Winter's Memory of Summer

Few things are as certain as the cycle of the seasons and yet, when you find yourself hopping from foot to foot on the scolding sand of some impossibly scenic beach at the height of the New Zealand summer, the very notion of winter appears like some Nordic fantasy. More than ever, I felt like this, this last summer gone, as the sunny days and muggy nights seemed to cling on in heavenly perpetuity. As late as May, this Englishman, weaned on wet holidays and white-grey skies, found the impending creep of colder weather an unfeasible prospect as I sauntered around Auckland comfortably jacketless.        

            Slowly but surely, though, the weather has turned. The faintest breeze blows fragile leaves from their branches and pavements have disappeared beneath detritus beds. Daylight hours can still preserve the illusion of summer for a while, but the air cools rapidly when the sun sinks behind the skyline and evenings are once again spent huddled around plug-in radiators. Almost three years on from my arrival in New Zealand, central heating is still to be discovered, it seems.  

            And yet, I have to remind myself that I’m a lucky man, for even the chilliest days in Auckland are still a picnic compared to the arctic nightmare of the British winter. It rains a lot here, but in between storms, the sun can still light up a winter’s day like an ersatz summer. Rainbows appear with startling regularity, and late afternoon sunsets over the city skyline are frequently things of wonder. 

           Dusk sets in later here. I remember the despair I used to feel back home when darkness would fall as early as 4pm during the year’s shortest days and seven hours of confinement in the office could mean you’d miss the succor of daylight altogether. We only recently passed the winter solstice here and yet twilight can still hold off as late as 6 o’clock. And, for all my moaning about the lack of decent interior heating, it never gets that cold. One night recently, I even had to stick a leg out from beneath our double duvet because it was keeping me just a little too snug. 

            The worst aspect of winter here – and specifically, the month of July – is the lack of decent entertainment on the box. The very time when you yearn most for a cosy night in front of the TV, all the best series (Mad Men, Game of Thrones) have finished their runs in time for the US summer, and the new footy season is still a good six weeks away. 

            Winter here, I find, is best enjoyed exploring Auckland’s wealth of eating and drinking establishments. I have waxed lyrical about my adopted city’s culinary excellence on many occasions, but even after 3 years I am still finding new bars, cafes and restaurants to write home about. 

            A recent discovery that has quickly established itself as a favourite of ours is Selera, a Malaysian eatery in Newmarket that serves some of the city’s tastiest rendang and noodle dishes at improbably reasonable prices. I even overcame my initial reluctance to dine somewhere without an alcohol license, for the food is so good that you barely register the absence of a nice lager to wash down the spice.

            Dominion Road, which boasts an impressively long strip of cheap but quality Asian diners, has also become a regular haunt in recent months. The choice of restaurants is almost overwhelming, but Metro magazine’s brilliant Cheap Eats blog has been an indispensable guide to the best picks. The wonderfully named Zap 2 is a particular favourite, and its extensive Thai-themed menu has eventuated in many an evening of noodly indecision. 

            It’s not all about rice and dumplings on Dominion Road though. La Voie Francaise is no gimmicky imitation of a French café, but an authentic purveyor of the finest baguettes I’ve tasted in the southern hemisphere. Though there’s a bakery just a couple of blocks up from our house, the 15 minute drive to La Voie is well worth the effort, and as an accompaniment to a warming winter stew or soup, there’s nothing better than a warm hunk of their mouthwatering bread slathered with creamy butter. 

            Another acclaimed French-run establishment is a café called Voila in the nearby suburb of Sandringham. Incongruously stationed in the middle of a street of Indian restaurants that collectively pump out a cloud of spicy air so strong that it carries down the whole street, Voila cooks up some of the finest breakfasts in town, its speciality crepes provoking vivid daydreams of a favourite pancake stall near Notre Dame.  

