Mal and Lauren

March 19, 2021

On the way from Clyde to Lake Tekapo, we stopped in at the Omarama Clay Cliffs. As we have travelled around New Zealand, we have often thought how certain parts remind us of other countries. Consequently, our suggestion for an effective New Zealand travel ad campaign would be to show photos of New Zealand that appear to have been taken in other countries. For example, the ad would show a photo of Milford Sound and underneath say “Norway? No. New Zealand” “New Zealand, the world in one country”. In our campaign, the Omarama Clay Cliffs would stand in for Cappadocia, Turkey.

With its azure blue waters, Tekapo is,undoubtedly, one of New Zealand’s most beautiful lakes. The name derives from the Maori words, taka (sleeping mat) and po (night) and translates to “leave at haste at night”.

On the edge of Lake Tekapo is, perhaps, New Zealand’s most photographed church. The Church of the Good Shepherd was built in 1935. It is an appropriate name for a church built in the middle of sheep country.

March 18, 2021

After a hard day on the trail, we decided to spend the next day relaxing in the small historic town of Clyde. Clyde was formed at the time of the Central Otago gold rush of the 1860s. This was New Zealand’s biggest gold strike and led to a rapid influx of miners, many of whom were veterans of the Californian and Australian strikes of a few years earlier. Certainly, it has the look of a town in a Hollywood Western.

We wandered around the neighboring streets and came across some wonderful old cottages.

Clyde is in the driest part of New Zealand so it is unusual to see such lush grass as in front of this home.

Clyde is in the center of one of New Zealand’s primary fruit growing region and many of the homes had fruit trees in their yards. Pears and apples are in season.

The town sits on the banks of the Clutha river.

We also passed by the Clyde District War Memorial building housing the library and Plunket rooms.

If you ever find yourself in Clyde, we highly recommend staying at Oliver’s. It is a beautiful old inn with wonderful gardens and the proprietors could not be more accommodating. Ask to stay in the Coach Room.

March 17, 2021

The Otago Central Rail Trail is a 150 kilometer (93 Miles) walking, cycling and horse riding trail that follows a railway line that was built at the turn of the twentieth century. After about ninety years of operation it closed 1990 and began its new life. We only biked a sixty kilometer (40 mile) stretch of the trail. The trail was fairly flat and the stretch we biked was slightly downhill. However, after lunch a strong headwind began to blow which made it one of the more strenuous rides that we have done. Along the way we rode over trestle bridges and through tunnels. We saw some spectacular scenery and lots of sheep and cattle.

We passed the sites of a number of old train stations, such as this one at Lauder.

One surprising thing for visitors to New Zealand is the strength of the country’s coffee culture. Even in the middle of nowhere, it’s possible to find a cafe selling exceptional espressos, cappuccinos and flat whites. Kiwis are disparaging of paper cups, so most places you will find customers sitting and sipping their coffee from ceramic cups.

We passed through the charming little town of Omakau.

We stopped for lunch at a tavern in charmingly named Chatto-Creek

After struggling through headwinds over the plains, it was nice to get down to the shelter of the trees lining the Clutha river.

As we started on our two hour drive to Milford Sound from Te Anau it was pouring and we worried that it would be a miserable and soggy cruise on the fiord. As it turned out it was all for the best. The Sound has, apparently, only one “full time” waterfall. The rest only work either when it is raining or when there has been a recent rainfall. As a result, we were treated to the drama of hundreds of waterfalls cascading into the Sound.

Called Piopiotahi in Maori, Milford Sound, was once deemed the eighth Wonder of the World by Rudyard Kipling and it’s easy to see why. It is one of those places that surpassed the hype. It’s hard to describe the grandeur of the place and the photos certainly don’t do it justice. Our suggestion is to visit it in person. And if you are in New Zealand do it before the travel ban ends. The dozens of empty bus parking spots and hundreds of empty car spaces at the boat dock suggests that the place would normally be packed with tourists.

It’s hard from the photos to show the dramatic heights of the cliffs that rise over a thousand feet straight up from the fiord but if you look at the following photos you will see two tiny boats at the bottom. They are, in fact, huge tourist boats.

The boat nosed in underneath two of the waterfalls which left us drenched but exhilarated.

You can see clear lines where the fresh water from the waterfalls and salt water from the ocean meet.

Walking back to the car from the boat, we enjoyed some beautiful New Zealand native plants and a view of iconic Mitre Peak.

The drive in and out of Fiordland is also very dramatic. At one stage you drive through a long, wet, and steeply sloping tunnel.

March 12-14, 2021

On a bright and sunny day we boarded an Air New Zealand jet and flew from Auckland to Dunedin in the South Island. Along the way, we enjoyed some incredible views of New Zealand, including some spectacular views of the Southern Alps and New Zealand’s highest mountain, Mt. Cook (Aoraki in Maori).

