The view from Maungawhau. Photo / Alex Burton
Greg Bruce asks what's in a city?
When I heard Lonely Planet had ranked Auckland the number one city in the world to visit for 2022, my responses, in order, were: 1. Pride 2. Confusion.
Such lists are obviously nonsense, more so even than the Oscars, but still I was amazed to see the city in which I was born and in which I continue to live, at its top. The best city in the world to visit has always been New York and second is Tokyo, and that seems unlikely to change, but how many guidebooks is Lonely Planet going to sell by writing that every year? So Auckland gets its year in the sun; probably its last, and it will be a year in which visitor numbers are again going to be way down, but how many moments in the sun do any of us get in a lifetime? Even one is a blessing.
It's hard not to feel a bit ashamed on behalf of Auckland for the long and horrendous road journey new arrivals must endure from the airport to the city, along ugly motorways and through unlovely suburban streets. The city centre, where most will spend at least their first night, is not without its charms but nor is it without its tourist–unfriendly wastelands, including on its main street. Even Lonely Planet seems to recognise the city's many touristic challenges. This, from the very first paragraph of its entry: "Auckland isn't the most immediately obvious tourist destination."
Intrigued by Lonely Planet's willingness to overlook the city's limitations, I picked up a copy of its Best in Travel 2022 guidebook and set out to test its hypothesis that there is no better city in the world to visit. The guide identifies five Auckland highlights. Over four days, I visited each of them, asking of each, "Is this more fun than, say, the Friday night my wife and I went to MOMA, then up the Empire State Building?"
Day 1, Morning, Auckland Art Gallery.
I went upstairs to the north atrium to see an exhibition called vocabulary of solitude. The entire space was occupied by dozens of life-size clown figures sitting and lying in various poses describing what looked like boredom or at least ennui. The notes for the work read: "BE. BREATHE. SLEEP. DREAM. WAKE. RISE. SIT. HEAR. LOOK. THINK. STAND. WALK. PEE. SHOWER. DRESS. DRINK. FART. S***. READ. LAUGH. COOK. SMELL. TASTE. EAT. CLEAN. WRITE. DAYDREAM. REMEMBER. CRY. NAP. TOUCH. FEEL. MOAN. ENJOY. FLOAT. LOVE. HOPE. WISH. SING. DANCE. FALL. CURSE. YAWN. UNDRESS. LIE." I thought about how that list encapsulates most of the things we will do when we travel to a new place, but how we only anticipate or remember doing a few of them. For example, almost never, prior to visiting a new place, do I think about farting there.
Vocabulary of solitude is not a local work, nor is the gallery's other big current exhibition, Mary Quant: Fashion Revolutionary, but that's not to say the gallery is short of it. In fact, it's stuffed with local art: Goldies, Lindauers, Parekōwhais, Patersons and so on. It is also an Auckland landmark, a historic building and its recent redevelopment has opened it beautifully on to the lower slopes of the city's best park for pashing. Still, in spite of its strong sense of place, the function of the gallery is to facilitate artists who wish to use media to transport their ideas from their mind to those of others. That is to say that the Auckland Art Gallery, like any major city art gallery, says something about place, but not nearly as much as it says about people.
Day 1, Afternoon, Auckland Museum
Before I went in, I stopped at the top of the steps and looked out across the parade ground and the harbour, because normally I wouldn't, and I was trying to see these very familiar things in a new light. "Wow," I said to myself, "That view is really nice." I doubted any major museum anywhere in the world could match it. Once inside, I spent most of my time in the area called Tāmaki Herenga Waka Stories of Auckland, which, the museum's website says, "encourages you to look at your city through new eyes".
I watched a video of a regular guy from Te Atatū taking us around his favourite spots in Te Atatū, arguably the most important of which was the local takeaway. He spoke about going there the day he got his first pay cheque, and ordering from one side of the menu to the other. I found this story surprisingly moving.
Nearby, in the small area devoted to The Kings Arms, I found one of the pub's old toilet doors, featuring frank messages and illustrations, including testicles and a penis adorned with the phrase "Sex is healthy". Someone else had written: "Imagine how many people have f***ed in here." In a blog post titled Collecting the Kings Arms, Museum staff wrote: "The objects we successfully bid for might not sound like your typical precious museum treasures, but they help us to tell meaningful stories about life in Auckland."