            Auckland caters expertly for most types of Asian cuisine, but it does Japanese especially well. Half-decent sushi was something of a luxury in London, and I would often find myself opting for the ‘cheat’ breadcrumbed chicken options over the raw fish variety. For whatever reason, New Zealand sushi is a class above and Japanese cuisine as a whole is well served by an array of quality eateries to suit any budget. Tanto on Manukau Road is something of a hidden gem, but for those in the know it offers an extensive range of delicious Japanese dishes, including sushi, tapas-style mini plates and full-blown mains. With its modern yet cosy interior and attentive wait staff, Tanto is equally suited to large gatherings and couples looking for a quiet night out, and is licensed to wash your meal down with as much Asahi beer or sake as you can stomach.  

            Livelier, and my pick of Auckland’s suburban Japanese restaurants, is Nippon Sake Bar, which is nestled a little further up Manukau Road and is decked out inside with an evocative assemblage of paper lanterns, bamboo awnings and paintings of mythical scenes. You know you’re not in for a run-of-the-mill dining experience the moment you step through the front door and get greeted by the banging of a gong and a chorus of salutations from the chefs. Seating options cater to all requirements: intimate booths for couples or friends; cushioned benches for larger groups; and for the brave, a bar with a front seat view of the masters at work in kitchen. The bar is always my preference if my dining group allows it. There’s something mesmeric about watching a culinary craftsman up close and you appreciate all the more the dishes they serve up to you steaming and sizzling within seconds of completion. 

            At the top end of the spectrum and offering one of the finest dining experiences I’ve had the fortune to enjoy anywhere, let alone in Auckland, is the recently opened Kazuya, which turns Japanese cooking into an art form. The seven course degustation is not cheap - especially if you opt to include matching wines and sake - but if you’re going to spend an evening in thrall to food this exquisite, you don’t want to be doing it by half measures. Exceptional service (the wait staff never had to check who had ordered what, even for a table of almost twenty people) and minimalist dark hued décor set the scene for a gastronomic extravaganza, where every fastidiously presented dish was greeted with awe and fascination. From a plate of over thirty individually prepared vegetables to the childhood dream come true of pastry ice cream, Kazuya electrified my taste buds in a way few restaurants have before.

            So with dining options this good in ever abundant supply and days filled with sunshine that make a mockery of the season, I should have been able to navigate another winter in Auckland with relative ease. But then, a week ago, I was suddenly struck by the most acute pangs of homesickness that I’ve felt in the near three years I’ve been here. The cause? Andy bloody Murray. Yes, the gawky Scottish miserablist turned tennis superstar that Britons have been willing to Wimbledon glory with the collective force of 65 million hopes and prayers for over half a decade. And the year that he finally vanquishes the demons of 77 years of failed attempts by male British tennis players and actually goes and wins the bloody thing, I’m asleep under superchilled bedsheets some twelve thousand miles away. 

            It wouldn’t be so disquieting were it not for the fact that during my time in NZ I’ve already missed, in 2011’s Royal Wedding and last year’s Diamond Jubilee and London Olympics, three of the most iconic events of modern British history. I was, granted, fortunate to be back home for that magical afternoon exactly a year ago when Murray reached his first Wimbledon final, but watching him get beaten by Roger Federer’s untimely reminder of his claim to be the greatest men’s singles tennis player of all time left a rather bitter taste in the mouth. 

When it comes to national sport, only the England football team’s failure to win, well, anything, for nearly 50 years has caused me as much consternation as our little island’s inability to produce a homegrown champion at the world’s premier grass tennis tournament. Year after gut-wrenching year, I spent my formative summers cheering on the latest young pretender to Fred Perry’s immortal racket, from Jeremy Bates to Tim ‘Tiger’ Henman, but always with an increasing sense of resignation to the belief that Britain would never against produce a Wimbledon men’s champion. Even when Murray himself roared onto the scene in the middle of the last decade and emerged from that gawky teenage frame to be, you know, a little bit good, it seemed inconceivable that this lanky lad from Dunblaine could ever topple the then twin towers of tennis greatness, Federer and Rafael Nadal. 

