John Key's Parnell conifers. Photo / Dean Purcell
The five Holcim cement silos at the Port of Onehunga. These magnificent cylindrical towers are a symbol of industry, trade, and a lot of cement. They're also the first nice thing you really notice, that really stands out, after you come into Auckland from the airport. They send a message of Auckland as a beautiful city of isthmus and water, of wharf and fish, of manual labour and a lot of cement. The plant will close next year, and the cement ships Westport and the Milburn Carrier II will no longer dock at Onehunga. But the silos are expected to remain, white and welcoming.
34a Waimarie St, St Heliers. You can see the one at Three Kings for miles away; it's round and fat and cheerful. But the one at the top of Waimarie St in St Heliers is a modest work of art, kind of petite and rather shy. Built in 1936, it also has an old-world charm to it.
The Surrey Hotel, 465 Great North Rd, Grey Lynn. Few of Grey Lynn's dreary hipsters have ever stepped inside the strange, resolutely uncool mock-Tudor palace of the Surrey, which has a bar, restaurant, and 77 rooms on either side of Great North Rd. But it's one of the great jewels of Auckland hospitality, and has a dark and sombre beauty to it. It's got a lot of timber and carpet. It's got a small and ingeniously located indoor swimming pool kind of shaped like a diamond. It does a very good roast on Sundays, and the rooms are sensibly priced. I stayed there this year for three nights to finish my book, The Scene of the Crime, and wrote 30,000 words in splendid peace and quiet, and in comfort and style. I'd like others to enjoy that opportunity too, and I'm seriously thinking of setting up an annual award in which writers can win a three-day retreat at the Surrey to work on a creative project. New Zealand writers can apply for fellowships in Berlin and Menton; soon, I hope, they can compete for the even more exotic Surrey Fellowship.
Bayswater Park, North Shore. To be precise, near the corner of Bayswater Avenue and Birkley Rd, facing O'Neill's Point Cemetery. They're clean, very clean. They're well-stocked with toilet paper, and handwash. These are the essentials, but the Bayswater toilets goes the extra distance - they play music, sweet orchestral music, and they also have a recorded message that talks to you, bids you welcome, wishes you all the best, and thanks you for your custom. You should go there at once.
Lamb On The Wall, 471 Dominion Rd, Mt Eden. Lamb On The Wall! O mystifying and meaty, bleaty Lamb On The Wall. According to its website, "Lamb on the Wall's name is inspired by yang xiezai, or lamb backbone, an ingredient attributed with improving qi and aiding bone health. Legend has it that Genghis Khan's Mongol horsemen ate it for strength and bravery, and the delicious, fragrant broth made with yang xiezai remains a Chinese favourite." Very well, and no doubt its signature dishes of lamb spine ($46 for 1.5kg) and lamb spine noodle soup are delicious, but nothing explains the decision to name the restaurant - BAAA! Lamb On The Wall. Incredible.
Harp of Erin, Ellerslie. Harp of Erin! O, musical harp, playing the soft, lyrical music of thy romantic name which graces three separate T-intersections converging off Great South Rd in Ellerslie. It was named after a hotel that burned down in 1928, and refers to the national symbol of Ireland. Nice.
Laidlaw College, Lincoln Rd. Formerly known as the Bible College of New Zealand, when it was opened in 1961; the original building still exists at the back of this quiet, leafy, very pleasant campus next to an abandoned orchard. There's a punching bag hung up in a magnolia, a library well-stocked with anti-intellectual works (The Evolution Controversy, Testing Darwinism, etc), a fountain, a quad, halls of residence, and the presence of God, possibly.
Lincoln Rd. It's got a bible college, a wananga, 10-pin bowling, pet stores, supermarkets, flowers, headstones, banks, Dunkin Donuts, Croatia Travel, a hospital, a school, an abandoned orchard - it's got everything, including a lot of traffic. Bores and do-gooders dismiss it as a strip-mall eyesore but there's always a sense of purpose and industry along this bustling silk road of the West.
Clifton Castle, 7 Castle Drive, Epsom. You know you want to buy this. It went on the market in April, and is still for sale; it's a bizarre Gothic castle with a 15m tower, was built in the 1860s for business magnate Clifton Firth, and the CV is $5.2 million. Oh and there's a house a few doors down that has a giant clock on an outside wall. Epsom! So weird.
Ranui. Ranui's kind of got it going on. It's semi-rural, very green, very open, and the new $8 million library - it opened in October last year - has given the township a thing of modern wonder and class. I live in Te Atatu; the new library there has given the township a thing.
