Fragile icon needs our help

Auckland's CBD fills the frame from Mt Eden's crater. Picture / Dean Purcell

You can sense the fragility as much as see it. The grainy, pink volcanic soil of Mount Eden, worn bare in places by countless feet, has a spongy, springy feel. The last few trees cling to the summit with the tenacity of coastal pohutukawas.

The crater has been shaped into terraces, like a Roman amphitheatre, by countless animals. And, despite the sign that says "Do not enter the crater, this fragile and sacred area is easily damaged," some wits have arranged the stones at the bottom into a lewd design, with the word "Lions".

"Hooligans! I hope those children don't see it," says Australian tourist Megan Griffiths, 25. She points to the well-trodden dirt track down to the bottom of the crater. "You can see why people keep going down there. Now there might be some Lions supporters who want to go down and amend it!"

Even on this cold and windy day, with clouds building over Waitemata Harbour, the Mt Eden carpark is clogged with cars. Fifty-seater buses sit with their engines running while their human contents spill out onto the cone.

It is 117 strides from the most favoured parking space to the top of this mountain, and the obelisk created by surveyor Stephenson Percy Smith on August 17, 1872. And every tourist makes the climb - not to read the Smith inscription, or attempt to decipher the information board - but to take each other's photos.

Young women from the Brisbane sports team fly up two steps at a time, while older Japanese and Thai veterinarians take it more quietly.

And all, today at least, walk carefully, stick to the paths and treat the cone with respect. "It's beautiful," they say. "Cool, magnificent. How many cities have a volcano right in the middle?"

Says Wayne Osten, who has been driving buses up here for at least 10 years: "Drivers are really concerned about the safety issues." They worry about trying to manoeuvre buses between the cars and throngs of people and finding a place to park without blocking the road.

"People get upset that we leave the motors running," says Osten, here from Rotorua with a load of Japanese tourists. "But we have to in case we have to move."

By 3.45 there are three buses and around 16 cars crammed on the summit. Young mothers with babies, fathers with small sons, newly-settled Asians, salesmen between appointments, refugees from city offices, jostle with dozens of tourists. For many Mt Eden is their refuge - or their introduction to Auckland. After this, Wayne Osten will drive his tourists through the Domain, followed by Parnell, and the Tank Farm before he deposits them at Rydges Hotel near the Sky Tower.

Dr Nop Sukpanyatham is part of a 22-strong party of Thai vets here for a three-day taste of Auckland and Rotorua. "Thai people like to come to New Zealand because it's still natural, the climate and everything is still clean. Yes, it's quite cold but we like that. In Thailand we have two climates: hot and hotter!" He and his wife are interested in One Tree Hill and the other volcanic cones they see from Maungawhau. "We would like to come back and look some more."

Over a few hours, on this, the windiest, coldest day of the week, at least 400 people make that climb to the top of Maungawhau. And every step - especially those of locals - has an impact on our fragile, irreplaceable mountain. And it shows.

As Mayor Dick Hubbard says, Mt Eden looks unloved, uncared for, tatty. The fact board explaining the history of Maungawhau is so thick with graffiti it is almost impossible to read. Many of the signs on the way up the patched and repatched road to the summit are vandalised. There is no caretaker, not even security cameras to guard this, one of our city's most fragile treasures.