Auckland never runs out of strangeness and delight. Photo / Dean Purcell
OPINION
Tāmaki Makaurau, home of the foodbank, the ram raid, the traffic jam, the neoliberal agenda designed to make the poor poorer — verily, Auckland can be a swine of a place, too loud, too violent, sometimes just plain too much. But I love it to pieces. This is the 10th year I have compiled a list of the 20 best things in Auckland life, and nothing has yet been repeated, which makes a compendium of 200 best things since 2013 — and that hardly scratches the surface. There is so much to experience in this isthmus of two harbours and its population of an estimated 1,673,220, give or take. It never runs out of strangeness and delight. Who would want to live anywhere else?
Harbour Bridge Policing Centre, 28 Sulphur Beach Rd, Northcote Point
Modern police stations conform to a soul-destroying ugliness — do architects hate cops? — but this modernist gem, dating back to the 1959 opening of the harbour bridge, is a reminder of a kinder, better age. It has a beautiful wooden bannister. It has a cast-iron safe that used to secure coins for the toll bridge. It has an incredible view over the Waitematā to the North Shore, to Rangitoto, to Mt Wellington, to the CBD. It has a sense that law and order was, and still could be, regarded as something beautiful.
Westfield Newmarket Mall, Mortimer Pass
Two double-height airbridges made of steel (60 tonnes of it!) and glass (30 tonnes) connect the malls on 277 and 309 Broadway, and provide the grooviest experience of walking on air in the city. To the near east, a view of Mt Eden; to the immediate west, the gardens of Highwic. There is no better indoor fantasy space like a shopping mall, and these double-decker airbridges give the experience an added magic. Full credit here to commercial glazing company Woods Glass, 100 per cent NZ owned and operated, makers of transparent art.
Browns Bay Senior Citizens Hall, 9 Inverness Rd
On the first Saturday of every month, stamp dealers John and Jan Fitzpatrick set up tables at the senior citizens hall in dear old Browns Bay, that seaside suburb that always feels stuck in a time like 1953, and conduct a not especially booming trade in stamps, those miniaturist artworks that once inflamed the imaginations of tens of thousands of Kiwis. The hall is transformed into an art gallery of constant delight; to flip through the various albums and boxes of stamps from around the world is to feel transported to a time like 1953.
564 Puhinui Rd, Wiri
There are two carparks on either side of Puhinui Rd set up as viewing platforms of Auckland Airport, and both were full when I visited the other day. Young families, old codgers, kissing couples, card players, Thermos drinkers — it was going off, and the planes were coming down, casting sexy shadows over an inlet of the Manukau as they came in to land right above the lookout.
Ardmore Airport, 511 Harvard Lane, Ardmore
I flew a plane this year. Fletcher McKenzie, author of From the Pilot’s Seat: Kiwi Adventurers in the Sky, drove me out to Ardmore, that perfectly charming aerodrome with grass runways and quaint timber sheds (Ardmore dates back to 1943 and retains a kind of sepia mood), and took me up in his two-seater Citabria. I flew over the Hunua Ranges. God it was good. It was even better to get out of the sky — you can die up there! — and land at safe, lovely Ardmore.
Tony Martin’s Gym, 8 Carr Rd, Three Kings
Hundreds of thousands of motorists on the Southern Motorway will have seen the sign for Tony Martin’s Gym: BETTER NEVER STOPS. Inside, its upstairs weights room has to be seen to be believed. “This,” said owner Danni Freeman, 39, a woman with fantastic biceps, “is where the magic happens.” Every single piece of equipment is in yellow and black, Taranaki colours, the home town of gym founder and former cop Tony Martin. Tony died this year. His legend lives on in one of the few Auckland gyms that specialise in bodybuilding. I visited the other day and met Siolo Brown, who has been working out in the gym since it was opened in 1996 — and was training his son VJ, who plays prop for the St Kentigern’s 1st XV, and is determined to go all the way. I may have met a future All Black on the premises of this hardcore temple of strength.
