New Zeland - North Island

Auckland!!
Auckland is the first place I’ve seen that nestles. Lookingat the city from a vantage point like Mt Eden, the way that the buildings crowd round the edges of the city’s many green volcanoes reminds me of the way a cat rubs the back of his neck against your leg; Auckland positively embraces its peaks. Some of the cones even have cows grazing on them: there can’t be many other non-Hindu cities that have cows in their very midst.

How worrying, then, that the volcanic field that Auckland sits on is ‘dormant’ – for which read ‘could wake up at any time’. The most recent addition to Auckland’s igneous family is Rangitoto, a wide, forbidding peak that suddenly appeared in the middle of Auckland harbour some 600 years ago, and whose activities only stopped about 200 years ago; it’s pretty untouched by
humans, and its looming slopes – which always look dark, even in bright sunlight – dominate the view. My hostel was situated right at the bottom of the biggest cone in the city area – Mt Eden, a luscious, green hill with a huge crater in the top – and although most sane people wouldn’t consider living in a dormant volcanic field, it’s water off Aucklanders’ backs.

‘It’s no more dangerous than driving a car… actually, it’s considerably safer,’ a local friend told me. He was right, of course, but when you hear that the most likely spot for the next eruption is Takapuna, home to some of the most expensive houses in Auckland, it makes you wonder how bad the casualties will be when it finally happens. New Zealand is a time bomb waiting to go off, but you’d never know from looking at it.

Initial Explorations
My arrival in Auckland was made considerably easier by the wonderful hospitality of Doug, the director of the computer company Acorn New Zealand, his wife Raewyn and their two daughters, who put me up in their house and gave me a job at Acorn on the technical support team, starting straight away. This job would endup funding most of my Asian travels, but first I needed to sort myself out with a roof over my head.

It wasn’t long before I’d settled into my own room at the Berlin Lodge in Mt Eden, a rather pleasant suburb only 20 minutes walk from Acorn’s office. When I moved in it seemed that the hostel was full to the brim with loads of incredibly friendly people from Bangladesh, who appeared to have bulk-booked the place. It was rather refreshing; the place was being run by a German, it was
full of strange accents, languages and smells, and it didn’t seem to be full of the normal backpacker crowd, thank goodness. I loved it.

I spent my first weekend exploring Auckland with a middle-aged American called Paul1, who proved delightful company and a source of top-notch travel advice. Auckland is a tiny place, with only a million inhabitants, and it’s simplicity itself to explore. There are trees everywhere, the air is clear, the traffic problems are minimal, and you can walk almost everywhere with ease, like most small cities in this part of the world.