With a population of just under 130,000, Dunedin is New Zealand’s sixth largest city. Its name comes from Dun Eideann, the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Appropriately, there is a decidedly Scottish feel to the town and there are some wonderful old buildings.

The main shopping street is George Street, which resembles many New Zealand retail avenues with its verandas.

Social life centers around the Octagon, a circle at the center of town lined with bars and bisected by a beautiful covered walkway.

While we were passing the Octagon we noticed that they were showing the latest America’s Cup race live on a big screen so we stopped to catch the end of the race. We are happy to report that New Zealand won, although as we write this, New Zealand and Italy are deadlocked at 3 races apiece in the first to seven series.

Our good friends Howard and Carolyn had also flown down from Auckland so on the next day the four of us set out to explore Dunedin and some of its surrounding areas. We started in the seaside suburb of St. Clair. St. Clair beach has been called “Bondi without the crowds” and it is easy to see similarities with the iconic Sydney beach. It even has an Oceanside salt water pool similar to the one at Bondi.

From St. Clair we drove over the hill to nearby Tunnel Beach. It is one of the most beautiful places that we have seen anywhere and is definitely a must-see if you are in Dunedin and are up for the challenge of the challenge of the steep pathway that takes you there. It takes its name from a narrow tunnel down to the beach.

From Tunnel Beach we drove up to New Zealand’s only castle, enjoying spectacular views along the way.

Larnach Castle, sitting high on a ridge of the Otago Peninsula was built by William Larnach in 1871-1874. It is surrounded by beautiful gardens.

From the castle we drove further out to the tip of the peninsula to see the albatross soaring along the cliffs by the world’s only mainland breeding colony. They truly were a majestic site sailing along effortlessly while other lesser birds frantically flapped their wings to stay aloft in the strong winds.

Speaking of gliding effortlessly in the wind, we stopped off at the Portobello pub to watch the kiwis beat the Italians in the latest America’s Cup race.

It’s the first pub that we have come across that specifically welcomes breastfeeding.

On our final morning in Dunedin we visited Baldwin Street, recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the steepest street in the world. We parked at the bottom and walked the 350 meters to the top. Unfortunately, the photos do not do justice to just how steep it is.

On the way up we met these two women who were touring the South Island with their ten incredibly well behaved dogs.

March 8, 2021

We walked from our home to nearby downtown today. Along the way we passed what must be one of the largest fitness centers in the world. Les Mills was a New Zealand olympian, representing New Zealand in the shot put and discus throw. He was also mayor of Auckland for most of the 1990s. In 1968 he started his first fitness center. Over 50 years later, Les Fitness International is now a phenomenon, licensing workouts to over 20,000 clubs worldwide with classes being taught by over 140,000 instructors. There are also 12 Les Mills gyms in New Zealand including the flagship gym we passed on Victoria Street.

The photo does not do justice to the real size of the center. There is an adjoining modern three floor building and a recently added multistory carpark. It used to be our favorite gym anywhere and we would regularly attend the gym’s trademark bodypump and RPM spin classes when we were back in New Zealand. But after a recent renovation, we find the center just too loud, with music blasting at ear splitting levels from the various classes happening in different parts of the gym. Now, we prefer to do the Les Mills online classes from the comfort and quiet of our own home.

Just up the hill from Les Mills is the Sky City entertainment complex. Sitting directly beneath the Sky Tower, it includes a 700 seat theater, bars and restaurants, three hotels, and Auckland’s only casino.

Next we found ourselves on Queen Street, Auckland’s main shopping avenue. In Auckland, the weather is always changing. At one moment you can be in bright sunshine and in the next you are in driving rain. We expect that it is because of these rapid changes that the sidewalks of most of New Zealand’s shopping streets are covered by verandahs. Queen Street is no exception.

The shops on Queen Street, particularly down toward the harbor where it dead ends, are mainly targeted toward the hoards of tourists that in non-Covid times flow out of the massive cruise ships that tie up at the nearby wharves. We have seen as many as four of these huge ships in port at once, each carrying thousands of passengers.

To find more interesting and original stores, it is best to take one of the access ways, such as Vulcan Lane, that lead up off Queen Street into small neighboring streets.

One area just off Queen Street that is now a mecca for trendy boutiques, restaurants, bars and cafes is Britomart. Sitting directly behind the downtown rail terminal, it used to be Auckland’s central bus terminal.

While we were there, we noticed numerous musicians being filmed by roving bands of camera and sound operators. Apparently, there were filming for a new television series, aptly, called “Buskers”.

We stopped for lunch at one of the trendy restaurants.

The boutique Hotel Britomart makes these vintage style bikes available for its guests.

We liked the mural of different urns on this building.

Mal used to work part-time at a law firm in this building when he was at law school.

He also spent more than a little time at the pub next door. It’s a lot more upmarket than it was back then.

