasion. On the big plus side it doesn't have nearly so much of the European and American 'bottom end' foulness. The countryside and most towns are remarkably beautiful and all refreshingly different from one another. It is an expensive place ( for a Brit tourist anyway ) especially food and drink but, thankfully, does not have that irritating American 'tipping and ++ tax' culture, ie what you see on the label is what you pay. No extras, and barmen, guides, drivers etc. do not expect, of right, to be tipped. The Kiwis unfortunately do have, to my ears only perhaps, a few annoying colloquialisms amongst which, the worst by far, is that ghastly Americanism 'awesome' which they have adopted with indecent enthusiasm. They even have companies called such things as 'Awesome Tours' and 'Awesome Eating Experience'. I hope they stamp that out firmly, and soon. There is an over-abundance of Starbucks, MacDonalds, Burger Kings and the rest and they chose to adopt the 'dollar' as opposed to stick with the 'pound'. They are, like so many countries, in thrall to the USA. Having said that, they did boot the US 'observation' presence off the Mt. John observatory facility near Lake Tekapo for, allegedly, misusing it as a spying/eavesdropping base; but then what did they expect?
I must just mention that I collected my non-operational very expensive and robust lap-top computer from a MacStore in Auckland where the damage was being assessed. Their assessment for repair costs was $5840.......and their fee for doing the assessment was $138! This was reduced to $60 in the face of a dangerously berserk customer. Needless to say the damned lump of metal is still non-operational and I am planning my revenge.

Off now to the land of Oz, a country which has proved beyond doubt, given sufficient time and space, that you can turn a bunch of criminals into a self-supporting, indeed prosperous, nation with some great people ( Rolf Harris and Dame Edna Everage to name but two ) albeit with the likes of Ned Kelly and Rupert Murdoch.
....and g'day to you all, mates.