Washaholic, 978 Mt Albert Rd
Washaholic! Can you be addicted to laundry? Are there wrap-around social services such as WA (Washaholics Anonymous)? Even more or at least as far-fetched is its subtitled claim, “Washing is our passion.” Good grief. In fact, it’s a totally passionless self-service hut with six washing machines and 10 dryers, with hot and cold washes from $4, $1 for powder, bleach, fabric softener and Napisan, and a $2 service fee if you forget an item of clothing and come back for it. Such are the prices you pay for Washaholicism.
Henderson
A new golden age of train stations is nearly upon us. They will transform Auckland, give it new shapes and provide us with new wonders. But a classic is a classic, and they don’t come more classic than Henderson — the long, melancholy platform with its amazing mural of writers Maurice Gee, Maurice Shadbolt, and Dick Scott, the Chinese lion statues at the foot of the escalator, and, best of all, the classical music playing 24/7. What an incredible thing to take a mundane journey to Swanson or Avondale, and suddenly be treated to the piped sounds of Chopin, Mozart and the gang: fanfare for the common man and woman.
Mainfreight, 2 Railway Lane, Ōtāhuhu
If it’s blue, it’s Mainfreight. The transport kings of road, rail, air and ocean are based in 27 countries around the world and employ 11,532 staff — the figures were courtesy of Mainfreight chief executive Don Braid, not too grand to pop out into reception of its amazing Westfield Depot HQ when I called in unannounced the other day to ask why the glass front of their HQ is designed like the prow of a ship. “Everything we do,” said Baird, “is about making a statement.” The building is on the mangrove shores of the Manukau, and always looks like it’s about to set sail, and trade with the world. Oh and a globe sits on top of a pole, which sticks through the roof of the prow. Incredible sight, inspiring statement.
Coromandel Cactus, 170 Mount Wellington Highway
You have to keep your eyes peeled for the opening hours of New Zealand’s greatest and most spectacular cactus plantation. Cactus guru and proprietor Martin Walker has an auto-immune condition. He needs to take it easy. He can open the gates of Coromandel Cactus on only some Saturday mornings. But once he does, you gain access to a prickly wonderland of potted cacti big and small, weird and beautiful — he brings the rose of the South American deserts to a corner of Auckland.
School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland
The Thomas Building is now more than a functional slab of concrete but the landscaping around it creates a hidden oasis, a secret jungle, with picnic tables and a bamboo grove, circling a pond topped up by an overflow pipe and filled with maybe 100 big fat goldfish and other cold-water fish. You get to it via a hallway in the School of Biological Sciences, past a display of mounted wasps from around the world (the ones from Cameroon and Egypt look especially vicious) and down some steps on to a golden pond in dappled light.
Intersection of Victoria St West and Hobson St
Towards dusk, the trees on the four corners around SkyCity and TVNZ fill with sparrows, thousands of them, swooping above the traffic in great flocks, and settling in the tops of trees while making such a racket that it drowns out the traffic. It’s a spectacular sight and, more so, a spectacular sound, a twilight chorus that transforms downtown Auckland into birdland.
South Pacific College of Natural Medicine, 8 Arthur St, Ellerslie
Inside, the esoteric healing practises of naturopathy; outside, a great big rock. Auckland is full of great foundation stones — Sir Bob Harvey once drove me around Bruce McLaren Drive and other nearby streets in Henderson for the purpose of admiring the many, many rocks on front lawns — but probably the most striking or unusual is in Ellerslie. The rock is actually from Niue, and was presented to the college in 2006. A fern grows out of it. It looks mystical and strange and has a calming vibe.