March 6, 2021

Mal’s sister and brother-in-law, Christine and Bill, live on a hilltop overlooking idyllic New Zealand farmland and beyond to Pakiri Beach. Pakiri is about an hour’s drive north of Auckland on the east coast. “Pa” is Maori for village or fortified settlement and Kiri refers to Te Kiri, a local Maori chief. Hence Pa-kiri.

This is the view we woke up to.

We decided to go for a morning walk down the hill from their house to the main road and back. It wasn’t the longest walk that we have done but it was definitely one of the most strenuous, as we walked back from the road up the hill to the house. The pictures don’t do justice to how steep the incline really was, but take our word for it!

In the late afternoon we went for a long walk along Pakiri beach with Christine.

L

March 4, 2021

We are still Covid lockdown here in Auckland, so heeding government instructions we walked close to home, exploring our home neighborhood of Freeman’s Bay.

It is a neighborhood with an interesting history. First, it has not actually been a bay since the late 1800s when a massive land reclamation project pushed it far from the sea. One of Auckland’s earliest settled areas dating back to the 1840s, it is probably named after James Stewart Freeman, who was the secretary of William Hobson, New Zealand’s first governor. Freeman was apparently quite a colorful character. In fact, John Logan Campbell, a prominent New Zealand public figure from the time, described Stewart as “the most disgustingly immoral swindling scoundrel in town”. The neighborhood seems to have been aptly named because during its early history it was seen as a center of crime, prostitution, sedition and union activity. The neighborhood consisted primarily of workers cottages, housing the families that served in the nearby industrial works that included sawmills, foundries, asphalt and glass works, and the city rubbish incinerator. Things have certainly changed. Due to its close proximity to the city center, the neighborhood has become very desirable and many of those workers cottages now sell for over a million dollars.

In 1905, Victoria Park, named after the Queen who had died four years earlier, opened on land that had been reclaimed from Freeman’s Bay. As an aside, the Maori name for the bay had been Waiatarau, meaning “Reflecting Waters”, a far more beautiful name to our minds.

Having been built on reclaimed land, the park is entirely flat. While it was virtually empty due to the lockdown, it is normally dotted at this time of the year with cricket players from the local Grafton United Cricket Club which has its clubhouse on the north side of the park.

The park is encircled by London Plane trees that were planted at the time the park opened to give shade for spectators of the cricket games.

Adding further shade is a highway overpass constructed in the 1960s that bisects the park.

Sitting in the shadow of the highway is the Campbell Kindergarten, paid for by Sir John Logan Campbell, an early Auckland mayor. It is currently being used as a circus school.

Across the road from the southern edge of the park is Victoria Park Village. Between 1905 and 1915 this was the city’s rubbish incinerator, known as the Destructor. It was decommissioned in 1973 and stood vacant for a number of years until it was reopened as Victoria Park Market in 1983. We remember that market fondly as a vibrant spot full of shops and booths, selling a wide range of clothes and handicrafts by local artisans. However, in 2016, the market underwent an extensive refurbishment and was rebranded as Victoria Park Village. It is a far less vibrant place now and we miss the market’s prior energy.

There is a Celebrity Walk of Fame that includes the foot and handprints of a number of famous New Zealanders. Included are the handprints of Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to climb Mt. Everest and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, the Soprano, who among many famous gigs, sang at the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Di.

Ed Hillary is so beloved in New Zealand that he is featured on the country’s five dollar note. That got us to thinking how many other countries include depictions of non-political leaders on their money. We have to guess that there aren’t many.

On the hill directly behind Victoria Park Village are a number of new and old factories. Among them is the original factory for C.F. Neary Ltd. Our dear friend, Howard, is the third generation in this business started by his grandfather Clarence in 1918. The business now works out of other premises, continuing to manufacture and restore furniture and shelving. If you need any furniture renovated or built, you definitely should get in touch with Howard. No-one does better and higher quality work than C.F. Neary Ltd.

Sitting next to the market in the shadow of the highway is the Birdcage Hotel, a Victorian pub built in 1885-86. When it was built it sat directly on the quayside of Freeman’s Bay. The entire building was relocated slightly north of its original location following completion of a highway tunnel that lies under the park.

The main street running through Freeman’s bay is Franklin Road. Compared to Washington D.C., Auckland has very few tree-lined streets. Franklin Road is a rare exception. It is lined by plane trees planted in 1873.

Although many of the houses on Franklin Road are smaller cottages

There are also some larger grander houses lining the road.

Franklin Road is most well-known, however, not for its trees but for its holiday decorations. Every year leading up to Christmas Day, most of the houses put up extensive festive decorations and lights and attract large numbers of onlookers.

This house had the most unusual hibiscus flowers that we have seen.

