How a Feeding Frenzy became a Traffic Nightmare

Kingsgate Parnell

Last week we had to visit Auckland on a business trip and decided to stay overnight as there was a very good special at one of our Kingsgate Hotels. (You know the ones that have $99 accommodation with free full buffet breakfast and sometimes a free evening meal as well.) I love the breakfast option and we call it my "trip away feeding frenzy" because you can visit the buffet as many times as you like. On offer are fruit juice, bacon, breakfast sausages, baked beans, eggs (scrambled or poached) tomatoes, mushrooms and in Southland they usually have hash browns. A range of bread for toasting on their fascinating "rolling toaster thingy" or fresh rolls. The coffee is very good too. We booked in to their "Jimmy Cooks" restaurant and had a nice dinner at a very reasonable rate. Their seafood chowder entrée was delicious and the rare steak was very edible. Lyn had prawns, but they can be very messy to eat. We had booked the hotel in Parnell rather than stay with relatives as we didn't want to intrude on their working week and I had other plans for an early start, mainly in the Parnell area.

Feeding frenzy!

After arriving in Auckland after a quiet trip down Highway 16, we went straight to Penrose for morning tea followed by a very demanding 3 1/2 hour session with our printer salesman Praveen. We were able to see the new model printers in action and printed off samples of our own editions in the new format and in full colour! Most impressive and we will now have to make a command decision on which one to purchase.

Praveen very graciously offered to treat us to lunch we decided to accept his offer to dine at an Indian restaurant. This was quite a memorable experience as Lyn and I don't eat out very often, certainly not featuring Indian cuisine. Our host suggested we choose a variety of dishes from the Menu and gave us a rundown on what he thought we might enjoy, bearing in mind that some Indian dishes were quite hot for our Kiwi taste buds. Lyn chose a milder chicken curry, I chose a Tikka Masala (med hot) and Praveen chose a Vindaloo Chicken dish, Naan bread was ordered for our table. Lyn struggled with the so called "mild" version, but I enjoyed the Tikka Massala even though it was quite hot, but we both were gasping after sampling his Vindaloo chicken! Even Praveen was sweating half way through the meal and we decided to call it quits without trying the mango dessert on offer. After farewelling Praveen we drove to Manurewa to visit my Aunt Ngaire leaving her around 4pm. At this stage trip turned into a veritable Traffic nightmare!

Auckland has become notorious for it's traffic problems and although I was born and raised in Auckland, I have lived in Waipu for 21 years. I was delighted to leave the daily terror trip by car behind and I now get agitated if there are more than 10 cars in a queue in Whangarei. The monster that is Auckland traffic, especially in the rain, is something else. We had planned to leave Manurewa via the back roads so that we could drive along the Eastern Tamaki drive approach to the city and not have to go anywhere near the Southern Motorway. Admittedly the Auckland car map was old and there have been many changes to streets in the area, but trying to follow the signage at the numerous intersections was not only difficult for the Navigator, but impossible for the driver and somehow we found ourselves in a stagnant queue, heading to the Motorway ramp. Impossible to turn left or right we just had to crawl along this so-called highway until I quickly manouvered into an exit lane at Penrose. We then tried to get back to the Eastern route via back streets, but these were so clogged with traffic it became a nightmare of driving. Steady rain, gloomy overcast skies and intersections with no traffic lights didn't help our journey. At intersections we just had to rely on the generosity of other drivers to let us into their queue heading in an Easterly direction. We never made Tamaki Drive as I remembered a short cut through Remuera that took us directly to Parnell. We were very glad to reach the sanctuary of the hotel!

Terrace Stairs challenge

Although it was raining quite heavily in the morning we finished our "feeding frenzy breakfast" and headed for the first call at my old Primary Parnell school. I had intended visiting the Office to see if there were any indications of a celebration in 2013 for the schools 170th anniversary as I had been maintaining a database of ex pupils who were keen to attend. When I got to where the office used to be I realised that wandering around in the rain was getting me nowhere as I couldn't find the Office. It had disappeared along with other building frontages and there were contractors fences erected to keep visitors out. No directions to the office could be seen so we got back in the car and went to my next port of call. (There is a full outline of the Parnell School upgrade on their website and a virtual tour http://www.parnell.school.nz/virtual-tour.html or http://www.parnell.school.nz/plans.html 

Pedestrian Underpass

As a child I lived in Falcon Street, Parnell and the Auckland Domain was our playground where my brothers and sister spent many hours. There is a small terrace running down from Gibralter Crescent that gave us access to our favourite haunts and I had read that this area was to be developed as a possible railway station for Parnell I wanted to visit this area before it was altered forever. Lyn and I had to negotiate a very steep set of stairs and a very steep tar pathway covered in acorns, which reminded me of a skateboard/ball bearing alley. My arthritic knees were put to the test, but we finally reached the railway crossing which has recently been upgraded with a tunnel and a carpeted metal stairway. It was extremely satisfying to see the number of trains that passed while we were there and as we come from a railway family, I was delighted to see the progress made with suburban rail traffic.

Carpeted stairs Domain

The old Diesel maintenance sheds were still standing and the various outbuildings were full of Mainline Steam Inc. Railway engines and rolling stock. I pointed out to Lyn where our childhood paths and haunts were located and where we had erected fabulous rope swings, (using my sister Carna as the volunteer guinea pig to see if they worked,) but steady rain forced us to negotiate the steep terrace and get back to the car. We drove to Tamaki Drive for a cup of tea, before heading out West and then home to Waipu. As we drove past the crowd of striking waterfront workers on Tamaki Drive I couldn't believe the number of single trucks leaving the wharf each laden with a container heading for the inland port at Wiri. As they slowly headed out to the Southern Motorway I wondered how easy it would be to rail these containers to Wiri and save some of the traffic hassles or even transfer some of the shipping to our deep water port at Marsden Point and relieve even more heavy traffic in Auckland, but that's another story.

I would absolutely hate having to live in any city now and I am reminded of a quote that was my mantra when I first left Auckland. INTENTIONAL POVERTY ON A HOMESTEAD IS VASTLY DIFFERENT FROM UNAVOIDABLE POVERTY IN THE CITY!