Trendy But Casual

On Waiheke Island

It's Friday morning in Auckland - windy, rain threatening - and I'm sitting in the central branch of the Auckland Public Library, gazing out the window at the City Art Gallery instead of getting on with work. This afternoon I'm going downstairs to the Academy Cinema to see, with my mother and sister, the German film Go For Zucker.

I wanted to post some pictures from Waiheke Island, where I spent a few hours on Wednesday visiting my friend Kyra Xavia. We met in Shanghai when I was there researching Hibiscus Coast, but these days Kyra is living in the opposite of Shanghai. Waiheke is an island in the Hauraki Gulf, a thirty-five minute ferry ride from downtown Auckland. It used to be a hippie hangout/holiday destination, but these days there are vineyards and multi-million-dollar homes on the clifftops; the hippie schtick has evolved into organic food markets and boho cafes. It's still very pretty and laidback. This is Oneroa, the biggest township:

We went for a walk along the coastal path, looking out to the Coromandel Peninsula and Little Barrier Island (Hauturu):

I know I've been waxing lyrical about the ferries, but there was unnecessary confusion the other day at wharf #2 in the city: the sign read "Ferry for Rangitoto," and it was only when I saw people getting on with luggage that I realized it was probably the Waiheke ferry. (You don't need luggage on Rangitoto - there's nowhere to stay.) I asked a lurking bystander if he knew what was going on.

Me: Is this ferry going to Rangitoto or Waiheke?
Him: Waiheke.
Me: Then why does the sign say Rangitoto?
Him: Because this is New Zealand.

In other travel news, my nephew and his cohorts made it safely to Wellington on Tuesday but the drive - which takes eight and a half hours or so on a good day - took them thirteen hours because the Desert Road was closed. Today he's coming back on the train - a twelve-hour trip.

And now I must do some work.

Teenagers in my life: NZ edition

When I'm not devising ways to work my niece and nephew into my books, I'm taking pictures of them and inflicting said pictures on others. Today it's the Internet's turn to suffer. This is my niece heading off to high school with her walking companions Kenneth and Tristan. (Morning only: they walk home in other configurations). The reason the second photo is bizarre is because I made the mistake of asking them to "walk normally."

The University of Auckland is on break for a few weeks, so this morning I drove my nephew and two of his friends, George and Joe, out to South Auckland to pick up a very small rental car. They're driving down to Wellington for a few days, so George and Joe can see their (probably long-suffering) families and my nephew can experience bone-chilling winds and freezing rain. They're all first-year students at Auckland, and they were all exchange students last year during their final year of high school - George in England, Joe in Argentina, and my nephew in Mexico. Here are the Three Musketeers posing by their tiny rental car.

It usually takes eight hours or so to drive from Wellington to Auckland, but it may be even longer today: the infamous Desert Road that crosses the North Island Volcanic Plateau was closed this morning because of snow. At least Mount Ruapehu isn't erupting this year.

It's chilly in Auckland today, but we don't get snow here. Chilly means wearing a scarf, perhaps, or turning on the heater. I'm planning a trip to Waiheke Island tomorrow to visit a friend, not just because I'm missing taking the Devonport ferry every day, and in a week's time I'll be returning to the Land of the Free/Brave (I can never remember which).

Last day in Devonport

It's my last day of work at the Michael King Writers' Centre on Mt Victoria in Devonport, and I'm sad to leave it. I've had an incredibly productive time up here. Karren, the administrator here, was kind and picked me up at the wharf this morning so I didn't have to trek up the hill in the rain. It was pouring within ten minutes of the ferry pulling in. We even have thunder this morning: it's like being back in New Orleans. These are my views today:

Auckland looks more itself in the rain, I think. There are old jokes about the weather here. What do you call two days of rain in Auckland? The weekend. What do you call four days of rain in Auckland? Easter. Walking to the train station this morning, I stepped over a long, writhing worm and thought of all the walks to primary school on rainy days, water dripping off my stylish pink-and-white rain hat (I had a matching coat), streams pouring along the gutters, worms inching out of verges (to get stepped on and severed in some way), the bushes and grass a more vivid green than usual. Like this:

I'll miss the ferry rides every morning and evening, and the low-key charm of Devonport wharf. For example, the way people are allowed to leave their bikes chained up for the day inside the terminal.

