End of Northland Trip

Trains where they shouldn't be, toilets, two workplaces and two breweries

[This post might be a bit long: I want to get the rest of the trip in one post.] I don’t actually have much to say about Paihia. When we lived in the area, we rarely came here - too touristy, according to Dad, although I remember two dinners at the Autolodge, one with the family and the other a Christmas do with the Kaikohe team of the Department of Social Welfare (I had a summer job there in about 1983). The restaurant is still here: I am briefly tempted to go in. There was also a period when Dad and I made numerous visits to Paihia - not as tourists, but because there was a timber treatment plant here, and he had lots of fence posts he had logged from the farm to get treatment. Later on, my sister and her husband lived here for a while, working as JAFFAs (it’s an acronym used for Aucklanders which they used for forecourt attendants).

I still can’t say it’s a great place - there’s a weird Mall (tiny, almost exclusively restaurants and bars, with the hostel on top) and a short strip of shops and lots of motels and hotels. It does have a lovely waterfront and is close to historic (and also lovely) Russell, which I don’t have time to get to. But it has the only cheap place to stay in the area and has a decent coffee shop within wifi distance of the hostel.

I have two nights here, then it is time to go. One very historic nearby sight is at Waimate North - another mission, established in 1830, the first inland mission in the country. This is our second oldest building and is on the site of a model farm set up by Samuel Marsden. His idea was that spiritual and practical tuition are best combined (which might actually be the idea underpinning a place rather in the news these days - Gloriavale).

To go south, I take the road through Opua and am in Kawakawa before I know it. Kawakawa has two, possibly three, points of difference. As some wag has put it, it is the only town where the public toilets have their own public toilets - that’s because the public toilets are famous, an international work of art and tourist attraction. They were designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who lived here for 25 years until his passing in 2000. Luckily, he was still alive when his toilets were built, just a year earlier.

The bricks are from the former BNZ and I expect the bottles embedded in the back wall are from the nearby pub: he was big on recycling. Vegetation removed from the building site was replanted on the roof (I am not able to clamber up to provide evidence). Twenty years later, public toilets were indeed installed behind the Hundertwasser toilets. To be fair, they are part of a larger building which contains an art space and the local library. There’s a nod to Hundertwasser at the entrance, and the seat across the street.

The third claim to fame relates to the railway line. I have already stopped in at the station, found that I missed the train by about ten minutes, and stopped for a coffee.

By the time I’ve had the coffee and wandered the streets, I learn that the train will be back in about an hour: this is worth waiting for, I think, so I have another coffee and consider some fried chicken. Here’s what is a bit different about the railway line at Kawakawa. I even have a video as the train makes its way down the main street - not a statement you’ll read every day.

The Bay of Islands Vintage Railway runs towards Opua, on the coast, although it doesn’t make it the whole way and crosses the longest curved rail viaduct in the Southern Hemisphere in doing so. Although it’s sometimes hauled by Gabriel, its steam engine, that’s not the case today.

Heading south, I don’t really stop in Whangarei, as I have an idea for lunch. I have lived here twice - I did sixth and some of seventh form (yes, I’m a school drop out), my first proper job and my last job as a practising lawyer here. This was my building - it’s a bit brighter these days than in the early 2000’s. No one about - it’s a Sunday.

I really don’t know why it takes me so long to work out where I should have lunch - it’s one of my favourite breweries and I’m driving straight past it: McLeods of Waipu.

It’s taken a bit of dithering, but I decide I’ll stay in Albany - when I lived in Auckland in the 1980’s, it was little more than a village with a big car yard, Allan Clarke Motors. Since then, Massey University and a Mall have moved in, then a whole bunch of buildings and businesses I really don’t know anything about. The place I stay looks a lot like Massey Albany did back in its early days, and was probably built at the same time (it’s just across the road).

After a not very satisfying meal in a large, empty restaurant with friendly staff (so I won’t identify it) in Browns Bay, I check out the Browns Bay Brewery - the original site of Deep Creek, but I believe that after some tumult, their brewer is back making the occasional brew.

In the morning I wander the Massey Campus - I taught here a couple of times doing campus courses for extramural students. It’s original buildings are quite distinctive - and have been showing up a bit in 1995 Shortland Street (Nick and Rachel get married here), so I know they were not as white as they are now. They have been extended and some contrasting new buildings have gone up. I have quite a nice coffee here, although they only use takeaway cups.

Across from where I stayed, there’s a line of restaurants, with some very familiar names: Eden Noodles and Xi’an Food Bar are side by side. I grab some cumin lamb noodles from Xi’an - very tasty, but I wish I’d walked to the end of the line, because there’s a very busy Jinweide Beef Noodles there, and I’ve not tried them.

I hang around Albany a bit longer, then head out to the airport to drop the car off. Filling up with petrol, I have a bit of an altercation with a fellow, we both shout bad words at each other. I did not realise I had left my car door open so he could not get past, and did not realise either that his sustained blasts on his horn was his way of telling me. Mint Rentals drop me off at the cheapo hotel I have at the airport, and I dine across the street at the rather less cheapo Naumi - Sawmill beers and a rather lovely fish green curry.

Cheers!