12am-1am: Shots in the dark

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

In the moonlight at midnight, 25,000 little white balls glow like a field of radioactive mushrooms.

The only sound out on the range is the thwack of another ball streaking through the darkness.

It is the maiden hour of the new day, and tens of thousands of New Zealanders are avoiding bed. Some answer the thumping call of the dance floors, where daylight never exists.

Others prefer the eerie peace of the night, and belt golfballs at a 24-hour driving range near Auckland Airport.

Soon after midnight, all 24 bays at JK's World of Golf are full, and a queue is waiting.

"Some have never played golf before," says John Keighley, a former shearer who dreamed up the round-the-clock range. "Some come when their planes are delayed, or after shiftwork."

Across the fields at the airport, the runway lights never dim.

Around 12.30 am a flight from Melbourne touches down - the last passenger plane until nearly dawn.

The doors of the duty-free shops must stay open to greet the final passenger walking through.

The control tower waits on for freight planes that land throughout the night from around the globe.

New arrivals at hospitals across the land ignore their ETAs with nonchalance - day or night, it doesn't matter.

All the same, there's a notion that more babies are born in the early hours.

National Women's Hospital clinical director Rob Buist reckons it's a myth, compounded by stretched-out labours for mothers who are induced during the day. On any given night, about seven babies arrive at National Women's.

Across the bridge, at North Shore Hospital, half the lights are out, but the hospital still has a constant heartbeat.

At 1 am, Cathie Lesniak is halfway through her nightshift. In soft-soled shoes, she patrols the wards virtually non-stop for 12 hours to make sure the hospital is coping.

"There's a perception that we are sitting around while people sleep," says the duty nurse manager. "But we're on the go all night - sometimes we forget to eat. I think I walk 100km a night up and down these corridors."

There are about 100 people working in the hospital at night - 70 nurses and at least eight doctors.

While some wards are silent, the emergency department is the nerve centre after dark. Both North Shore and Auckland Hospitals tend about 30 new patients after every midnight.

While the medics mend ailing bodies, other night workers are replenishing and restoring the country for another day.

In the blackest of hours, mail sorters toil beneath blazing lights in warehouses in every city, directing millions of letters and parcels to their destinations.

Inside the Auckland Mail Centre, 400 people pore over envelopes and packages almost until dawn. Hulking Machines called imps swallow and spit out 30,000 envelopes an hour, reading addresses to send them to the right letterbox.

At least 1.3 million items of mail pass through the building every night.

Dawn Dyason, who has sorted mail for 27 years, works into the early morning hours to help clear the deluge of start-of-the-month bills.

By the time she has finished, there won't be a skerrick of paper left on the floor. There is a search under tables and machines to make sure no one's correspondence has been misplaced.

Outside, the mail is guarded by a family of feral cats, splotched black and white, which come out to prowl in the comfort of darkness.

This is also the time when the city drains itself of all but the true night-dwellers. A glittering thread of traffic weaves its way through the motorways.

On the Harbour Bridge, more than 500 cars and trucks cross to the northern shore of the Waitemata between midnight and 1 am.

The last buses leave the centre of Auckland City at midnight. The Number 470 heads down the spine of Auckland, to Papakura in the south.

Some restless shift workers clocking out head for the golf range.

At 1 am, a Korean coach is giving lessons to a visitor from his homeland.

A young couple from Bombay, who have never played a round of golf, swing wildly and often only cut through the chill air.

Later, a man will come and pick up all the balls. He drives a motorbike that scoops them up with its wheels, but in the boggy winter he must pick up every ball by hand.

It is 1 am and the new day is in its infancy - a lot of nurturing has yet to be done before it can stand on its feet by morning.

Night File


1. About 59,600 New Zealanders watch television every night between midnight and 6 am (from a potential audience of 3,523,000).

2. Over a week, 27.5 per cent of Aucklanders listen to the radio at some stage between midnight and dawn.

3. Night time is not a slow time on the Harbour Bridge -the average speed of vehicles crossing between midnight and 1 am is 87 km/h. The speed limit is 80 km/h.

4. More than a third of adults say they rarely get enough sleep.

5. About 40 people a night hit the 24-hour golf driving range between midnight and 6 am. Player numbers peak after rugby or rugby league matches on TV.