I loved the toilet door, loved how it made me think, specifically about how many people had f***ed in there. I loved the thought that my kids might one day come here and have their views of what knowledge we consider important changed, although hopefully not for many years.
Day 2, Maungawhau / Mt Eden
I had planned to go to Maungawhau by myself but Zanna had planned to go Christmas shopping by herself so it was decided I would take the kids. Shortly before I intended to leave, it started to pour with rain. When I expressed my disappointment and displeasure, Zanna, who was going to an indoor mall, said: "It's perfect. This is exactly what visitors going up Mt Eden can expect from the Auckland weather."
It took us two hours to get ready, because none of the kids could find, nor be bothered looking for, any of the stuff we needed to take. I grew increasingly frustrated and then became frustrated at my frustration, because this was supposed to be fun. I also felt increasing resentment towards Zanna, who, 45 minutes earlier, had said, "Okay, I'm going to go", then left, even though things were clearly going badly for me.
I looked everywhere for 4-year-old Casper's shoes and he told me he'd also looked everywhere for them, although I'm pretty sure he was lying. I texted Zanna. She replied: "Have you looked in the car?" which infuriated me because everyone knows that's the first place you look, and I'd looked there twice already. I spent another 10 minutes looking for them while the kids waited in the car, and when I eventually returned, defeated, Casper was wearing them.
"Where did you find them?" I asked.
"In the car," he said.
We parked on a road on Maungawhau's western slopes, walked up some stairs that weren't there last time I came and emerged onto a boardwalk, which also didn't exist last time. It led us toward the city side of the crater rim, with its perfect view, far away from the concrete and car park and related man-made uglinesses of the summit development.
As the view began to unspool before us, the kids began running towards it, making sounds of astonishment, which matched my own, non-verbal feelings. It felt like I had never before been to this place I used to visit semi-regularly. I remembered convoys of buses, dirty cars filled with rutting teenagers and tyres in the crater, but what I saw this day was how fast regeneration happens when we stop ourselves from preventing it. Strange and beautiful birds landed in front of us on the boardwalk. Grasses and plant life grew where previously there was decay and human detritus. I saw that things want to be beautiful, in spite of us.
What do you guys think? I asked.
"That's actually pretty beautiful," Casper said.
"This is so crazy!" said Clara [6]. "We can see everything!"
"I can see the whole world from here!" Casper said.
Clara, seemingly overcome, sat down on the boardwalk and stared out across the harbour, repeating, "Oh my God oh my God oh my God."
"What is it, Clara?" I said.
""It's just so pretty!"
The view seemed to render them unable to talk at a reasonable volume.
Casper: "WE'RE NOT EVEN AT THE BEACH AND I CAN SEE RANGITOTO!"
Tallulah [8]: "I FEEL LIKE WE'RE RIGHT UP BY THE CLOUDS!"
Clara: "THERE'S THE MOTORWAY!"
No one else was on the boardwalk. The day was a bit cloudy, and all around Auckland we could see thick patches of rain but we never got wet. We carried on around the boardwalk, right around the crater lip, up to the summit, where we ate grapes and honey sandwiches, again untroubled by human contact, except that between us, which was excited and joyful.
At home later, Zanna said, "I knew it would be great," which was ironic, because I knew her smugness would be insufferable.
Day 3, Waiheke
I arrived at 10.45 for the 11am sailing and joined the back of a queue so big it was hard to imagine everyone would fit on the island, let alone the ferry. Everyone was so well dressed and beautiful I assumed there must be some important event on, but when I arrived, Ian, my taxi driver, told me this is just the way it is on Waiheke at this time of year, even in a pandemic.
At Te Motu, I tasted four wines in an outside area under a canopy next to the vines. The tasting concluded with the excellent $140 a bottle 2016 Te Motu but my favourite was the first and cheapest, The Shed rosé ($35), possibly because it spoke to me of the excitement of beginnings, of being in a place where you know someone's about to take care of you, where you don't need to do anything but enjoy yourself. Jess, who led the tasting, told me a story about a group she was part of called the Waiheke Wine W***ers, which gathers regularly to do blind tastings from bottles concealed in a camping sock. I remember this story with more fondness than any of the wines, and not because the wine was bad.
