I’m starting to really like Auckland as a city.
Yesterday’s cycling effort started at Parakai at 7:30 in the morning, after my brother Greg dropped me off.
Greg lives in Massey, and the TA course runs straight past his house. Cruising from Helensville to his place was fantastic – such a lovely scenic area, in complete contrast with what a concrete jungle Auckland CBD is.
THE SMELLS OF AUCKLAND
Old North Road took me through Riverhead Forest where, at 8:00 in the morning was full of mountain bikers off doing thier thing.
Riverhead Forest had the same smells as Pouto Point san-dusty gravel track. In Auckland, its was absolutely lovely.
CITIES DONT MAKE GREAT FARMS
The TA track took me through Massey which had around it a heap of farms. Which struck me as odd: what’s the deal with a truckload of farm land, when the community need is housing.
I first noticed this housing / agriculture mismatch when I was looking at the Ministry for the Environment’s LUCAS satellite-based land use data set. Auckland had a surprising amount of farm land.
It wouldn’t be an economics blog if I didn’t talk about comparative advantage: different areas are comparatively better than others at doing things. For example, Waikato and Southland are comparatively better than Auckland and Wellington at farming. Auckland and Wellington are comparatively better at being big cities than Southland and Waikato.
Seeing so much land, AND knowing high land and house prices made me suspect something is stopping the land turning into what people want – houses.
HITTING THE AUCKLAND CYCLEWAY
Unbeknowst to me, Auckland has a world class cycleway system from the ‘burbs into town. Honestly, it was flat and smooth, and just brilliant! It was a dream to cycle, and I got from my brother’s place in Massey to Mount Albert in under an hour on a bike. And that included time to stop and smell the roses!
It Wellington / Lower Hutt makes anything near this good, I’d be well pleased. 🙂 Auckland is very easy to get around on a bike.
THE HEAT
I got a lot of sun yesterday. There was no way to help it. Hot and sweaty, it was difficult to evade the sun and the heat. I drank lots of isotonics and fluids, but my skin is burnt and my eyes are sore.
The TA route took me through South Auckland, where road works added to the dust and the heat. I saw some classic South Auckland houses that looked like “Once Were Warriors”, but everyone I met were very nice.
Smiling at the refugees, they smiled back with big white smiles 🙂
THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND
I met up with two groups yesterday: Ella and Jeff, and Luigi and Trail Troll.
Ella and Jeff are colleagues. Ella has only been cycling for the last 6 months. Jeff’s a seasoned hand with this. Together they’ re doing 100km days and kicking it 🙂
Luigi and the Trail Troll are a different story. I teamed up with them when my cellphone cable broke, meaning I was saving my phone charge.
They were going to take the shorter inland route which, at 6:00pm sounded like a good idea to me. They had a booking at place that was 2 hours away. Difficult at that time, but not unachievable. I thought it was better to stick together, especially once it got dark.
Except, they couldn’t find their chin for thier elbow, and nor where they great at listening.
We ended heading completely down the wrong path, despite being told to the contrary.
We burnt 45 precious minutes heading down the wrong path, meaning they had a 45 minute return travel to get to the right path. I left them when they turned around to scrabble to the right place.
KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
As I was thinking about my next move outside a property close to Brockby, the owners of the property turned up and asked me whether I was OK.
I said I was in a bit of a pickle and could I set up my tent in their backyard, which they kindly agreed to.
I met Paul and Paul’s dad, Paul (made remembering the names easier). Paul senior had his 79th party the night before, and Paul junior fixed up a plate of BBQ leftovers and gave me a beer.
Wonderful people – thanks guys 🙂
