Opinion: ‘Would you like to go up a volcano?” I once asked the legendary British DJ John Peel and his wife, Sheila. They both readily agreed, because, who wouldn’t? The amenity of 53 urban volcanic cones – or what remains of them after the feckless quarrying of the city’s early years – is something to be found only in Auckland.
The weather in the Pacific city was as British as my guests by the time we parked up at the summit of Maungawhau Mt Eden, but between the drifts of drizzle I was able to point them to areas of interest. “That,” I said, pointing to the top of the isthmus “is one side of New Zealand. And that is the other. That’s the entire width of the country!” They were duly impressed.
The weather was much better when I visited the summit the other day, after a late night celebrating an inauspicious birthday. From 196m up, you could see the heavy, grey tangle of thunderstorms that had rattled Northland all day, passing blessedly north, pushing balmy airs over the city.
I’d made the ascent on my bike, something I used to do more often. Once, I rode up Mts Albert, Roskill, Eden, and One Tree Hill in a single journey, arriving at the top of each in varying degrees of exultant disrepair.
That was before I owned an e-bike. I set the controls for a dignified level of assistance and picked my way politely through the crowds of walkers who had also decided this was a good day to go up a volcano.
I had not visited since a network of boardwalks and viewing platforms at the summit was extended and completed a year ago. The new structures protect the delicate scoria cone from the footfall of 1.3 million annual visitors, but they do more than that.
The platforms make an event of every view. It was always a good place, but it seems more marvellous now, on a good day.
It’s equally marvellous that the works were carried out without controversy. There was controversy when the summit road was closed to most vehicles in 2016. More controversy when the volcanoes were returned to the stewardship of the 13 iwi and hapū recognised as mana whenua.
The efforts of the Tūpuna Maunga Authority to reward Aucklanders yet unborn with a replanted green archipelago rising from the suburbs have been greeted in some quarters by suspicion, anger and, in the case of Owairaka Mt Albert, a facile and annoying attempt at occupation.
Would that every reach for the future fared as well. Auckland is a changing city, but every change is greeted with a howl. Where I live in the inner western suburbs, people who should know better acted as if a rainforest was being levelled when the scraggly old pines were removed from the slopes of Western Springs.
The area is beautiful and accessible now, with its own magical views. Down at ground level, people are raging now about a road upgrade that will make our neighbourhood better when it’s finally done. Barely a paving stone can be set down in the central city without a chorus of voices insisting that the place is being murdered.
At the foot of Maungawhau stands another piece of the future. In 2026, the railway station that bears the mountain’s name will open as part of the City Rail Link. The new network will be able to bear more trains, more often, and serve many more Aucklanders. Its completion will also free up 100,000 square metres of land acquired for the project.
It’s a blank canvas that deserves something more than property development as usual, but the relevant authorities have yet to acknowledge any fresh ideas for how and where people could live. We should hope for and demand something as far-sighted as the view from the summit above.
