Feeling The Vibe
Joanna Wane talks politics, pandemics and life in lockdown on Auckland’s Te Araroa/ Coast to Coast Walkway
“You won’t like what I’ve got to say.” Fiona Johnson is spooning kiwifruit for her toddler son at a picnic table in Auckland’s Cornwall Park. It’s a gorgeous spring day. Tumbles of wisteria blossom are at the peak of their fleeting glory and the playground is swarming with children. But Johnson, who’s 55 and about to fly to San Diego for a second round of fertility treatment, isn’t feeling the love.
A sole parent by choice and the owner of several rental properties, she might be in the minority according to the latest election polls but Johnson is definitively not Team Jacinda. The Prime Minister is working Covid-19 as a political game. She doesn’t give “two tosses” about people. She’s mismanaged the border. “They don’t know how [the second wave] got into the community? That’s just bulls***. I’m so sick of the bulls*** and the media fawning all over her. We might as well be in China.”
Don’t get her started on handouts to Maori or Labour’s new tenancy laws. Johnson isn’t convinced the Government won’t make Covid-19 vaccinations compulsory, either. No red ticks from Johnson at the ballot box next Saturday, then.
Most likely, her vote will go to National — “I don’t think Judith Collins lies” — although Act Party leader David Seymour runs a close
second. Legalising cannabis, Johnson says, is the “dumbest thing I’ve ever heard”. However, she’s in cautious support of the End of Life Choice referendum, as long as there are safeguards against the coercion she’s seen in aged care from sons pressuring elderly parents for their money. “It’s always the sons.”
As far as State of the Nation reports go, the day Canvas spent walking across the city, passing through four electorates and accosting random Aucklanders for their views, is a highly unscientific survey. But in what’s been dubbed a “year of Mondays”, with much of the world seemingly on the brink of economic and social collapse, it’s a glimpse of everyday life re-emerging in a city bruised by a second lockdown.
In a quirk of geography, the Auckland isthmus is New Zealand’s narrowest neck of land, with the Manukau Harbour opening west to the Tasman Sea and the Waitemata Harbour facing east to the Pacific Ocean. Slicing the city’s flanks is the Coast to Coast Walkway, a 16km hike that traverses five volcanic cones and forms part of the Te Araroa trail, which runs the entire length of New Zealand.
When the year began — and that seems like several lifetimes ago — hundreds of planes streamed in and out of Auckland Airport every day. Now, clear skies over the Manukau Harbour are an eerie reminder that most of the world has been grounded. It makes Elsie Ropati anxious to see any flights coming in at all. “They should have shut the borders,” she says, even if that meant stranding some Kiwis on the other side.
It’s Friday morning and sun is streaming across the outdoor tables at Red Ruby Cafe in Mangere Bridge, a suburb rimmed by the Manukau Harbour. The Samoan mother of seven, wearing a blood-orange hibiscus flower tucked into her hair, is having breakfast with Ruth Mataio, a Cook Islander with five children of her own.
The pair became friends years ago when their daughters played basketball together. Ropati lives out west, in Glen Eden; Mataio is a police officer in Manurewa, where she’s still dealing with the same old grief from people who missed the memo about being kind.
Mataio says offenders try to mess with your head by pretending they have Covid-19. In April, an Auckland man who claimed to be infected with coronavirus ended up in court after spitting at three officers. When Mataio was sent for a routine test, she heard it was like having something poked up into your brain. “But it wasn’t as bad as I thought.” Her swab came back negative.
The three electorates with the largest Pacific populations in the country are in South Auckland. At the last election, the Labour Party blitzed all of them, but Ropati has more faith in God than politicians. During lockdown, she gave up smoking through the power of prayer. She’s decided not to vote, although she supported her cousin’s campaign as a National candidate in 2017.
Her husband, who’s an accountant, is working from home — “I’m his tea lady” — and still feels cautious about the health risks of leaving the house. A couple of his clients have gone under and Ropati’s hairdresser is just one of several businesses in their local community to have closed down.
