KEY POINTS:
Just two weeks into a month's stay in Auckland and the northern summer kicks in. The quarter-inch thick plate-glass door of our apartment building is smashed to a zillion pieces by the wind. That morning, lulled into a false sense of Indian summer by three days of baking
heat, I agreed to meet friends for lunch at Aquamatta and trotted down in my best Wellington sundress and stilettos, only to be greeted by Auckland journos in overcoats and stockings. We sat beneath blazing heaters, thankful this restaurant is realistic about Auckland weather. Not like Euro, where two days before Christmas I took my daughter for lunch to be seated outside and almost blown across the harbour. I thought I'd be eating my dessert in Devonport.
There are those who claim the rivalry between Auckland and Wellington is petty but I'm not one of them. Greater Auckland is indeed a fine city, until you venture into the central city. That way be dragons. Wellington's CBD and waterfront are far superior.
And before you start raving about Auckland being the engine room of the country, I'm still a part-time Jafa. We have an apartment here; we pay rates (but - outrageously - we don't have a vote), plus water and waste charges. Despite moving to Wellington from Auckland around four years ago, I still spend at least three nights a month in the City of Sails, so I'm a minor cog in that engine too.
But your councillors just don't get it. They think banning billboards will miraculously transform a central city rendered hideous by town planners (and that's an oxymoron if ever there was one) and councillors greedy for inner-city development.
I just need to look out the windows of our apartment on the 13th floor of a 14-floor, 10-year-old building. Sure, it's not the sweetest looking construction in this part of town, but at least it doesn't look like a high-rise for battery hens. It has a great view across to Devonport, out to the islands and the Coromandel.
But eyes left and up looms the dreadful blue Lumley building. From a distance, flying in from the north at night at 10,000m, perhaps this building looks quite pretty. Up close and personal though, it has no charm or grace. In the evening when the parking basement has spewed out its 4WDs I'm almost pleased to hear the sounds of skateboarders whizzing around the twee water garden.
Just behind Lumley is a massive apartment building which must be the ugliest construction in the world. Too late, council's decided on a "blueprint for better apartment design", citing the 16-storey Scene One apartments on the corner of Beach Rd and Britomart Pl as an example of a development which "does not work as well in the public domain". As I write I look down on these buildings; my morning jog takes me past them, and "does not work" is an understatement. It's no good blaming the owners when the council approved the development in the first place.
And Queen St's a nightmare. Yes, I know it's in the middle of an upgrade, but in Wellington we're creating a boulevard of pohutukawa along the Quay and it hasn't brought the city to a standstill.
Two weeks ago, sections of Queen St reminded me of Carmen's nightclub in Wellington in the 1970s, with red Chinese lanterns swaying in the breeze. Then I found these sparse decorations celebrated the Chinese New Year. How sad, the city's substantial Asian population must be content with a few tatty lanterns and a party in Albert Park. Then again, Kiwi New Year celebrations are not much better. Do decent folks in suburbs like Remuera still double-bolt the doors, kiss goodbye to their letterboxes because come morning they'll be destroyed, apply more anti-graffiti to the front fence, take a sleeping pill and retire at 10pm?
I concede there are leafy treasures in the central city - Albert Park, the little park in the Law School, Emily Place, Old Government House grounds, um, did I say Albert Park? But where are the shady lawns closer to Queen St for workers to eat their lunch? I can name several along Lambton Quay, but Auckland's city mothers and fathers see grass and bring in concrete trucks.
And is life at Auckland University so terrible that thousands of students must attempt suicide by throwing themselves into the traffic chaos on Symonds St?
But I'll leave you with the comfort of knowing you've had your revenge on me. I return to Wellington next week recovering from a toxic, flattening dose of campylobacter. That'll teach me to criticise Auckland.
