Remuera is one of Auckland’s most prestigious neighborhoods. It is also one of Auckland’s hilliest, so today’s walk was one of ups and downs. We lived in Remuera back in the eighties. It was a one bedroom place that has since been torn down. It looked nothing like the grand old and new homes you are about to see but was good value at $26 a week. At $13 each that would get you a couple of lattes or a fancy cocktail today.
We are always impressed when a house and accompanying car match.
Also impressive was this huge and immaculately kept hedge.
We also loved this tropical plant with its fragrant yellow flowers. If anyone knows what it is, please let us know.
However, Remuera is not all big fancy homes. Dotted throughout the neighborhood, some of the original and modest state houses with their trademark orange tiled roofs have survived.
On a blustery day, we drove across the Harbour Bridge to the North Shore and the seaside suburb of Devonport. From there we started walking along the waterfront toward the adjoining neighborhood Stanley Point, enjoying the views to the city on the other side of the harbour.
Along the way, we passed Devonport Naval Base, home of the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN), also known as Taua Moana o Aotearoa (Sea warriors of New Zealand). The RNZN has approximately 2000 active personnel and 775 reserves. It has nine commissioned ships and Devonport is its only base that operates ships.
Stanley Point is a quiet residential neighborhood with a mix of old and new homes, many of which have beautiful views over to the city. Here are some of the homes we passed along the way.
There are also a number of small bays and parks by the water.
There weren’t too many people out and about. However, we were greeted by a few dogs as we walked by, including this little guy inviting us to join him for a service at a local church.
We decided to skip the service and seek nourishment of the body rather than the soul. Unusually for Auckland, we had to cover a few miles before finding a cafe to enjoy a coffee and an avocado on toast.
If you are in Auckland, we definitely recommend that you stop by the Auckland Gallery of Art to check out Fashion, Art, Fantasy, an exhibition of the extravagant, breath-taking fashions of Chinese designer Guo Pei. Many of the works are intricately embroidered and take over a year to make. Here is a sampling of the many pieces on display.
The exhibition culminates in Guo Pei’s most famous dress. Taking, approximately, 50,000 hours and 20 months to create, this canary yellow dress was worn by Rihanna to the Met Gala in 2015. Weighing about 25 kgs (55 lbs), it took a three person entourage to hold the long train.
It is hard to over-estimate the effect that the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) movie trilogy has had on New Zealand tourism. Nearly one in five visitors to the country still cite it as a reason they chose to visit New Zealand, almost two decades after the first film was released. Case in point is the Hobbiton movie set, situated near the town of Matamata, about two hours drive south of Auckland. It served as the village of Hobbiton in the Shire for both the LOTR and Hobbit film series. It is a must-see for fans of the Tolkien books and movies, and indeed over 650,000 visitors tour the set each year. But they are not all LOTR fans. Even non-enthusiasts like ourselves can find much to enjoy during the tours. For a start, the set is situated on idyllic farmland that is beautiful on its own account. Second, they have done a remarkable job with the set’s upkeep, with beautiful live flowers and fruit trees dotted throughout the village. With butterflies floating by and bees buzzing around, it was easy to feel the magic of the spot that is captured in the movies.
While almost all of the trees and flowers are real, not all are. For example, this tree was made specifically for the Hobbit trilogy to match a tree that had been lost after the LOTR movies. Even close up it was virtually impossible to tell that it wasn’t real.
Most of the hobbit homes have nothing behind the front doors. However, last year interiors were built for two homes. The level of detail inside them was truly impressive.
Fans of the LOTR movies will recognize this yellow door as being from the very final scene of the trilogy. The movies end with hobbit, Samwise Gangee, entering his home with his family after his long adventure, closing the door behind them.
On our last day in Otago, we headed down to Queenstown. We went for a stroll around the beautiful peninsula that adjoins the downtown area, enjoying the views of the town, lake and mountains.
The peninsula, with its beautiful rose gardens and quaint bowling club (that’s lawn bowls, not the ten pin variety), had a distinctly English feel.
Speaking of England, the classic car of the day is this Morris Minor 1000. Manufactured by Morris Motors between 1956 and 1971, these ‘Mori-thous’ (as they are locally known) were very common in New Zealand when Mal was growing up.
On another glorious Otago day, we decided to go for a bike ride from Arrowtown down along the Arrow river toward Queenstown. To make it even more enjoyable, we rented e-bikes which took much of the hard work out of the ride. Along the way, we passed through some stunning scenery.
We crossed some intimidating swing bridges. If you look closely at the next photo you will see Lauren crossing one of the highest.
And here is Lauren climbing one of the hills made much easier by the e-bike.
One of the bridges that we crossed is famous for being the home of bungee jumping. We watched a jump before setting off again. Neither of us felt the urge to take the leap.
If you look closely at the following two photos you can see the jump in progress.
We stopped for lunch at one of the many vineyards in the area. With half the ride still to go, we drank water, rather than the many wines on offer.
Arrowtown is a small historic town situated on the banks of the Arrow River, about 20kms (17.5 miles) from Queenstown. It began life in 1862 when Jack Tewa, known locally as Maori Jack, found gold in the Arrow River. Soon a township of over 1,000 miners sprang up that would eventually rise to over 7,000 at the height of the gold rush.