We also passed by Blomfield House, built as the home of the painter Charles Bromfield. Bromfield was born in England in 1848 and died in Auckland in 1926. During his life he painted several famous paintings of New Zealand landscapes. The house was built by his brother Samuel, reputedly from a single kauri tree.

There is one other prominent park in Freeman’s Bay. Western Park was opened in 1979 and is one of the oldest parks in Auckland. Unlike Victoria Park which is entirely flat, Western Park is almost entirely on a hillside, extending down from Ponsonby Road toward the bottom of Freeman’s Bay.

We liked this whimsical tree

And this pebbles sculpture by John Botica.

At the bottom of the park are some tennis courts and a playground which had some very cool slides.

And a trampoline.

Although Freeman’s Bay consists mainly of single family homes, there are some apartment buildings including these near the bottom of Western Park.

Here is a sample of some of the residences throughout the neighborhood.

A constant source of frustration for Aucklanders are the endless roadworks that never seem to make any progress. Case in point are these roadworks at the bottom of Hepburn Street which have been there forever. Some sarcastically state that Auckland is fast becoming the “City of Orange Cones” rather than the “City of Sails”.

There are no shortage of cafes in the neighborhood. One of the most distinctive is Queenies, hidden beneath its overflowing ivy.

Speaking of ivy, we liked this ivy covered black wall.

We are big fans of the fruit feijoa, so we were excited to see this feijoa tree overflowing the sidewalk. We’d liken it to a mix between a pear and a banana. Apparently, it is native to South America so we’re not sure how it ended up here!

March 2, 2021

After dinner, we set out for a walk through Freeman’s Bay and and neighboring Grey Lynn. Adding a tropical feel to the evening were these waving palms.

There are many charming small cottages in the area. This one is definitely the most colorful.

And this one is one of the most quaint.

Walking along Ponsonby Road, we enjoyed this swirling sidewalk pebble mosaic, created by Mark Davidson.

There were also some dramatic swirling clouds.

If you are a fan of kombucha (as we are) and you are in town you will want to drop by New Leaf, New Zealand’s first pure Kombucha taproom.

New Zealanders seem to be very fond of their kombucha, with many varieties available. But kiwis real passion seems to be for coffee and cafes. It’s almost impossible to walk any distance without passing a cafe. And if there is no cafe available, chances are you can pick up an espresso from the local gas / petrol station. We passed this little neighborhood cafe that was unfortunately closed due to the current lockdown.

We have noticed during our walks through Washington DC that a number of churches and other religious buildings are being converted into hotels, restaurants and even bars. Apparently, the same thing is happening in Auckland. Case in point is The Convent, which was once a community for nuns but is now a boutique hotel.

Another repurposed building is Studio One Toi Tu on Ponsonby Road. Now a community arts center, the building started life a a police station and barracks.

At the top of Western Park next to Ponsonby road is a sculpture installation by John Radford. It depicts pieces of buildings that once stood in Auckland, sunk into the ground as if they are ancient ruins.

By the time we got home, the palm trees were almost in darkness.

February 28, 2021

We are currently in lockdown in Auckland due to a recent community Covid outbreak. However, we are allowed to walk in our neighborhood, so we decided to go for an after dinner walk in the nearby St. Mary’s Bay neighborhood, that slopes down toward the Westhaven Marina and the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Along the way, we passed the local Plunket Society center. Founded in 1907, this New Zealand institution provides a range of free services for the wellbeing of children under the age of five. It takes its name from Lady Victoria Plunket, a mother of eight and wife of the Governor of New Zealand at the time the society was founded. She became a devoted patron of the Society and was instrumental in the decision to establish a professional nursing service to help parents with their infants. By the time that she returned to England in 1910, nine branches had been formed throughout the country and today there are hundreds. Mal still has the small Plunket Book in which the visiting nurse wrote notes

on his progress. He wants everyone to know that she described him as a happy baby with a healthy appetite.

There are a wide variety of traditional and modern houses in St. Mary’s Bay. Here are some that took our attention.

Many had nicely sculpted hedges.

And other plants

Including this massive Rosemary plant.

There are also a few apartment buildings in the neighborhood. We really liked this one.

We took time to take a swing in a local park with a view down toward the Harbour Bridge.

The tree holding the swing had a remarkable camouflage pattern, that could have been the template for an army uniform.

We came across some classic cars, including these German cousins.

But our favorite was this Morris Marina.

There are two Auckland landmarks that are visible from all over the city and far beyond. One is Rangitoto, the volcanic that sits just offshore. The second is the Sky Tower, which aptly towers over the rest of downtown at a height of over 300 meters. Completed in 1997, it is the tallest freestanding structure in the Southern Hemisphere and the 27th highest tower in the world. Here are some views of it that we encountered as we made our way back home.

We turned west into one street to be greeted by this vibrant sunset.

Just as colorful was a local neon shop with this playful sign.