And the ad hoc notices about extra ferries whenever someone important, like Pink or Guns N' Roses, comes to town.

Last night I caught the train to Henderson, where there's a shiny new station (Escalators! Piped music!). But it was back to reality in Mt Albert this morning, where the platform facilities appear to be have abandoned some time after World War II and ransacked over the decades by orange-eating marauders.

Back in New Orleans, T. Middy says he is headed out to the famous Saturn Bar with two of my colleagues, and another colleague, Peter Cooley, is going to a "crime in our neighborhood" meeting. I'm going to stay warm and dry here in the washhouse, and get some work done.

No Time

As in, no time to post today. Working! (Plus getting my photo taken for the Sunday Star-Times magazine, and other glamorous non-writing activities.)

Here's a picture of the delicious giant Afghan biscuits you can buy in the New World supermarket by the waterfront in Wellington. This should keep you all going.

Modes of Transportation

Today's gripping post, brought to you from a rain-battered washhouse in Devonport, is about public transport in Auckland. I am All About Public Transport on this visit - ferries, buses, trains, taxis. (Though not so much of the latter - taxis are expensive in this city of vast distances.) Aucklanders like to complain about the public transport here, mainly to justify driving everywhere and paying huge amounts for parking. And maybe I've just been lucky because of my limited range of required routes. Here are some exciting pictures to persuade you all that public transport in Auckland is nice. For example, this is a bus stop:

And here's the 5:30 PM ferry pulling into Devonport wharf last night.

You can enjoy some delightful views from Mt Albert train station ...

By the way, St Peter's boys, why don't you give up your seats on the train to adults? Ask yourselves: what would Simon Dallow do?

The downtown Britomart station, in the bowels of the glorious old Post Office building, is flash: fountains, ferns, shiny pillars, etc. My pictures of it are rubbish, though. Whenever I take pictures in transport hubs, I worry about getting arrested, so I take the photos in haste to avoid detection. This stems from a trip to Russia c. 1987.

That's enough transport for now. Two of my school friends from Rutherford High (now Rutherford College) came to the reading on Monday night, which was very kind of them. Simon Dallow, by the way, should have attended Rutherford - like me, he's from Te Atatu South. But his cruel parents sent him to St Peter's College instead.

I had a wander through the Rutherford site, and saw various things of interest. Mr. Coughlan, who was once my Social Studies (and later Geography) teacher, is taking a group of students this week to my former intermediate school, Rangeview: the list reads "senior drama, senior dance, singing, Korean drummers and those from the production." There's also the strict instruction: "Full school uniform must be worn." A note to Rutherford students - please take this warning seriously. Once Mr. Coughlan cancelled a class field trip because one person (and one person only - KATHLEEN) had misbehaved in Social Studies that week. We didn't have Korean drummers at Rutherford in those days. We didn't have Chinese Temples visits or Indian dance or water polo then either. Times have changed.

Of course, some things come back around again. The school musical this year is Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I think this was the school musical in either 1977 or 1978. It starred Ross Girven, who went on to become a real actor. But then we are all high achievers in West Auckland.

Reading Tonight

It's a sunny, chilly morning and I'm back in Devonport to get some work done. Tonight I'm taking part in an event at the Women's Bookshop on Ponsonby Road, if you happen to be in Auckland: I'll be reading, along with poets Kapka Kassabova, who I met at the Auckland Festival, and Janet Charman. The wine-drinking part of the event starts at six; the readings start at 6:30. I'm going to read something silly from Trendy But Casual - probably the scene in which RapStallion's album, Giddy Up Bitch, is launched at the Guggenheim. By the way, if you Google that album title you'll get over 500 results, not all of them entirely savory.

