After a walk to the Karekare falls, west of Auckland, we drive to Piha for lunch. The cafe is closed but the local shop serves delicious coffee and a variety of home baked tarts and calzone. On the verandah, at the table next to us, are the same folk we’ve just seen at Karekare and after lunch, we’ll all climb the towering Lion Rock on the beach. It’s the local activity. The rock is named for its crouching shape but the local Te Kawerau people called it Te Piha – waves breaking on the prow of a canoe. It has military associations, both for the Maori people who built a defensive pa (settlement) on the top of it and for the Europeans who fought in two world wars and erected memorial plaques at its base.
We finish our day with a pretty walk through the forest and a climb to the waterfall of Kite Kite. The forest is peaceful and lush but, back in the day, it rang to the sounds of axes and saws and logs crashing over the falls and plummeting to the stream below. Europeans dammed these falls (and many others) for just that purpose and the huge Kauri tree, the King of the forest and valuable for its wood, was almost wiped out. These are slow growing trees that can live for two thousand years, so it has taken a great deal of time and protection to help them regenerate. They’re also susceptible to fungal disease, so we’re required to scrape and wash shoes before entering the forest.
In the evening, we attend a play at the Rose Centre on the north side of the harbour. Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem, a satire on the English rural idyll, grows progressively darker over its three hour length. I’m amazed that Adrian stays the distance – his usual limit is an hour and a half – but its very well acted (a semi-amateur group) and, as in MacBeth, the narrative of gradual self-destruction becomes strangely gripping.
But has it taken me forward? I wonder as we drive away. I don’t think so. I feel I already know a great deal about the casual nastiness of life, about the othering of difference, about institutionalised neglect and I don’t have much patience with futile heroic speeches. But, as a modern Shakespearean play, it’s well done and I can understand Mark Rylance taking on the leading role in London.
In the morning, the sun shines as Adrian drives to East Tamaki to collect our car. Hoorah! After numerous encounters with stubborn bureaucracy and fraud protection agents, our bank finally agrees to let us have our own money. We have wheels. And tomorrow we’ll head south. But before we go, we wander on foot down to the docks, determined to find what we seem to have missed: the quayside proper, the vibrant, attractive area of Auckland.
Walking east, we arrive at Viaduct Harbour, which is all super-yachts, shiny office buildings, cafes and restaurants. The New Zealand America’s cup contenders are floating in the marina and smart business people are meeting over drinks on the terraces. There’s obviously a great deal of money concentrated in this part of the city, which covers perhaps two blocks, both on the water and on land. Its glamorous and upbeat, architecturally coherent and pristinely groomed, such a contrast to the rest. And here, at last, the city embraces its harbour.
I’m glad to have seen this side of Auckland, to have broadened our view, before we head south in the morning to the bach (holiday house) of friends of mutual friends. Adrian met Wendy years ago in Papua New Guinea and, in truth, they hardly know each other. So we feel hers and Mark’s generosity all the more keenly as we arrive in Raglan and take in the stunning view from their beachside house. They are letting us have it for two weeks. We feel so lucky. We chat with Wendy and she shows us around. The bach is simply designed, beautifully equipped and wonderfully located. Then she collects up her cats and heads back to Hamilton, leaving us perched on a hill, with the sea on all sides, the bach sighing in the sun and the wind.