Now the town mainly caters to tourists, with its quaint old buildings, housing shops and restaurants.
Among the miners were a large number of Chinese, who, shunned by the locals, were forced to live in small huts along Bush Creek. Some of the original huts have been recreated. It’s hard to contemplate how harsh the conditions were for these men, especially during the bitter Otago winters.
Classic car of the day was this Holden Kingswood station wagon. These Australian cars were common throughout New Zealand during the 1970s. Unfortunately, they stopped manufacturing them in 1984.
On the way home, we drove up Coronet Peak, one of the local ski areas. The view was spectacular.
Because this is New Zealand, where safety seldom appears to be a concern, the parking lot had no barrier between the cars and the steep drop down the mountain. It was great for looking at the view but we were extra careful that we were in reverse when we pulled out of the spot.
Back in the neighborhood where we were staying, we noticed that the mail boxes were all in one spot, which undoubtedly made life easier for the local postie (kiwi for postal worker). We liked the ingenuity of some of the home owners in creating mail boxes that reflect their interests.
Neither of us are foodies, so we had no prior experience of dining at a truly high end restaurant. The type of restaurant where it takes five hours to eat nineteen courses (no exaggeration). Amisfield was named New Zealand’s top restaurant in 2023, and based on our experience it is easy to see why. Along with Mike (our nephew), Ben (our son) and Taylor (Ben’s girlfriend), we were seated in a semi-private room above the main dining area.
If you are a vegetarian, this is not the restaurant for you. During the evening, we sampled fish, shellfish, eel, lamb, duck, venison and elk. Most of the food was locally sourced and the presentation was often spectacular. The servings were all small but quickly added up as the night progressed. Often the food was disguised to look like something else. For example, this looks like a tropical plant but the flowers were actually a type of tomato salad on a cracker.
And the stones beside this bread are actually butter.
Sometimes, the dishes looked more offputting than they actually were. This may look like a bloody deer horn, but it is actually sculpted ice cream in a beet sauce. The ice cream was made from deer milk which apparently has a higher fat content than cow’s milk but is a lot more dangerous to obtain (deer have a tendency to kick).
A couple of times during the evening we were ushered outside. Once to sit by the barbecue where the meat was being grilled.
And once to a little glass house, where the sounds of the forest were being piped in. We ate a sorbet that was hidden among a little mossy tabletop garden. The sorbet was made from the leaves of a kawakawa tree. Kawakawa is a native tree that has long been used by maori for its numbing qualities. They would chew on it when they had toothaches. We did notice our lips getting a little numb.
As the clock passed eleven, we finally finished our last dish, which if our memory serves us correctly was ice cream made out of liver and fudge sculpted to look exactly like a huhu grub. It was certainly a night to remember.
Back in Point Chev, we once again admired the solidly built state houses that take up most of the neighborhood. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Labour Government set out to build thousands of homes for those on low incomes. The standard of materials and construction was high because the government was determined that the houses would not become slums. They are primarily stand alone homes made of wood or brick with large yards to grow gardens. They were constructed using over 400 designs, so no two houses in a given area were identical. Over 80 years later, most of the homes are still in excellent condition. We cannot imagine a government today going to the same expense in building public housing. Here are a sampling of some of the homes. You’ll notice, however, some homes have been up-dated.
Not all of the homes are state homes. Because of the large lots, there is now a lot of infill housing, with newer residences built in the backyards of the original homes. There were also some original deco style homes.
We even came across a street that appeared to have been developed at a later stage with larger homes.
There is also an enormous retirement community in the neighborhood called Selwyn Village. Covering everything from independent living to residential to hospital care, the community looked immaculate.
Down below the Village is a pretty park, overlooking the inner harbor and the distant humming northwest motorway. We have been impressed by the number of well kept boardwalks that we have come across winding through native forest and over marshland along the city’s shoreline.
Our classic vehicle of the day is this bright yellow VW Kombi.
You can always tell in New Zealand when Christmas is near because the pohutukawa and jacaranda trees are in bloom.
But for those who needed a reminder, there was this helpful flag waving over one home.
In Auckland every neighborhood has at least one cute little bistro or cafe serving excellent coffee, fresh food and home baked goods. Point Chev is no exception, so we stopped into the aptly named Ambler for avocado on toast, cappuccino and a long black (the New Zealand equivalent of an americano but stronger).
Accompanied by our cousin, Annette, we returned to the streets of Point Chev. Here are some of the traditional houses we saw along the way.
Generally, we have found the newer houses in the neighborhood to be less inspiring. One exception, however, are a number of houses that we have come across by architect, Guy Tarrant. Unusually, for new homes in Auckland, he often uses red brick. That, and his use of high windows, reminded us quite a lot of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian homes. Today, we passed by the architect’s own home, which won the New Zealand Institute of Architects prize for best home in 2017.
It, definitely, was not a day to lie out on the beach and work on our tans. However, it was still beautiful down on the beach.
Mal and Lauren 