So to miss the moment when a Brit – at long long last – actually won Wimbledon was just a little disappointing. Especially when it happened to coincide with some of the finest summer weather the UK has seen in many a year and all my friends back home are basking in London parks with carelessly sunburnt shoulders and a smog of barbecue smoke filling the evening air. I try to remind myself that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, and for every weekend of glorious sunshine in England, there are ten more when the sky is so washed out you wouldn’t notice if you went colour blind. At the very least I can comfort myself with the thought that living in New Zealand means I’ll be spared the British press’ cringe factor fawning over the imminent birth of our future monarch. Good luck Will and Kate, you’re going to need it!

Jonny

Listen up!

 It was with a heavy heart that I read the recent news that HMV - the record store chain that has been for so long a mainstay of the British high street - had gone into administration, its future as a viable business hugely uncertain. In many ways, it had done well to cling on this long, its core offering of music and video having been gnawed away at inexorably over the past decade by a technology revolution that has seen computers and portable devices become the dominant platforms for at-home and on-the-go entertainment. The story resonated with me acutely, not just because of my nostalgia for an institution I grew up with, but because the shift in the way I myself consume music has paralleled, and even contributed towards, HMV’s sad demise. 

            As a music-hungry teenager whose general philosophy on shopping was to spend as little time doing it as possible, HMV was one of the few places in a city centre where I could happily spend hours (not to mention cash), propping myself up against listening posts and rifling through CD racks in the hunt for exciting new sounds. Of course, unashamed music snob that I am, I would always prefer an independent record store if I could find one, but as the years went by and digital formats began to steal an ever greater share of the market, HMV became in many towns the only place outside of the supermarkets where you could buy the latest releases on a Monday morning. For older albums and records by alternative acts, it was often the only choice consumers had. 

            For a long time, I clung staunchly to physical editions when buying albums, even though I’d begun to listen to most of my music digitally through my iPod or laptop. I felt great pride watching rows of CDs accumulate over time into a whole wall of music in my living room, each album a marker of a particular moment in my life, imbued with memories of where and when I bought it, and the feelings running through me when I first heard its songs blast out from my speakers. Closer up, I loved the tactile nature of CDs: iconic sleeves from history and modern artwork grappling for iconic status; the linear notes with details of the cast who created and honed each work; the latter era digipacks and bespoke casings that vied to capture the physicality and collectability of old vinyl. 

            Through many a change in my life and at a cumulative expense I daren’t now contemplate, I amassed a music collection that stopped guests in their tracks when entering the room and seeing an entire wall scaffolded by shelf upon shelf of CD spines. It became my own little record shop and I must have spent a thousand evenings in my mid-20s obsessively perusing its plastic treasures and spinning songs into the wee small hours.

It was something of a wrench, then, when I came to ponder moving to New Zealand, as I knew straightaway that there wouldn’t be a chance in hell that I’d be able to take my collection with me - not unless I wanted to spend a minor fortune shipping it half way round the world in cardboard boxes anyway. Of course, such expense could not be justified, even for a staunch music traditionalist like myself, and I quickly realized that I would be forced, at long last, to embrace wholeheartedly the modern age and rely henceforth solely on compressed digitalised versions of all my singles and albums. 

            In the end, my collection was packed – geekily ordered by artist and by decade - into boxes, but rather than being taped up and carted off to an Oceania-bound cargo ship, they were loaded into a van and taken back to my family home to gather dust until such time as I could be reunited with them. For sentimental reasons, I did choose to take one item with me on my travels: my complete box set of remastered Beatles albums, a discography so perfect that it alone out of all oeuvres could keep me sane on a desert island in the event of a nuclear apocalypse.

