Memories

3 February 2008

Auckland, New Zealand

I’m on port manning today and can’t get off the ship…again. I know that it’s starting to sound a bit like a broken record but it’s the price you pay for free international travel and visiting all these exotic foreign ports. That and having to work I guess. But anyway, here I am in Wellington, a day of writing, watching TV and catching up with what’s happening in the world now that we have CNN back.

The strange thing is that all those days of sailing from one South Pacific island to another with no access to world news really had no effect. The world is still there and it still has the same problems that it did. It’s almost as if my knowledge, or lack of knowledge, of events and my concern about them had absolutely no consequence. Perhaps sitting in front of the TV and being concerned at the injustices and atrocities occurring around us really isn’t enough. Maybe we do need to do something a little more concrete. I used to be a child sponsor, a young girl in Peru, but I had to put a hold on it when I was paring back my expenses so I could afford to take this job. I really don’t know how much effect I truly had on her life and it was probably done as much to placate feelings of guilt I had at living such a comfortable and easy life in comparison to so many but I hope it did do something. All of us who travel, and by that I don’t mean from one Hilton to the next on business but really travel to other countries, owe it to the world to put something back. Have a look around beyond the colour and quaintness of the local markets and streets and see how people really live. Then think how easily you live by comparison and give up one coffee a week and donate somewhere to help the world. Buy the world a coffee and not only make someone else feel better but feel better about yourself.

Well, I guess that was my rant for the week. On to my own travels.

It’s difficult to write about my impressions of Auckland. The impressions are so intrinsically wrapped up in memories that it’s not so much looking at the city through the eyes of the person I am now as it is viewing it through the recollections of the person/child I was. I was born, albeit accidentally, in Auckland. I was supposed to have made my debut in a small town on the Coromandel Peninsula called Whitianga but a burst of over eagerness on my part meant that I startled my mother and my grandparents by announcing my entrance while she was visiting them and I took my first breath of pure New Zealand air while my grandparents were still filling out forms at the front desk of the hospital. My mother has told me that she was grateful to me for my ease of arrival, possibly because nothing about me has been easy since. It may also be the first example of my morbid fear of being late. I would rather be 30 minutes early than 30 seconds late and it’s obviously something I’ve had in me from birth, or before.

But Auckland is the place of my birth and I’m sure that the plaque will go up in due course. Whenever I’m asked where I come from and I say New Zealand the next question is always whereabouts. At least if I say I was born in Auckland I can get knowing nods from people, it’s probably the best known city in the country despite not being the capital. If I say Whitianga then I usually have to go on and explain it’s location in terms relative to Auckland anyway. The problem really occurs when I have to go on to explain that I have been living in Australia for 25 years and haven’t set foot on New Zealand soil for about 20 years. That can cause confusion, especially when filling out official travel documentation. Not all forms are able to differentiate between residency and citizenship. I may have lived in Australia for a long time but I still fervently call myself a Kiwi and travel on a New Zealand passport. I even have the All Black logo branded onto my shoulder and go into days of mourning whenever they lose a game. I’ve also never met a sheep that I didn’t like, but that’s another story.

I was looking forward to visiting Auckland. It was one of three ports that I got to choose for the trip to not have port manning in.

My uncle was picking me up in the morning and driving me around for a locals view tour of the city and we were meeting my cousin and his pregnant wife for lunch. (If your cousin becomes a father what does that make you? The crazy distant relative nobody talks about or is there an official term?)

I woke up early, hoping that it wouldn’t be raining, not only for my sake but also so I could ask people later what they thought of the city and not get responses tainted by the colour of the sky. Luckily it wasn’t. I was being picked up at 9.30 but I was off the ship at 8.30. This time, rather than simply walking down the gangway and onto the dock we had to exit a couple of decks up and actually walked off the ship through the nautical equivalent of an air bridge onto a plane. All very modern and tidy and certainly gave the impression that we were officially entering another country rather than simply docking at a working port somewhere and slipping in between the commercial ships. We even had to have our bags checked for forbidden items before we were allowed to enter. New Zealand is spectacularly careful about pests of any type being brought into the country and possibly doing irreparable damage to the agricultural economy. No food or natural products of any kind were allowed off the ship at the risk of harbouring some nasty little pest. Nasty big pests like me didn’t seem to be a problem and I exited the building and stepped out for my first breath of Kiwi air in a couple of decades.

It was crisp. I know that the air was laced with all the usual pollutants of any city anywhere, when you have over a million people living closely together with all of the associated detritus it’s unavoidable, but the air still had a crispness and a strange familiarity. It wasn’t the accents or the road signs or the fact that they drove on the proper side of the road; it was something in the air. Every place in the world has its own odour and I can usually sense it as soon as I step out of the airport wherever I am. This smelled like home.

