Agog in Auckland
There are a lot of Aucklanders. Well, compared to the rest of the country, anyway. And for a country with only four million inhabitants, anything more than several hundred-thousand people seems like a hell of a lot. And Aucklanders get around, so much so that the rest of the country comes out with the rather rude term ‘JAFA’ when they come across one: “Just another ******* Aucklander!” No, the ‘F’ is for ‘fabulous’ a local quickly assures me!
A yachty place with the largest boat ownership per capita in the world, Auckland is viewed by many as a gateway – yet it is far more, and you don’t have to get out of the suburban sprawl to appreciate it. Around the city centre is a plethora of marinas, wharfs and viaducts, which have obviously made the locals sailing-crazed. Half an hour after touching down at Auckland’s airport, I had met Viaduct Voyager’s Doug Tilsney (viaductvoyager.co.nz), and was heading, at speeds approaching 60 knots (with the wind factored in) around the many surrounding isles and volcanic cones of the Hauraki Gulf. I was sad to hear that we’d just missed Cunard’s QE2, which was berthed here the week before my visit.
Aptly, approaching my hotel, part of the Sky Tower complex – the eponymous tower being the tallest building in the southern hemisphere – I saw someone bungee off it. This, I quickly ascertained, was no normal country.
Most of the fun in Auckland, however, is to be found an hour’s drive away. Taking the Scenic Drive off the North-western Motorway, one enters the bizarre settlement of Piha, shielded by the momentous, sub-tropical rainforest-clad Waitakere Ranges. Here I met Cam Bowen, owner of AWOL Canyoning (awoladventures.co.nz). Canyoning is a fairly popular pursuit here, and involves donning a wet suit and harness, bombing down canyons via their aquatic tributaries, waterfalls and caverns in any way you can – abseiling, walking, floating, scrabbling – negotiating an environment otherwise inaccessible. The area in which Cam canyons was last visited by the pioneers who worked the canyon 100 years ago, harvesting the mighty, 3,000-plus-year-old kauri logs and flushing them from the hills via dam releases. Some of the old logs remain embedded in the canyon but hardly any kauri trees still stand, and the ones that do are in particularly difficult-to-reach places.
By Peter Myers & Justin Eeles
For full article please click here
Courtesy of lifestyleandtravel.com
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