I'm glad to see that the novel gets a mention on a Bronte-related blog.

The Morris Family

Last week in Wellington, after Milton doused his red wine stains with water, and cleaned the wound on his elbow, he took this picture of me and my brother. This is the kind of sympathy (and shame) you can expect from members of the Morris family.

Apologies

Sorry for the long pause since my last post: I was in Wellington to visit my brother and take part in a Creative New Zealand arts reviewers' seminar (a good day, but what's up with all the domineering theatre reviewers?). This is my brother's apartment building, reflected in the one across the road. (It's the middle building, with scaffolding attached.)

His apartment is small but very convenient to important locations like government ministries (he works in one of these) and Caffe Astoria. And he has Sky TV, so we could watch the French Open men's final live at 1 AM.

On my last night there, we went for dinner with my friend, the brilliant Milton Bell, to Monsoon Poon. I was gesturing wildly with my wine glass, and managed to sever the bowl from the stem - glass all over the floor and the table, red wine all over Milton. Ten minutes later: blood seeping from Milton's elbow when he made the mistake of leaning on the table. Come to dinner: I will cut you.

It was sunny the first day in Wellington, which means Wellingtonians go around saying "you can't beat a good day in Wellington," as though said good days come along all the time there. This is the waterfront, near Te Papa (our national museum).

It's Matariki, the Maori new year, as advertised in the Te Papa shop window. I'll post more about next week.

I have to hurry now: I'm in a Starbucks on Ponsonby Road (for the purposes of wireless access only! I don't want hate mail from NZers outraged I'm not patronising one of the many local places) and I have to race to pick up my niece from ballet, plus get ready for a night carousing with Top Author Charlotte Grimshaw.

Here's a picture taken from the plane window (probably illegally) on the flight back up to Auckland - it's of Mount Taranaki.

Sorry for the scattered nature of the post. I have so much more to report. From where I'm sitting, in Starbucks, I can see the sun setting over the Waitakere Ranges. Auckland is a beautiful city. But the traffic is hell, so I better go.

Last Night, Last Day

Last night was my final overnight stay in the Signalman's House, and I was taken out for a very pleasant dinner by Geoff Chapple and Miriam Beatson, the amazing forces behind Te Araroa, or the long pathway, a walking trail that will stretch the length of New Zealand. Geoff's book on the project won a Montana New Zealand Book Award in 2003. His other work includes the brilliant play Hatch (about a villainous penguin-killing former mayor of Invercargill, FYI). He's also the man who negotiated with Shania Twain.

Not so pleasant was the creepy story Geoff told me: allegedly, the Signalman's House was a brothel during the second World War, and in the early 40s a woman was murdered here by a GI. On July 10 every year, you can hear her screaming.

Unfortunately I am extremely suggestible and lay awake last night listening for creaks/ghosts/screams, though it's only June i.e. a little early for the scheduled haunting. Karren, the administrator here, told me this morning that the house wasn't a brothel during the war: the last signalman's widow lived here until the late 60s. And she was a very respectable widow. There's a bunker up at the summit currently used by a folk-dancing society - that place has brothel written all over it.

Here are some pictures taken on my final morning here - the house, taken from the road up to the summit of Mt Victoria, and then some of the spectacular views of the city, Rangitoto and North Head from the summit. Also, some strange things that have been painted to look like fairy toadstools.

A Writer Writes

Over at Leafsalon they've posted a new interview with me: those of you desperate to hear me talk about myself again should hurry over. Learn about my views on leggings and dress shorts! Find out what I get up to on Friday nights! Hear me gush, yet again, about Pico Iyer! See a picture of me that's so two years ago!

Actually, it was nice to be asked some fun questions for a change (thanks, Kathy) rather than defend things or take stands. I could talk more about dress shorts, but Heather and Jessica do it much better on Go Fug Yourself.

And here are some pictures of the washhouse/writer's studio in which I'm getting a lot of work done. I took them this morning, before it got all rainy and blustery, and I got Afghan biscuit crumbs all over the desk.