Friday 9 August 2013

To Auckland - and suburbs


I took notes during the day to remind me of everything that happened, and they’re in my bag and I can’t be bothered getting up to get them.

After breakfast we decided that we’d better change the batteries in the burglar alarms. Of course I’ve got the job of clambering over the furniture to reach them.

The first one was in the computer room, and involved standing on the edge of D.C.’s (aka mine) kitset desk. I was a bit concerned that it wouldn’t hold and I was jammed up against the wall, but I managed to get the battery changed without too many difficulties… Until I went to get down again.

I couldn’t see behind me and, like I said, I was pressed up against the wall so couldn’t shift my weight to the side. I put my foot backwards to where I thought the stepladder was and D.C. started telling me to move it back further. If she’d said that I was putting my weight on the keyboard sliding tray, I would have cottoned on, but I thought I was in the right place and then looked down and realised I wasn’t. I lost my balance and started to fall back and the only thing that saved me was D.C. getting behind me and me basically leaning against her head so it was bent to the left.

We were both okay and I managed to get down safely.

Next attempt was the lounge, which was easier in that there’s a chaperone seat underneath the sensor and, fortunately the half that I had to stand on was actually solid, unlike the other half which collapses if you look at it. So getting up there and standing strong wasn’t a problem.

What was a problem was when I levered the cover off the sensor. This was a newer model than the other and as soon as I pulled it off the alarm beeped once.

Okay… No major screeching bringing the house down and security guards running… Carry on.

I got the battery in.

And tried to replace the sensor cover.

The alarm beeped twice.

We waited for the phone to ring.

Nope.

It took me several attempts, and a few beeps, to get the cover back on, but finally we were able to relax, I climbed down, and we departed to other parts of the house to continue getting ready…

Ring. Ring.

It was the security company to check that we weren’t being burgled or attacked or anything. D.C. reassured them that we weren’t and that all was well.

We were finally packed and ready to go. I was the last to leave the house and realised that not only was the back door open, not only was the security door open, but the door to the lounge was open.

Had Hillary Grey, the next door neighbours’ cat who thinks she owns our place, snuck inside and upstairs without our knowing?

I suggested that maybe we leave D.C.’s key with the Greys.

I was waiting at the gate when D.C. was getting her key when I saw a bronze/copper Suzuki Swift motoring along our street. “Oh!” I thought, “That’s one of those cars in town that looks like Donna’s.”

Ah, no.

It was Donna’s.

She’d arrived at work without a key to get in, and there was no one there. No one in the office, no one in the factory, nobody. So she’d driven the route that she thought we’d take in the hope that she’d see us.

She did. At home.

So we got a ride to the bus depot, which is over the road from work, and she got into the office.

We did have a couple of stop offs on the way. Firstly to the Workingman’s Club to give John Grey the keys, but D.C. couldn’t find out how to get in and couldn’t get anyone to hear her.

Then we stopped off at the post office and I got work’s mail, D.C. checked out ours and the museum’s (and left it) and Donna went to the chemist’s to get a protective cover for swimming for her daughter Sophie’s broken arm. She had less luck than we did.

We dumped D.C. at the Thames i-SITE / Information Centre and then drove around the corner to work. I let us in and then we did the usual things like grumbling over Charles leaving work on the keyboard and voice mail messages being left. (At least that was good practise for Donna.) Then, once I’d found my keys again, I walked over to the bus stop.

The trip up was good, even if D.C. managed to get sloshed by another passenger’s bag, on the side of her head that I’d attempted to sit on earlier.

Despite the weather forecasters’ dire predictions, it was fine the entire way – until we got just past the Maramarua Golf Course. Then we drove into a wall of fog. I think this fog would have spilled into Auckland if it hadn’t run into the Bombay Hills. Climbing out of it and into blue skies was quite ethereal.

We made it to the SkyCity bus terminal at about 11.45 – if we’d been catching a ferry to Rangitoto we would have made the 12.15 sailing with plenty of time to spare.

But we’re not going to Rangitoto this time.

The first thing we wanted to do was dump our excess gear. Including clothes. It’s winter; right? It’s supposed to be cold; right? We’ll have to be ready to brave the freezing temperatures of Christchurch; right?

Yeah, right.

