We have a brief stopover in Auckland staying in a small, pristinely clean and self-consciously smart, serviced apartment in Ponsonby – grey and white decor, loads of cushions, coffee machine and minimalist objets. On the afternoon of our arrival, we walk down Ponsonby Road and enjoy the vibrant young scene of cafes, bars and upmarket clothes shops. We have one full day here, so while Adrian sells the car back to the dealer from whom we bought it, I indulge myself with a long overdue haircut.
In the afternoon, we walk across the freeway into the CBD and revisit the Auckland Art Gallery. It’s a sad fact that, for all the years I’ve spent in galleries and for all the words I’ve read on the subject, there’s still a certain type of modern art that I simply don’t get: the chain painted yellow and hanging from a nail, the glass fronted cabinet full of ornaments just like my grandmother used to have (was she an artist after all?), the rectangle of red with a straight line drawn through it. Much modern art makes an interesting statement, is pleasingly quirky or startling in its juxtapositions, but there’s something about the pretentiously placed object that makes me want to write: ‘could try harder.’
Our flight to Sydney and the collection of our hire car runs like clockwork. There’s a tetchy moment when Air New Zealand runs out of everything but pasta – and it’s just pasta, nothing else – but that’s a minor irritation and we front up for our overnight stay in Balgownie in good time and with mood intact. There’s a popular Thai restaurant close by, so we have a run, a shower and, very hungry on arrival, order far more food than we can eat. Happily the proprietor supplies us with containers to carry the remainders away, so we have another ready-made meal on hand. Oven-ready, just like that illusive, sun-soaked uplands-Brexit-deal that Johnson once promised the UK. Northern Ireland, I hear, now has access to the EU single market – lucky them.
In the morning, after a good sleep in a very comfortable bed, we’re woken by the raucous screeches of the Cockatoos cursing all and sundry as they gather for some breakfast meeting. The Kookaburras greet the dawn by laughing at it and the bell bird trips through its few notes. Before I open my eyes, I’m aware of the warmth and the sounds and there’s no doubt which country we’re in. Today we head south through Shoalhaven to Jervis Bay. We stop for coffee and can’t resist a second-hand bookshop. The Canadian who runs it is an aspiring writer and we spend a few minutes commiserating about the difficulty of getting published.
Then, after the ubiquitous sweep through a supermarket, we arrive at our accommodation in Vincentia. It’s a large airy apartment with a tiny, rather inadequate kitchen, meant presumably for people who don’t cook. But it has lovely sea views and the hosts are charming and, once settled, we walk to the to waterfront and take the coast path along beautiful white sand beaches which are multiple, vast and largely empty. This, I think, is what a beach should look like. I’ve become rather tired of the black sand of so many New Zealand bays and I realise, after years of taking it for granted that Australia does, in fact, have some of the best beaches in the world.