Our Place: Feet and mind take a wander on Marine Parade

In "Our Place", reporters go to a location in the region, stay for two hours and observe. Roger Moroney enjoyed a stroll on the Marine Parade, Napier, walkway.
You will have to forgive me as my mind wanders in the way my legs did not more than an hour ago. For I can think of no more appropriate way to summarise the meandering Marine Parade walkway than by lifting that well-worn old line from the Kevin Costner film Field of Dreams: "Build it and they will come."
Did I say walkway? Well yes, indeed it is, but it also a runway (without the need of an extension to take international visitors), a cycleway, a push-the-pramway and in-line-skateway.
Walkways have latterly appealed hugely to the Government in their quest to build tracks and trails for the healthy good of Kiwis all over the land.
Indeed, Prime Minister John Key was here a few months back to both praise and assist in the funding process of this region's footpaths - but the Bay was onto this before National even had a sniff of taking the reins.
The Rotary folks and the town council, and volunteers and visionaries, had started laying concrete and planking down several years ago.
Westshore and Bay View were first to get waterfront walkways (runways, push-the-pramways et al) and the network began to get rolled out.
That Marine Parade seafront, one of the shiniest of jewels in the Bay's crown, is a beauty.
Any open ocean bay is, but this one is unique in that the sea and its moods are in constant change. It's like going to see a new movie every day.
And people love it.
Because nothing beats a fresh salt-smeared breeze and the sight of either rippling blue waves or thunderous green breakers.
When the beachfront pathway plans were unveiled I daresay some probably argued why? - given there was lots of grass reserve and a big wide footpath by the roadway to walk along.
But good old Kevvy Costner, yeah? Build it - and they will come.
I went and joined them.
My initial reaction was a nod of satisfaction that this waterfront wanderpath is by no means a straight line. It meanders.
Sort of like life I suppose.
Yes, one can tend to get all philosophical on a waterfront stroll.
I set out from near the Tom Parker Fountain after first checking out the smaller path-accompanying fountain - the drinking variety. Along the stretch there are fine seats, cycle stands, bins and the occasional drinking fountain. So of course I pushed the button on the side of the great stainless steel cylinder and promptly sprayed my shoes.
Is that for cleaning the feet? Watering the dog?
One bloke was reclining back on one of the seats, his weathered old sunhat matching his weathered old footwear. Fish and chips in the sun.
Other groups were just off the walkway sheltering in the shade of trees and rambling bushes.
You get a strange and appealing new view of the city frontage from the walkway. The Veronica sun-bay colonnade is spectacular from the seaside, and the spread of pines mix with the red smears from pohutukawas.
"Nice day for it," I ventured to a fellow walkway wanderer and he nodded, smiled and simply replied "Beaut day alright."
On walkways, people crossing paths tend to automatically nod and say things like,"Nice day for it".
Wandering by the Par 2 putting greens I heard the excited sounds of young Germans.
"Nein, nein!" one was yelling while his three companions all laughed and shouted back at him what sounded like Germanic abuse.
A solitary jogger approached and the perspiration on her brow showed she was clearly feeling the heat of what was turning into a warm Thursday afternoon.
Did she jog the walkway often?
"Pretty much every day," she said.
Where did she jog before the walkway appeared.
"I didn't," she replied.
"Here it's peaceful and it's quiet and there's plenty of room." Her only misgivings about the 'Parade' were that there wasn't a lot there to entice people.
"You see the Rocks area in Sydney Harbour and it's teeming with people. This is a great waterfront but it needs something vibrant. It's no different to any other seafront at the moment."
I agreed.
A huge great parking area on prime seafront, and great green deserts of unkempt grass from the kids' playground south ... only interrupted by the aquarium.
Two tourists, bearing and using their digital cameras wildly, strolled past me at a brisk pace taking turns to be in the next picture they each took. Strange.
Past the back walls of the old Marineland I heard water sloshing and the occasional grunt, kind of like being in the toilet of a public bar.
Through a small knot hole in the wooden wall I spotted a seal. He looked happy. But I think he'd have been happier had the council opened the doors and let people wander in to see him and his four or five chums messing about.
The neighbouring kiddies playground is a fine place, and the sound of the squawking gulls was drowned out by the cries and squeals and shrieks of a small battalion of kids. The sounds of summer.
Further on I spotted more kids in the distance under the great millennium arch. They were on bicycles and were putting the "cycle" into cycleway.
"Lunch on the beach - chips and ice cream," Clive School teacher Paul Wallace said.
"They'll wear it off," he added with a smile. "We rode here from Clive and we're riding back."
The day had been superb for them, and without the seafront walk/cycle link to Clive such an expedition into Napier could never have been mounted.
The outing was both an end of year day of fun as well as part of the school's Cycle Safety Week.
"A lot of schools use this," Paul said, pointing along the path.
"It's perfect - no danger spots."
I wandered to the Spirit of Napier statue (aka the Golden Girl) then turned back, into the light, cooling breeze and noticed the expanding terrain of glowing beach flowers. Yellow, orange and purple. It's a pretty stroll all right.
The Clive kids all came past, waving and grinning, while two fluoro-jacketed and sports-equipped cyclists went the other way. They all kept left and all gave the bloke walking the dog plenty of space.
I would glance right to the sparkling sea and left to the mixture of old weatherboard and plastered houses and cottages which today are mixed in with sleekly designed apartments and motel faces.
It is a fairly typical and predictable seafront, which can be enjoyed on a walk, although it does need a "spark". Some walkway-linked cafes and seafront beach bars and stalls ... something.
I glanced back and saw the Clive kids all disappearing into the distant heat haze, as the gulls shrieked and descended on a car parked on the waterfront where the occupants had sprinkled the remains of their lunch onto the grass. Why not? It was a beaut day for it.
"Our Place" is an occasional series which runs when space permits in Hawke's Bay Today.