“I can’t wait for this to be over,” she says, turning back to her avocado on toast. “I don’t think it will ever be normal again.”
Atranstasman bubble by Christmas? Maybe. But over the next few weeks, thousands of long-distance travellers will arrive in Auckland, bypassing quarantine altogether.
Each year, some 13,000 eastern bar-tailed godwits summer on the Manukau Harbour, after an extraordinary 12,000km non-stop migration from Alaska that can leave them so wasted they flop over with exhaustion when they finally touch down. Hundreds of years ago, Polynesians in the Cook Islands and Tonga saw the ancestors of these same birds fly overhead without breaking their journey and knew that meant there was land further south.
A special “Kia Ora Kuaka” event at Ambury Regional Park to welcome the godwits had to be cancelled in late September when gatherings in Auckland remained restricted to 10 people. But along the coastline, birders hunker down with tripods and binoculars at the edge of Mangere inlet, where shell islands have been built on the mudflats to encourage wading birds to roost away from the airport, reducing the risk of bird strike.
The godwits’ grey and brown plumage can make them tricky to spot unless you chance upon that magical moment, sometime in March, when they rise in their hundreds to circle the inlet in farewell before beginning the long journey back to the Arctic. “They always do a couple of circuits as a flock,” says Ian Mclean, of Birds New Zealand, who runs guided bird walks at the park.
“I think of it as prepping themselves up and getting their blood going, like All Blacks doing the haka before a game.”
A volunteer birder, Mclean earns his living as an inbound travel agent, of all things. Half of his colleagues have been made redundant and his salary reduced by a third, the company surviving on a trickle of domestic bookings. On the positive side, there’s been a surge in amateur bird-watching by people with time on their hands, confined to their homes. The flight of the godwits is an inspirational tale of hardship and pluck but there’s a certain poignancy to it, when life for the rest of us has shrunk at the boundaries. “They seem to have the freedom the rest of us don’t have.”
From Mangere Bridge, there’s a walkway under State Highway 20 where it crosses the inlet to Onehunga, the official western bookend of the Coast to Coast trail. A 24-hour security patrol keeps eyes on both the underpass (a target for taggers) and the construction site of a new pedestrian bridge, due to open in 2022.
Iosia Faalave is remarkably cheerful for someone who’s been up all night. He started a double shift at 9pm and is missing his 2-year-old daughter but won’t get home to see her for a few more hours yet. Before taking this job, Faalave worked security at some of the quarantine hotels, keeping a lookout for “guests” trying to sneak people into their rooms. He was swabbed every three weeks. “Man, it was painful,” he says.
A biting wind whips through the 1km underpass but Faalave reckons hundreds of people a night walked it during lockdown, just stretching their legs and looking for something to do. There’s a lovely view back to Mangere Mountain, but a grimness to this concrete tunnel, too. More than once, Faalave has had to talk down someone in the darkness as they looked for answers in the water.
The world his daughter is growing up in worries him but that’s something he seems to feel powerless to change. “I’ll leave it to the professionals,” he says, shaking his head when asked how he’ll vote. “No matter who’s in the big chair, it’ll still be the same.”
Regeneration or gentrification? They’re loaded words in Onehunga, according to a story in Metro magazine last year that looked at the “increasing cultural capital” of one of Auckland’s oldest neighbourhoods — and the impact of change on its traditionally working-class community. In the past 10 years, the median house price here has more than doubled.
The suburb is a transport hub and, for the first time on the day’s walk, covered faces are a common sight. Nathan, who’s 18, is masked up for his bus ride home after working out at the gym.
It’s hard to interact with people when they’re wearing masks, he says. “No one wants to talk.”
He’d like to see more money invested in public transport, no matter who takes out the election.
Parked up outside the train station, a bus driver on her lunch break says she spent $300-$400 buying masks for her own protection before they were provided by the bus company.
She’s used to dealing with the occasional abusive passenger who doesn’t appreciate being told what to do and approves of New Zealand’s tough Covid-19 response. “In America, so many people have died.” People driving past her bus often give the thumbs-up or a friendly toot. “They’re happy to know we’re working hard,” she says.
