Auckland: First Impressions

My first impression of Auckland was from the air, coming in for a landing with dawn rising right behind the plane. Sadly I didn’t have a window seat so I can’t show you this. Picture Paris by night, except with loads of islands and the red glow of Mordor just over the horizon.

Upon landing I picked up Booster, who seems to be in pretty good shape. No giant dents or puncture wounds in the box, so that’s a good sign. Once I got her through customs, I had to make the next decision: get some riding in this week, or wheel her over to airport security storage where she can stay until I pick her up on Thursday to go to Tasmania.

As much as I’d like to ride, my time in Auckland is primarily for research and writing, plus bringing that fat-ass box into town and back demands something a lot bigger than the standard Uber Prius. So into storage she goes, which is on the opposite end of the airport because of course it is. That presented me with my first bikepacking engineering problem. She fits just fine on the wheelycart if I put her on sideways, but then it’s impossible to navigate through a crowd. So she’s got to go on lengthwise, and at 23kg she’s got a lot of leverage. Hence my engineering problem: how to build a cantilever?

(Answer key: X = All my camping shit)

Once I figured that out, it was off to the Airbnb for me. That’s when I got my real first impression of Auckland itself: was this city actually built by elves? You wouldn’t believe the greenery here. I don’t know if they built around all the trees instead of cutting them down, or just replanted everything with the care of a Zen rock gardener. Either way, the highway interchange downtown feels like driving through a very busy forest. And this is early spring! Can’t wait to see it when I come back through in January.

Imladris, but with more apartment buildings.

Also, the city is nothing but hills. I’ve always had weak ankles, but if I lived here a year I bet I’d never roll an ankle again. These people must be as surefooted as hobbits and as immovable as dwarves. They also have nifty four-legged fire trucks, as I got to see when a fire alarm went off at the apartment building I’m staying in. These streets are too hilly to deploy the ladder steadily, so the firefighters just boost the whole damn truck off the ground.

No one in the building was hurt and nothing seems to have been on fire. So thus far, I’ve had a little excitement to give me a research break, and otherwise a pretty uneventful stay apart from the occasional engineering project.