It's enough to send us off our trolleys

Sylvia Park in Mt Wellington, where most of Auckland was heading yesterday. Picture / Greg Bowker

It's not a promising start. The media invitation to the opening of the new Sylvia Park complex suggests that as car parking will be in short supply, we should take public transport. As if. We're car-wedded Aucklanders - and how else do we get our new toys home?

Once our carload of three arrives at the complex, just off the Southern Motorway at Mt Wellington, we drive round in circles for eight minutes looking for a space. Cars are double-parked and straddle footpaths. There will eventually be 3100 spaces on the site for 200 shops - yesterday, as the first 57 shops opened, there were 1200.

Inside, it's packed - looks like St Lukes at 1pm on a Saturday, which is generally my definition of hell.

Many of the shoppers wear a grimace of slightly stressed urgency, some of their trolleys piled higher than their heads.

Five hundred people apparently queued for two hours before the 9am opening, lured by specials. One woman was apparently in her nightie, though the Herald was unable to establish whether she was showing off an eclectic dress sense, or was someone's wandering rellie.

When the doors opened at 9am, people ran - "stampeded," said one staffer - to Warehouse Extra for one of 300 Sanyo 14-inch tellies going for $49.95. They were gone in less than 30 minutes. Lorraine Meikle was one of the disappointed, but bought a 21-inch set for $189. She lives within walking distance and says there's no need to shop at Pakuranga any more.

It is odd to see the Big Red Shed selling bananas and meat and milk. Glendowie resident Tereza Cate, out with her mother and son, says she can't imagine buying groceries there: "I can't get my head around it." (Neither can I - yet). Mrs Cate says if she receives favourable reports she might give it a try.

The token bloke of our trio is stunned to see that only he's buying things. Anne and I had intended to, but are put off by the queues - 13-deep in The Warehouse, and it's got 28 checkouts.

As we leave, around 11.45am, police are pulling up on Mt Wellington Highway. The Southern Motorway is bumper-to-bumper, one queue nearly 3km long.

By the time we get back to the office, police have blocked off two of the centre's entrances and are asking people to stay away. You might see it as a PR disaster - or proof that the centre will be popular.