From there, I walked across some trampled grass and under a landing chopper, to Stonyridge. A waiter walked past me to greet the chopper's occupants with a tray of wines. Janis, the German restaurant manager, steered me towards the beautiful springy couches at the edge of the outdoor, covered dining area, from which I looked across a valley to the hills on which the winery's famous grapes are grown. I was a bit squiffy from Te Motu and starting to ramble and overreach for meaning, but if Janis found me odious, his warm smile suggested otherwise. He recited the story of Stonyridge and its place in the pantheon of New Zealand wines, which I found compelling, especially while drinking the final wine, the $375 Larose, but the one I liked most was the first and cheapest, the $95 reserve chardonnay.
I had intended to also go to Tantalus, the next winery over, but I had run out of both time and sobriety. On the drive back to the ferry, Ian told me of how legendary prop Gary Knight once said the All Blacks' 1977 test match against France was the toughest he'd ever played, and that Sir Richard Hadlee had always believed one's skills with bat and ball were far more important than one's skills with one's mouth. Mostly I just listened.
Day 4, Piha
It wasn't easy to generate interest among the family in visiting Piha on a Sunday morning. To begin with, it would be an hour's drive on windy roads with kids who suffer from chronic car sickness and occasional but intense whininess.
The motion sickness really kicked in during the last 10 or so minutes of the drive, so it was a relief when we rounded the corner that revealed our first view of the beach. We had never been there as a family, so I began a brief lecture about the local geography, of which I knew almost nothing, and I could feel their lack of interest growing, but then I hit paydirt with Lion Rock.
"Are there lions there?" Casper asked.
"Lion Rock is enormous!" said Tallulah, as we rounded another corner. "It's, like, five times the size of a lion!"
"I want to kiss Lion Rock!" Casper said. When we got out of the car, he lay down on his tummy, pressed his chest up and said, "This is what Lion Rock looks like."
I was intrigued by all the interest because Lion Rock had never particularly appealed to me and, honestly, neither had Piha. Of all Lonely Planet's Auckland highlights, this is the one I was least enamoured of. I don't surf, I'm not fond of water-based danger and I have no love for the sun, in part because of my extreme whiteness. I took my shirt off briefly after we arrived, at which point Zanna looked at me horrified and said, "You should not be doing that."
The kids loved the sand. Casper said, "This sand is really smooth! Tallulah, touch the sand! It's really smooth!" Zanna and Clara started making a sandcastle, while Tallulah and Casper headed for Lion Rock. I followed, but only because I had no choice. After 10 or so minutes, me inappropriately shod and clinging desperately on to Casper's hand, we were nearly at the top. I looked down at Zanna, who has a pathological fear of bad things happening to our children, and hoped she was okay.
The kids loved it up there. They didn't want to go back down. "This is the gorgeousest view!" Tallulah said. "Lion Rock is truly amazing! The view is spectacular!"
Later, I asked Zanna how she felt when we were up there. She said, "I pictured you all falling to your deaths and wondered whether I would be able to get there in time to catch you, then I realised the best thing was not to look, so I turned my back to you."
In the car on the way back, I asked what everyone thought of Piha. "Great!" the girls said. "Amazing!"
Casper said, "I told you we shouldn't go to Piha!"
"Why?" I said.
"Because I'm going to pee my pants!"
But he didn't.
Final thoughts:
Had I been alone at the top of Lion Rock or Maungawhau, contemplating the view, or life, or anything else, would I have had as good a time as I did with my family? Would Waiheke have been as enjoyable without Janis's bewitching smile, Jess's sock-based stories or Ian's insights into New Zealand's sporting history? Even at the gallery and museum, where I was ostensibly by myself, I was connecting with other people, through either their creations or their voices.
Auckland is very nice and I love it and all Lonely Planet's highlights are good ones, but it's meaningless to say anywhere on Earth is the best place to visit, or even that one place is better than another. In travel, as in life, the highlights are not the places but the people. Having said that, I really would like to go to Tokyo.
A live cook-off featured ox heart, wapiti, wild boar and plenty of edible wildlife.