            Inevitably, once the spell had been broken and circumstances consigned me to an MP3-only future, I never looked back. With the tactile pleasures of my thousand-strong CD collection a fast-fading memory, I began to do regularly what I’d previously reserved for one-off tracks and new single releases: download music from the iTunes store. At first it felt uncomfortable, the ability to source any album I could conceive at the mere click of a mouse button feeling almost uncomfortably easy. And those incidental pleasures of the physical album – like the first slipping of an inlay booklet out of a cover tray and the obsessive pouring over lyrics and production credits – were suddenly gone, making the experience of a new record all about the music and nothing else. 

            I had not entirely given up on CDs though. While my primary outlet for music shopping was now the internet rather than HMV, happy memories of the good old fashioned record store were vividly reawakened by Auckland’s Real Groovy, an emporium of both new and second records, as well as myriad memorabilia of rock ‘n’ roll past and present. If only the CDs here weren’t so prohibitively expensive, I might even have bought one, but these days the only physical albums I do still buy are box sets whose lovingly designed packaging and unique special features provide significant value beyond the music. 

            Like the UK though, record shops are few and far between in New Zealand. Where music is really starting to thrive here is on the live circuit, where an ever increasing catalogue of bands from distant parts of the Earth are finally starting to wake up to the opportunities of the Kiwi market. In the past - and still today for certain tours - international bands would often trot the globe all the way to Australia, only to turn round and fly back to the northern hemisphere without so much as a chord struck for little old New Zealand. When The Cure, one of my all-time favourite acts, played a three night residence in Sydney where they built whole evenings around some of their most revered albums, it was a case of ‘so close, but so far’.

            But over the past two and a half years I have managed to see more bands in New Zealand than I would have thought possible when I said a sad farewell to my much-loved London gig scene in 2010. Morrissey. Radiohead. New Order. Portishead. The Smashing Pumpkins. These are just some of the iconic groups that have played concerts at Auckland’s Vector Arena in recent times, categorically debunking the assumption of some friends back home that no band of any serious note would ever come to New Zealand. Only last week, The Stone Roses, recently reformed after a 16 year hiatus and still in the early stages of feeling their way back into the UK public’s consciousness, touched down on Kiwi soil for a triumphant evening of late 80s nostalgia at Vector. 

            For a venue that from the outside looks far better suited to basketball or ice hockey than live rock music, Vector has proven to be a surprisingly accommodating domain for the bands I’ve been blessed enough to see perform there. With crisp acoustics and a movable stage that can turn a cavernous, cathedral-sized arena into an almost intimate setting, the gigs I’ve attended there have boasted a sound and atmosphere that many similar venues in the UK would struggle to achieve. 

Good though Vector is, I do tend to feel more at home in smaller, cosier gig venues where I can get up close to a band and see the sweat of a hundred moshing bodies trickling down the walls. Auckland’s answer to this brief is Mount Eden’s The Powerstation, the closest New Zealand has to a Brixton Academy or London Astoria. 

            In my time here, The Power Station has played host to many well-known and critically acclaimed acts from across the world, including some groups who could pack out stadiums with ten times the capacity back home. One such band was Elbow in March last year, only a couple of months before their sleeper anthem ‘One Day Like This’ became the de facto soundtrack to the London Olympics. There was something special about seeing a band from my home country perform so far from the shores where we both grew up, Guy Garvey’s chirpy northern banter cutting a line straight back to Manchester through the largely Kiwi crowd’s chatter.

            Smaller still is possibly my favourite of all the music venues in NZ – the King’s Arms in Newton, which is not only a landmark of local rock ‘n’ roll history, but also one of the few pubs in Auckland with a decent outdoor beer garden. In 2012, the endearingly jangly Real Estate graced its stage not long after releasing one of the best indie albums of recent years, the critically acclaimed ‘Days’. A band built for venues like the King’s Arms, their chiming guitars and lolloping bass lines filled this tiny space with a summery sound that had the whole crowd grooving appreciatively along. 