I’d initially planned to wear a poly-prop top, a blouse, my woolly International Rescue jumper, and my new, especially bought, three-jackets-in-one jacket. The poly-prop wound up in my suitcase this morning, but I was had a glow on by the time we reached the Ibis in Wyndam Street. (How do you spell Wyndam? Isn’t there an H in there somewhere? It’s the one that the Farmers’ Free Bus used to leave from. The one that their clothing label was named after.)

We couldn’t book in until 2.00pm. But they did let us leave our suitcases and the interior jacket of our jackets behind.

Off to find lunch. We ended up eating in the Britomart Station. My chicken, cranberry and brie thing looked better on display than it did once they’d flattened it to heat it, and was overpriced for the flavour. As was my hot chocolate.

Then we wandered about and I checked out some monopods (like a camera tripod except with one leg instead of three, which makes them easier to carry). I was sorely tempted with one, except that I wasn’t sure that it would fit inside my bag. We solved the problem by measuring its length against the sleeve of my exterior jacket and discovering that it was as long as the cuff to the white bit.

Then we went back to the Ibis and were allowed into our cupboard… Sorry, room. For $80 for the two of us we can’t expect much, but we have a room big enough for two single beds (we’ve managed to squeeze a wooden collapsible chair between them as a table), a 15” TV, a combined toilet, shower, hand basin, and the kitchen sink (not in the same room as the ablutions area, but in the bedroom). Nowhere to put our bags or hang our clothes. And I think there’s a nightclub downstairs belting it out now at 9.18pm.

Oh, yes. And the only light switch, and light, for the bedroom is by and above the door to the bathroom. Someone’s going to have to get up and turn it off and then make their way back to bed. Just as well we’ve bought torches.

Still, we’re only paying $80.

I measured my bag with my sleeve and discovered that the monopod’s about a cuff too big. It would fit in by lying diagonally on the X, Y, and Z planes, but not just by lying flat.

Bother.

So we offloaded everything that was unnecessary – my International Rescue jumper being one of those things. An idea that I questioned as soon as I stepped outside again to discover winter – or at least early spring.

But I warmed up again in the sun.

We caught a bus to Newmarket, but got off when we were invaded by a horde of Auckland Grammar School boys, with some St Peter’s College boys thrown in for good measure. Just because my Great-Grandfather turned the pillars on the honours board at AGS (skite, skite) didn’t mean that we wanted to be in a bus full of its pupils.

We decided to walk back to Newmarket down Gilgit Ave and discovered a promising looking street. We started walking down it, until it curved to the left towards the motorway. Newmarket was to the right. We decided to walk back up the hill while it still wasn’t too steep. Then we came across a lady raking up leaves so we asked her. Yes, the road did go to Newmarket, just turn right at the bottom.

With some misgivings we did what she said, and discovered to our surprise that it met up with Maungawhau Road. Turning right into Maungawhau (which I remembered is the Maori name for Mount Eden.  This was confirmed on a mural painted transformer on the street, which gave a short history of the area.) we found an underpass beneath the motorway. Boy, was there a huge change in traffic volume under there! No wonder people can sleep in such places.

We found Newmarket and went on a hunt for the railway station. We’d decided that we wanted to go for a train trip while we had nothing else to do, and finally decided on heading out to Onehunga. (It’s all right for D.C. She has a gold card and doesn’t have to pay. I wound up paying $3.40 one way.)

It was a good trip and we got there close to dusk. The setting sun was behind the old Post Office (now a café – aren’t they all?), so I got some photos. 

Then we spotted their old Carnegie Library. 



The only other one in the country apart from Thames – which the Coromandel Heritage Trust is ruining by attaching a modern shipping container… No, sorry, it’s actually a public convenience… No…? That can’t be the archive building! Surely not!!

Selfish idiots.

After getting some exterior shots we decided to eat in the restaurant (ditto). It was more expensive than we might have wanted to spend, but the lemon sorbet (to cleanse the pallet before the main course) and roast chicken was delicious – nearly matching the artistry of the 1911 décor.







Then we caught another train back, having gone through the interesting experience of buying a ticket from a machine - $4.20, I think. It’s an extra stage to Britomart.

By now it was too dark to see anything, so I did some clue hunting on my tablet’s game.

We came back to our room, shuffled around each other, and decided that the best thing was to go to bed. D.C. tried to read, but the light’s not that good (did I mention that it’s over the door to the bathroom?), so she’s gone to sleep.

Which I think I might do now.

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