Tourist At Home

It's a funny thing when you are a tourist in your home town. At first you struggle to see what others might see because you are so familiar with your surroundings.

I found myself back in Auckland with a week to kill between social gatherings and decided to get some exercise. Staying in St Heliers the logical thing to do was to walk along the waterfront. Even better - it was a fine day in Auckland. A rarity the locals tell me. Auckland is blessed with a picturesque waterfront that spans the eastern foreshore of the city from downtown to the well established and very gentrified Eastern suburbs of Kohimarmara and St Heliers. My own hometown experience of the waterfront was at roughly 60kph trying to navigate the traffic snarl to and from the city. So, doing it on foot at a leisurely tourist pace was certainly a novelty.

As I mentioned earlier - I struggled at first to see it through new eyes. I had seen the houses over and over again throughout the years and nothing much changed. Probably because I tended to look in the same place. I knew the beaches and the shops. And I felt really strange with a camera in my own hometown. But then I let the camera take over and I saw the intrinsic beauty of some of the buildings I knew so well and I found flowers and shrubs that I hadn't even noticed before.

What hadn't changed - even with the help of the camera - was the 'village' connection in Auckland. Not two minutes into my walk I ran into someone I knew. That is a real Auckland phenomenon. A population of around 1.5 million and you still run into people you know. Kind of comforting really - makes you feel that you are still connected to your home town. If you haven't done it recently or you've never done it all - do yourself a favour and stroll along the waterfront. The views of the harbour, that rock that is Rangitoto, the birds, boys and babes on the beaches and the colours on a stunning Auckland day. You cannot replace it.

THE BEST.......the stunning photo ops that continued to unfold the further I walked.

THE WORST.....the bloody traffic getting in the way of otherwise unspoilt vistas or resplendent old buildings.

I'M LEARNNG.......there are a lot of people in Auckland with nothing to do. Mid week in November there were streams of people about. Many of whom I wanted to stop and ask why they weren't working. Then I suppose they could have asked the same of me.