            I feel a little guilty for not paying more attention to local acts here, but festivals like the Auckland Anniversary Weekend alternative festival Laneways provides a great opportunity to check out the best of New Zealand music as well as visiting bands from overseas. Now in its fourth year, Laneways has never been the best organized of events and this year, for a second year running, murmurs of discontent sounded early when the supposedly VIP portaloos flooded and the entire site’s supply of beer ran out a little after 8pm, well before the main headline acts had got anywhere near the stage. My personal experience of the booze drought was particularly galling. I had queued in the supposedly queue-free VIP bar for well over half an hour – missing most of indie oddballs Yeasayer’s set in the process – only for the guy that I’d ordered four beers from to forget who he’d been serving and hand my drinks straight to a girl standing down the row from me. Feeling charitable, I let the moment pass, and re-ordered from another, sour-faced bartender, only to be informed curtly that the beer – at that very moment – had run out. Suddenly feeling the very opposite of charitable, I tried feebly to explain that her colleague had given the beers I’d ordered and queued patiently for to someone else, but my protestations were met only with a face that read “Do I give a f%^&?”. 

            It was fortunate, then, that the bands on the line-up were a little more inclined to crowd-please. While the highlights of the day were New Zealand’s very own rock chameleons The Phoenix Foundation and rising Aussie stars Tame Impala, whose thunderous White Album-era Beatles psych-rock provided the day with a rousing finale, my biggest cheers were reserved for my fellow Brit Natasha Khan - aka Bat For Lashes - whose stunning voice soared above the booze-fueled crowd with grace and drama. 

            While I still pine for the days when gigs were part of my weekly routine and I could wander down to the local newsagent on a Wednesday morning to pick up a freshly pressed copy of the NME, I’m far from bereft of musical entertainment in NZ and as long as my iPod continues to function (never a given from recent experience), my wall of albums in London at least remains accessible to me through my headphones. And I’d willing to bet that a decade or so from now, world touring bands will leave New Zealand out of their itineraries at their peril.  

Jonny

The Old Kind of Summer

            After last year’s wash out, I looked ahead to my two week break from work over the festive period with not a little trepidation. With such a short window of opportunity to escape the city and see something new of my adopted country, a repeat of last year’s post-Christmas deluge would have been disastrous.

            The start of December 25th did little to assuage my concerns, with a nondescript morning drizzle proving near fatal for our barbecue brunch dream. But as the day wore on and bellies were filled with emergency oven-cooked ham and chicken, the clouds began to scatter and the sun brought its Christmas gift to us at last.

            In the six weeks that have followed, I could probably count on one hand the number of times it has rained with any real conviction. It has felt like a delayed refrain of my first summer here two years ago, when I arrived from a wet and windy European autumn into the most sustained period of warmth and sunshine I had ever experienced. But the heat has not been good news for everyone. As our friends across the Tasman cope with raging wildfires and homes turned into ovens by an unprecedented heat wave, the plants in our garden beg for water with the dying breaths of their withered leaves.

            For me, the joy was in being able to make the most of my time away from the office over the new year and hot-on-the-heels public holiday later in January. The past month has reinvigorated my love of New Zealand in many ways after a year of hard work and scant chances to venture beyond Auckland’s confines. And while Northland, Otago and Wellington were not entirely new for me, return visits to each allowed me to explore further and deeper than previous trips had allowed.

            With Christmas’s indigestion now dissipating, we took to the road on the penultimate day of the year and travelled the not inconsiderable distance to Doubtless Bay in the Far North, where Holly’s friends had hired a bach from which to party in the new year (and celebrate her 30^th birthday, if I’m allowed to mention that?) The journey reminded me how long and stretched New Zealand’s islands are, for what appears on first glance of the map a mere nubbin on Auckland’s head is actually an extensive twisting peninsular that requires a six or seven hour drive to reach its very top.

            Our destination was not quite that far, but the area around Doubtless certainly had an ‘end of the line’ feel with its vast white sand beaches and isolated settlements. This, of course, was exactly why we came and the unspoilt coastline with its craggy inlets and turquoise waters provided an ideal haven from our urban toil. 

