A Touch of Class

If getting into Auckland didn't feel like riding through a city, getting out again felt like it was never going to give up its grip. I'm sure that's in part due to the route the TA follows in its efforts to keep you away from the busiest roads. That said we traversed both Cornwall Park and Totora Park, each giving a true sense of rural New Zealand within cooee of the city centre. It feels like it meanders a bit, but in reality it tracks steadily South East, threading it's way between the spread tentacles of the Manukau Harbour and the Tamaki River.

From the hostel it was a couple of kms to rejoin the 'official' TA route at the exit from Mount Eden. The sheer number of navigation instructions, often with only a few hundred metres between them, made for staccato progress: we even resorted to checking the route using the GPX files a couple of times. While waiting at a red light in Cornwall Park we were treated to an impromptu show of various rally & supercars, as they were gathering for the Collectors Car Show later in the day. This took us to Onehunga Mall. Not so much a mall as a traditional linear high street lined with a wide variety of local shops.

We crossed the Mangere Inlet on the new cycle/pedestrian bridge, and tracked the shoreline toward the start of the Airport Route cycleway, passing the hotel we spent a couple of hours in back in October. The router away from the airport was a bit nerve wracking as the start of Puhinui is currently down to single-lane traffic round the roundabout and over the bridge over yet another arm of the Manukau Harbour. We must have had a dozen cars behind us before we found somewhere to pull off the road. Wonderfully patient drivers, every one of them... With this turn, the headwinds we'd generally been punching up till then became a tailwind. Bliss...

5km down Puhinui Road it abruptly deadends at the railway line. I guess at some time in the past it had a level crossing, but now the rail line is about a metre above the road. Instead you do a little box around, across an overbridge. 6km further on, we're on the gravel bridleway through Totara Park, debating which way to go at an unsigned junction. The map shows the route goes right, but a walker Marg has accosted tells us this goes down steps(!). Both paths converge at the bottom, so we take the vertiginous track straight ahead, arriving shortly at the totara surrounded greensward where we stop for lunch. Beautiful, apart from the high-tension power pylon...

The suburban roads beyond the park were possibly busier than usual for a weekday, because of the holiday. But the drivers were brilliant, even when Marg stopped right on the line of a turning lane when I couldn't hear her directions. On past Ardmore airfield, causing Marg to reminisce about the days of Jim Clark, Stirling Moss, et al competing in the NZ grand prix there in the '50's. Once again our timing was impeccable as we saw an old warbird - possibly a Spitfire - lining up for the runway. After a Yak aerobat had come arcing in for dramatic landing, the Spit lined up and, with a roar of its RR Merlin, took to the skies.

By this time we were back in the countryside, a short run in toward Clevedon, but turning away from town to find our accommodation. The back story is that Judy & Kevin built this 11 X 7m 'sleepout' to live in while they built their main house. They even invited us to use their pool, and a brief swim was just the way to refresh after our shortish ride. This was capped off by a wonderfully home-cooked roast chicken dinner, followed by apple strudel, ice cream AND cream. Not to mention the range of breakfast foods, cookies, biscuits and cheese already in the guesthouse kitchen. And all for less than we paid for a sterile modern motel in Murchison last year...

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