By now, it’s after midday and news alerts are
warning the Auckland Harbour Bridge might be closed (again), with wind gusts predicted to reach 110 km/h. On the township’s main shopping street, Rylee Greer is almost being blown off her feet as she clutches a giant bouquet of pink and white balloons. It’s her 9th birthday party tomorrow.
She loved staying home during lockdown, keeping in touch with friends on Zoom video calls. Back at school, she was presented with a certificate for doing the most online learning of anyone in her class. “She was awesome,” says her mum, Natasha, as they wrangle the balloons into the back of their car.
It was March 25 when the country closed down, moving to alert level 4. By April, more than a million workers had taken the Government’s wage subsidy — 40 per cent of New Zealand’s entire workforce. Barista Penn Silubrico was one of them. It helped save his job at Food Me-n-u on Onehunga Mall; so have the cafe’s loyal customers. “The vicar across the road told us last week we were an essential part of the community,” he says. “People come for a sense of a belonging.”
Silubrico, who migrated to New Zealand from the Philippines a decade ago, is still doing due diligence on party policy and the referendum debates before deciding how to cast his vote but he’s concerned about the future. “We’re walking on thin ice.” He believes engaging in the election is critical: “Every single thing will be affected by the poll.”
Suffragette Elizabeth Yates would have approved. In 1893, she was elected mayor of Onehunga — the day after New Zealand women made history by voting in a general election for the first time. The “first lady mayor” in the British Empire (that’s how it reads on her tombstone), Yates is memorialised in a towering black-andwhite mural just off the main street.
It was, admittedly, a short tenure. Four councillors and the town clerk resigned immediately in protest and “disgraceful” scenes at council meetings made headlines in the press. A year later, Yates was booted out — but not before she’d liquidated the borough’s debt, upgraded its roads, footpaths and sanitation; and reorganised the fire brigade.
Unlike fellow suffragette Kate Sheppard, Yates was no prohibitionist, however. “It would be a burning shame to rob the working man of his beer,” she once said. In fact, being fond of a tipple may have contributed to her death. She’s buried opposite Silubrico’s cafe, in the graveyard at St Peter’s Anglican Church, where vicar Petra Zaleski has talked openly of her own battles with alcohol. When the New Zealand Herald ran a profile story on Zaleski in 2018, she’d been sober for seven years.
From Onehunga, the walkway winds up towards Royal Oak, leaving the Manukau behind. Sunshine is pouring into the courtyard where Sanght Singh is sitting quietly, reading a Sikh religious text. He’s “77-plus” and tomorrow, he and his wife, Satnam Kaur, will celebrate their 49th wedding anniversary. Proudly, he brings her to the door. Has it been a happy marriage? “Oh, so much happy,” he says.
The couple fled Punjab after the revenge killings that followed the assassination of India’s prime minister, Indira Gandhi, in 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards. They didn’t go beyond their front gate during lockdown, taking daily exercise in the garden, but brush off concerns for their health with warm smiles. Fear, it seems, has no place in their lives anymore. “New Zealand is too good,” says Singh. As for politics, they leave that to their children.
Past the Cornwall Park playground, where Fiona Johnson and her son are having lunch, and halfway up the summit road — there it is, first sight of the Waitemata Harbour, an expanse of
rolling ocean replacing the tidal Manukau’s milky blue.
Cars are banned from Maungakiekie/one Tree Hill, so Jacky Lam is on the hoof, pushing son Jayden in his stroller while wife Reginia Ho lags behind. Lam had a few sleepless nights worrying about how he’d support their young family after losing his job as an immigration adviser but is already back in the workforce, selling insurance.
Enforced time at home has given him new respect for his wife. “She works harder than
I do!” he says. “I want to take on more responsibility now. All fathers should.” When it comes to politics, key issues for Lam include the environment, the minimum wage and Auckland’s traffic problems. Overall, he thinks the Government has done a good job managing the pandemic. “You can’t just bring people back,” he says. “I’d rather lose jobs than lives.”
