1am-2am: The dark knights

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Like a tightly coiled spring, a legion of trouble-shooters is poised to jump to the rescue in the dead of night.

They are the "just-in-case" brigade, ready to respond round-the-clock to emergencies on land, sea or air - be it an earthquake, a yacht in distress or a terrorist attack.

Vigilant eyes scan the darkness for any hint of trouble - some from the comfort of their own homes, with the help of laptops and satellites.

Every night a member of the National Rescue Coordination Centre in Wellington monitors an emergency computer - sometimes at the kitchen table - to make sure all is well around New Zealand and tracts of the South Pacific.

But if an emergency beacon sets alarm bells ringing, the watchers will have to rush to the Civil Aviation Authority headquarters in Lower Hutt to drive the search and rescue mission.

If someone is missing at sea, an Air Force Orion is likely to be dispatched.

The white knight of the skies sits near the tarmac at the Whenuapai airbase 24 hours a day - ready to take off within two hours' notice. At least 11 aircrew are on call, just in case.

A light is on at every defence base in the country.

If a natural disaster strikes New Zealand deep in the night, Civil Defence has its own lone duty officer - armed with a cellphone, fax and pager.

If this is the graveyard shift, aspiring DJs Martin Cavanagh and Heath Mortlock have got the theme music for it - death metal.

Every Tuesday between 1 am and 2 am, within the studio walls of 95bfm, the longhaired musicians snap their heads back and forth to the ominous beat thrusting through the airwaves.

They play their own CDs by death and black metal legends like Gorguts, Regurgitation, Cryptopsy and Gorgasm.

This is the Nocturnal Dominion hour - "The most brutal show on radio," says Cavanagh with the most angelic smile.

He reckons the music goes hand in hand with his day job - dissecting limbs and organs in a hospital laboratory.

The 24-year-old is also a drummer in a death metal band called Skuldom.

"I play drums and cut up body parts - that's all I do all day," he says.

Bfm lays claim to being the only radio station in Auckland that keeps its listener numbers constant throughout the day and night. But then again, it has shunned the listener surveys this year - unperturbed by just how many are tuned in.

The melodies piped through the new Woolworths supermarket in Grey Lynn are definitely more middle-of-the-road, crooning to insomniacs doing a middle-of-the-night grocery run.

During the hour after 1 am, just a handful of shoppers drift down the aisles.

"We get couples coming through at all times of the night to grab some kind of romantic snack - that's quite special," says Grant Rothville, the duty manager.

"And sometimes there are men dressed in women's clothes doing the family shopping."

The most popular groceries deep in the night? Roast chickens and French bread - often, customers get only as far as the car park before scoffing them down.

Food is a crucial fuel to keep night-owls going.

Just before 2 am on a Saturday, actress Danielle Cormack - fresh from a night on the boards - orders her regular seafood chowder at The Open Late Cafe on Ponsonby Rd.

The tables around her are full with the "coffee and cake crowd" - the traditional wave of customers who pour in after midnight.

"In a couple of hours, the drunks will come in, wanting a meal after they've had a tankful," says the duty manager, Mark Wylens. "It's followed the same pattern every night for almost 20 years."

At the weekends, the doors stay open until 4 am - by that time around 200 people have stopped for a bite.

There is no respite for the defence bases around the country - at least one uniformed man or woman is always on duty through the night.

A counter-terrorism group also waits, drawn from the ranks of the crack Special Air Service at Hobsonville.

The aid brigade does not only look after our own.

During the night, New Zealand takes care of about 26 million sq km of airspace - one of the largest areas for any country in the world.

Our patch stretches halfway across the Tasman Sea, down to Antarctica, halfway to Chile and north past Fiji almost to the Equator.

There is always someone in the Oceanic Control Centre, in a corner of Auckland's airport, keeping in contact with any planes that fly through the colossal zone. They talk through a high-tech version of e-mail and high-frequency radio.

The country is in safe hands while we sleep. And in the next few hours, another army of workers refreshes provisions for the fast-approaching world of daylight.

Night File


1. In one week between midnight and 6 am, 33,600 night-owls listen to the radio in Auckland.

2. There is an average of four fire callouts in Auckland every night between 1 and 2 am.

3. About 15 per cent of New Zealand children suffer from parasomnia - sleepwalking, sleep-talking or teeth-grinding.

4. Between 1 and 2 am, almost 300 vehicles turn off the Southern Motorway at Gillies Ave.

5. There are seven supermarkets open 24 hours in Auckland.