Sightseers fume after Mt Eden gate locked again

Auckland City Council signs on the gate at the entrance of Mt Eden, Auckland. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Sunset-chasers and their cars have been locked in Auckland's Mt Eden Domain again - despite a council apology two weeks ago to people stranded there by an earlier closing time.

A resident walking home at about 8.35pm on Friday said he saw cars jammed more than 200m back from a locked gate just off Mt Eden Rd, and a security guard nowhere to be seen.

"They were backlogged way up past the roundabout," Todd McLeay said yesterday. "People were going nuts - some were trying to break the barrier, others were saying, 'We're being held hostage, we just want to get home'."

Aggrieved sightseers told him a female security guard had locked the gate so nobody would leave the volcanic domain, then disappeared.

"The security person disappeared for ages and just left everyone there clueless as to what was going on," Mr McLeay said. "Then some time later - at about 8.55pm - she came back down [the mountain] and people were abusing her out of their windows, asking what was going on.

"She was saying things like, 'Don't talk to me - talk to [Auckland Mayor] Len Brown'. Then she unlocked the gate and everyone drove off."

Mr McLeay believed there would have been more than the 20 cars the Herald reported earlier this month were stranded on the mountain on the first night after closing time was brought forward from 11pm to 8.30pm.

He wondered why the guard could not have driven around with a loudspeaker before locking the gate, to give people a fair chance of leaving in time, and questioned the size of a "tiny" sign showing the closing time.

Council spokesman Mike George said the security guard spent about 20 minutes telling people it was time to leave, but had to lock the gate before doing so, to ensure no one followed her in after closing time.

"She was on the maunga [mountain], she went in through the gate at 8.32pm, and locked the gate behind her because there's only one gate on Maungawhau [Mt Eden], only one in and out," Mr George said.

"By the time she got down, of course people had already started to move down, which is why the cars would have been backing up, because the gate was locked. As soon as she got back down herself, she let everyone out."

Mr George said the council, which co-governs the domain with the Tamaki Collective of Maori iwi, was considering erecting a larger sign but he could not comment on whether there may be a case for two gates.