Cornwall Park is a working urban farm and the latest batch of spring lambs nose curiously towards cross-country walkers cutting through the paddocks. The park’s lush lower grounds are primed for a summer of cricket and the thwock of ball on willow can be heard in the practice nets.
The Government’s wage subsidy scheme has kept the Cornwall Cricket Club’s staff on the payroll, including the greenkeeper, who’s employed year-round. Club manager Jimmy van der Colk says families were nervous about registering after being burned when physical distancing put an end to winter sports and fees weren’t refunded, but numbers are now nearly on par with last season.
Schools have barely re-opened for business but it’s already the last day of term and dairies have had a serious run on iceblocks. They’re melting all over every single kid walking home. From Epsom, the walkway winds over Maungawhau/ Mt Eden and through the Domain, before a final uphill kick towards the central city.
Outside the University of Auckland, Carmen Noel is waiting for a ride home after finishing her day in the arts faculty, where she works as a student support adviser. Muffled by her mask, Noel’s accent sounds Irish but it turns out she’s from Norway. After moving to New Zealand with her Kiwi boyfriend, she did her master’s degree at the university — in conflict and terrorism studies.
As a Scandinavian, then, what’s her view on Sweden’s controversially free-range approach to managing Covid-19? Despite a comparatively high death toll, in late September some health experts were speculating that Sweden may have built up enough herd immunity to contain the spread of the virus without enforcing lockdowns. “At first, I was sceptical,” says Noel. “Now, I’m thinking, damn, have they done it again?”
In Albert Park, a retired businessman is out walking his beagle. He and his wife missed the grandchildren when they were confined to their bubble but he says everyone is figuring out how to adapt to a new way of doing things.
While the Government has done the best it could in a “lose/lose situation”, he’ll be sticking with National. “I don’t think they’d have done any better but the big concern now is how the economy is handled going forward. Health, education — everything flows on from that.”
He supports assisted dying — “everyone has the right to decide how to end their life with dignity” — but believes legalising cannabis will make it socially acceptable among young people who would otherwise never have considered using the drug. That puts him in line with the latest Newshub Reid-research poll. Almost two-thirds supported the End of Life Choice Act coming into force (the result of that referendum will be binding), while only 37.9 per cent said yes to weed.
Commuters at the ferry terminal are pressing for home as dusk bathes the harbour in a haze of golden light. Less serene is the Viaduct (“epic Margheritas $15!”), where music blasting out from the bars competes with grinding metallic shrieks that seem to be coming from the Luna Rossa base in preparation for the imminent arrival of the team’s first America’s Cup boat. Build-up races are scheduled for mid-december.
At the junction with Wynyard Quarter,
Te Wero bridge is where it all ends (or begins, if you walk east to west, following the sun).
Eliot Blenkarne is an architectural visualiser who specialises in virtual reality, creating 3D imagery of buildings that haven’t been built yet. Dressed in black head-to-toe, he could fit right in with the Viaduct crowd. And it’s true, Blenkarne did support Act when he was “young and selfish”, before some life experience broadened his perspective.
In his mid-30s now and leaning Labour/green, he will vote yes on both referendums and doesn’t want or need National’s tax cuts. “I’m a white, middleclass male,” he shrugs. “It’s not my interests that matter, it’s the people who are struggling.”
Despite all apparent evidence to the contrary, Blenkarne thinks the world view might just be swinging his way. And right now, being grounded in Auckland is okay with him. “I love it,” he says. “In the middle of summer, there’s almost nowhere I’d rather be.”
You can follow the godwits’ journey from Alaska as part of the 2020 international New Zealand tracking project. Last year, a handful of birds at the Pukorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre were fitted with miniature GPS satellite tags, charged by small solar panels. A live interactive map of the East Asian-australian flyway traces their progress at globalflywaynetwork.org.
For more details on the Coast to Coast Walkway, including trail maps, see aucklandcouncil.govt.nz