My first business was to find an ATM and load up on New Zealand currency. As it turned out I had been away so long that even the money was different. It was still different colours for each denomination but had gone the way of the plastic bill rather than the paper ones. Even the coins were different and I found myself in the strange position of having to carefully scrutinise the money in my hand before paying for anything in the land of my birth.

I grabbed Subway for breakfast and a long waited for bottle of L&P. Now that is going to put a puzzled look on a few faces but L&P is a soft drink or soda and another one owned and produced my Coke. It may have started life as a unique combination of lemon juice and the natural spring water from a small town called Paeroa but it is now mass produced in a factory like all the others. The bottle has the legend of the drink on the back label and the front is a reproduction of a turn of the century one but I still like the taste so it was a something I’d looked forward to, another taste of home.

I wandered up and down the road a little before settling under a large ship displayed outside the Maritime Museum celebrating a failed and contentious attempt by rich New Zealanders to win the Americas Cup.

Sitting there I had an interesting view of a few different aspects of New Zealand. In front of me was a restaurant selling fresh seafood. It undoubtedly was fresh and brought back so many memories of fresh sea food I enjoyed blithely as a kid. I had even walked past another restaurant a short time before that claimed it’s catch was so fresh they could tell you the name of the boat it had just come off, the name of the fisherman who had caught it and the type of mood he was in that morning.

Next to the restaurant was an international success story of New Zealand. A Canterbury clothing store that, despite having an “up to 50% off sale”, was still too expensive for my taste. On the outside of the Canterbury shop was a large poster of Sir Edmund Hillary, recently deceased and eulogised on the poster as a great New Zealander and a great Aucklander. Undoubtedly he was both and for the rest of the world it was probably because of what he managed to accomplish, both as an adventurer and as a humanitarian but to Kiwis I think he was probably seen as the exact way they want to be seen. That rugged, pure, generous, modest but greatly achieving person that he was. I wish I’d had the opportunity to meet him.

My uncle picked me up and we headed out. It may be that I’ve done most of my driving in Australia and in particular on the Gold Coast but the thing that quickly struck me was the easy way that the traffic moved and the politeness of the drivers. I don’t know about the amount of road rage here but I’ve been to some big cities around the world and, while not huge by some standards, this city seemed to me to have a relaxed and unrushed driving style. I may get an argument from any number of Aucklanders on that but I can only suggest that they try driving in some places I could mention to see what I mean.

We started by crossing the harbour bridge to “the other side”. It was always the other side for me, most, if not all, of my relatives living on “this side” of the bridge. We drove to Devonport and stared at a magnificent view of the harbour and the city. I may be biased but it is an attractive city. The Sky Tower is a landmark that is new to me and it certainly stands out but I was still able to spot so many familiar landmarks that I knew without doubt where I was.

From there we headed back over the bridge and up another couple of “mountains” that are in fact extinct volcanoes that give Auckland its shape and character. From the top of One Tree Hill (sadly devoid now of its one tree) I could see both the west and east coasts of the country without having to turn my head.

From there we drove down the bays, along a road that hugs the harbour and curves in and out of little suburbs with such familiar names as Mission Bay and Kohimarama, eventually arriving at St Heliers Bay for lunch with my cousin and his wife.

This is where my mother had grown up and while I probably wouldn’t have been able to give you many of the street names a week ago, as my uncle drove around, past the house he grew up in and through the shopping area, so much of those childhood memories of holidays with my grandparents came back. The village like atmosphere was so familiar and so many landmarks were still there that it was almost a sense of déjà vu that swept over me. The distances between some places may have been bigger than I remembered, the spaces between forgotten in favour of just the landmarks themselves, and some things may have seemed much smaller, the beach didn’t go on forever like I seem to remember it, but it was still comfortable and familiar.

We had lunch, I drank New Zealand beer, photos were taken and we walked for a while up the main street and along the boardwalk above the sand. My uncle then drove me back to the ship, swinging out through other suburbs and other parts of the city, showing me the urban sprawl and the parts that don’t make it into the tourist brochures. Every city has them and if you are looking for perfection you won’t find it here anymore than you will in any other city of the world. But Auckland is sprawling and it covers much that is attractive, quaint, modern, booming and New Zealand.

As I said, it’s difficult to give an impression of Auckland that isn’t coloured both by my birth and my memories. As we drove I had the constant thrill and pleasure of recognising names, both of businesses and locations. I wasn’t looking all the time at what was there as much as remembering it and placing it in the context of the past. It is an impressive city though, don’t bypass it or dismiss it as just another city out of hand. It has a feel all of its own and it has that crispness in the air. It may also have a plaque one day with my name on it.