Browns Bay. You might have to drive another 100km out of Auckland to find a shopping village as friendly and summery and laid-back as Browns Bay on the North Shore. The whole place feels like the sort of seaside town that puts a smile on your dial as soon as you arrive. It's got toy shops, op shops, good icecreams, and Browns Bay Fisheries opposite the police station does the best fish and chips in a 200km radius.
Sylvia Park. For a full run-down of Auckland malls, book your seat now for my special investigation in next week's Weekend Herald. Every mall reviewed! Wow! But I'll surprised if anything tops Sylvia Park. It's just too good. The new North West mall has imitated it to the point of plagiarism - Natalia Kills would tear strips off it - but still comes far short of the original. It's Xmas! See you there, probably.
St John the Divine, by SJD. Released in March, this album by Sean Donnelly of Konini is a flat-out pop music masterpiece from beginning to end. All the little symphonies, all that Donnelly wall of sound with its nuances, its shades, its nimble touches, hither and yon. In short, he writes awesome songs, catchy and precise, lyrically clever and beautifully arranged, played, and composed. I buy all my CDs from Marbecks in Queen St and this is the best of the lot by far in 2015.
The Green Dolphin, St Kevin's Arcade, Karangahape Rd. The Green Dolphin! I once wrote a column about "quite possibly the strangest New Zealand film of all time", Green Dolphin St, which inspired the name of this excellent, intelligently curated second-hand bookstore. The film was made in Hollywood in 1947, starring Lana Turner, set in 1840s New Zealand - it has a stunning haka, and the action moves from the kauri forests of Northland to the sheep stations of Otago. It ought to be a cult classic. Happily, at least, it lives on in this brilliant bookstore, where I've recently bought a 1968 copy of The Wahine Disaster, co-authored by Max Lambert and my former journalism tutor, Jim Hartley, and Truman Capote's In Cold Blood with an added feature - a DVD of the 1967 film version.
Spur-winged plover. Bores and even many birders loathe this screeching, graceless ninny, but it's almost certainly the bird seen by more Aucklanders than any other as they drive through the isthmus. It was first observed in New Zealand outside a borstal in Invercargill in 1932. It's since successfully established itself throughout both islands, and urban parks and roadsides are among its favoured habitats. Think well of it. It's a fantastic parent and doesn't take any shit from anyone. It lost its conservation status in 2010. Things might have been different if it was given the same lyrical and rather dashing name it has in Australia - the masked lapwing.
Owairoa Primary School, 85 Nelson St, Howick. It should win an Oscar. It's amazing. Of course, it has the standard gala delights of cakes and books, but it also has an exciting ride, a terrifying train thing actually built on the school grounds. This year's fair also featured the Trail of Terror, in which teachers and high school students dressed as zombies, mass murderers, psychotics, and various deranged mofos, scaring the hell out of kids who walked through trees and then into darkened classrooms. Brilliant! The best gala I've ever attended, anywhere. Plus I got a Shacklock heater from about 1975 for $5.
The 007, from Pt Chevalier Beach to St Heliers. From coast to coast, from the midwest to the far east takes about an hour and 20 minutes; it's a long, fascinating haul, an excursion that goes through Waterview, Mt Albert, Balmoral, Greenlane, Meadowbank, Glen Innes ... So much of Auckland flashes past your eyes, really slowly.
Dr Michael Kidd, Henderson Arcade. There is no problem too big (he handled the world's first climate change refugee case) or too small for this very interesting character who routinely fights for justice at the Waitakere District Court just the around the corner from his dark little office in the Henderson Arcade, with its curious old armchairs and evangelical paraphernalia. James K. Baxter had a profound influence on him; he's a friend of the poor.
John Key's trees. One of Auckland's great strolls is up and around the Parnell swimming pool and into St Stephens Ave, where the Prime Minister lives, in an unremarkable home behind a low wall and a remarkable line of tall, cloud-clutching conifers. Their size and shape are a sensation to behold. Politics has nothing to do with it; John Key's trees are just really awesome trees.
Manurewa's famous Norfolk pine, outside Southmall. It got turned on by some lucky schoolkid in the annual ceremony last night; what a sight it always is, blazing and burning, an electric heaven ever since the dear old Manurewa Borough Council first illuminated the Norfolk pine as a Christmas attraction in 1950. It was planted in 1911 by Manurewa resident Mr E.W. Dalton in front of his house on the Great South Rd. O, spirit of Mr E.W. Dalton! You, Sir, are the Father Christmas of Auckland.
This suburb is skipped in favour of flashier spots, but shouldn't be discounted.