I was very lucky to be invited for a day out to Tiritiri Matangi Island by the brother - Scaffoldman - of good friends of the Kiwi half of the Birchingtons in the UK. It was a fine and generous thing to do. We arranged to meet down at the Auckland waterfront and I had a brief walk down through the Central Business District to our rendezvous.

This was the first time I had gone far on foot in Auckland other than my regular forays to the supermarket at the bottom of the steep hill - an old volcanic cone - on which our hotel was located.  Later I realised that there was another branch with a massive car park underneath not far away. Still, slogging up the hill with the supplies in the full sun was kind of good for me.