InterCity bus terminal, 102 Hobson St
By liminal space I mean a location of an almost poetic emptiness, a waiting room where nothing ever happens, a void, transitory, a place of no meaning or purpose — Auckland is full of such spaces, like the train station plaza at Newmarket, and all of Albany. But the strangest is the little zone of emptiness between Sky Theatre and the InterCity bus terminal. It’s only a few hundred metres of pathway with signs reading DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE and EMERGENCY EXIT KEEP CLEAR. You are not made to feel welcome. You are not made to feel you have ever existed. You are made to feel nothing is real, that life is an illusion — it’s a meditative state, a few hundred metres of mystery and absence.
Under-17 women’s football tournament, Western Springs
All of New Zealand thrilled to the women’s football World Cup in August; only a corner of Auckland was lucky enough to witness the national under-17 women’s tournament, hosted at the artificial grounds of Western Springs. Wellington Phoenix were a revelation with their smooth, flowing, passing game, but lost 1-0 to the Fencibles of Howick in the semifinals. Fencibles then beat Western Springs 1-0 in the final. Everywhere, great players; everywhere, great determination. The future of women’s football in New Zealand is bright.
Coffee Cabin, Shop 5, Como St, Takapuna
There is something cultish about this sweet little cafe half-hidden on an obscure corner of Takapuna — you get the feeling this is a special hangout for those in the know. The vibe is set by the logo. It’s a drawing of a black bear with a steaming cup of coffee in its paw. The bear has the slightest of smiles, and is a picture of peace and contentment. You feel the same way when you sit in the small but perfectly formed environs of the Coffee Cabin.
Dove Hospice Mega Shop, 185 Apirana Ave, Glen Innes
The best op shop suburbs used to be out west — Henderson, Glen Eden and New Lynn — but the connoisseur now heads out east, to Glen Innes, which has four emporiums of bargains. I like the Salvation Army Store at 49 Mayfair Place. I like the City Mission across the road at 14 Mayfair Place. I like the SPCA Op Shop at 217 Taniwha St. But I absolutely love the quite-gigantic Dove Hospice Mega Shop opposite Pak’nSave: this has great furniture, homeware, records, books, puzzles, and — more op shops should do this — a good selection of indoor houseplants.
Tony’s, 27 Wellesley St
Auckland’s oldest restaurant first opened in 1963. You can imagine a time-lapse film of Auckland life passing its doors these past 60 years — there are the Beatles, there are the Queen St riots, there is Len Brown sneaking past to a rendezvous — and all the while, there are countless Aucklanders sitting inside Tony’s, eating steak. I have lunch there once a week. It’s always packed. I always order the Scotch steak, only $20 with fries and salad. My heart fills with love for Auckland and my insides fill with steak: I am describing bliss.
Westhaven Path, Auckland Harbour Bridge
Tāmaki Makaurau looks its best in bright, burning sunlight, and at its very best at sunset. There is often a festive kind of atmosphere on the Westhaven Path from the bottom of Curran St in Herne Bay to the harbour bridge — families, people fishing, music blasting from the open doors of parked cars — and the party reaches a climax on the glorious sunsets of summer that glow like coals over the Waitākere Ranges. The sky turns pink and red, and so does the water, and then the harbour bridge light display gets turned on, and electrifies the night.
Māngere inlet
I walked this hour-long coastal trap one sunny afternoon recently from Māngere Bridge to Hugo Johnstone Drive in Penrose, and don’t think I ever felt as full of the joys of Auckland all year. It’s the best of two worlds. There is the world of nature, of the Māngere inlet lapping the mangrove shore, with great clumps of nasturtium, convolvulus and fennel on either side of the track. There is also the exciting world of labour and industry: the walk winds beneath factories, warehouses, recycling plants, cranes, and other signs of people earning a living. The whole time I was thrillingly, happily aware of Auckland as an isthmus of considerable beauty that also operated as a zone of sheer hard work. Tāmaki Makaurau, jewel of the South Pacific, big and terrible and beautiful — none of us who love it would ever live anywhere else.
The new free open-air saltwater pool is already proving popular.