            Though I have gradually adapted to the ways of Kiwi life (I can even walk in jandals now, you know – heck, I even say jandals now), at some things I remain resolutely British, as I found to my chagrin during our time up north. What started as an innocuous saunter to the beach closest to the bach turned into a double whammy of humiliation when, firstly, my pathetic bowling skills were brutally exposed during an impromptu game of cricket with Holly’s friends and, secondly, I made the rookie’s error of failing to take off my not inexpensive Ray Ban sunglasses when paddling into the sea, only to lose them to perpetuity when a cruel wave plucked them off the top of my head.

            Despite such setbacks, I left the Bay with a feeling that I’d reconnected with New Zealand and I knew that I’d miss these lazy days of sand and sun if ever we were to leave here. But there was no time for being philosophical as we made the long journey back to Auckland via a series of scenic stop-offs. The little fishing village of Mangonui, with its self-proclaimed “world’s best” fish ‘n’ chip shop, was probably the pick of the bunch, its winding harbour-front pathway and buzzing cafes providing a welcome respite from the oppressive car heat.

            One night back home in Auckland and we were off again, this time on a plane down to Queenstown in the South Island, which has become something of a favoured destination for us over the past two and half years. It continues to amaze me that so many North Islanders have never made the short trip down to what remains for me one of the most beautiful places on earth. Though the thrill of the South Island’s formidable mountains and crystalline lakes dims a little with time, I find there is something new and wonderful to behold there every time I go down. Even that classic postcard view out to the Remarkables over Wakatipu from the Queenstown lake front offers fresh excitement with a new season’s light and this time, the juxtaposition of searing thirty degree heat with the sight of mountains ice-capped from a freak snow fall a couple of days earlier provided the magic. 

            As I found last year when giving friends and family from England the guided tour, seeing familiar places through the eyes of strangers also fills them with new energy. On this trip, our companions Simon and Felicity were the ones new to Queenstown and they seemed to fall under its spell as quickly as I did the first time I came here. We didn’t just re-hash old itineraries though. A personal highlight for me was the day we stayed at the charming Willowbrook B&B just outside of Arrowtown, an ideal base from which to explore Wakatipu’s diminutive neighbour Lake Hayes. 

Framed by a hilly walking track that takes a little under two hours to complete, this graceful lagoon offers a tranquil afternoon’s respite from Queenstown’s busy tourist hub, not to mention the opportunity to burn off some of the calories inevitably ingested during a stay in the area. Speaking of which, the dinner we treated ourselves to that night at Arrowtown’s renowned Saffron was one of the finest meals I’ve had in New Zealand, even if the sluggish service took off a little of the gloss. 

            The trip also allowed us to give a second chance to Wanaka, the region’s other renowned lake that had left us feeling a little underwhelmed on our first visit two years ago. The weather again demonstrated the sway it can have over one’s perception of a place, the murky skies of our maiden trip replaced by unblemished blue on this occasion. Though I still don’t think the town itself is much to write home about, the views it affords out across the lake are, in the right conditions, something truly special. 

Much as we enjoyed such moments, the heat was unrelenting and nudged over thirty two degrees on our final day there. With so much time spent in the car, we were eternally grateful for the sudden appearance of the famous Cardrona Hotel on our drive back to Queenstown from Wanaka. Driven past and quickly photographed the last time we were here, the yearning for a pint of beer to quench four parched mouths was too strong to ignore, so we stopped and ventured in for a quick re-charge of the batteries. Little did we know that this, from the outside, tiny-looking tavern, opened out at the back onto an enormous beer garden complete with parasols and live musician. Were it not for the people we’d arranged to meet back in Queenstown (and the fact there are no taxis to call on should you venture over the drink-driving limit), we could quite easily have stayed there till evening drinking ourselves into a merry slumber…

The despondency we felt at returning to Auckland – and to work – in the second week of January was offset only by the knowledge that we had another trip planned to coincide with Anniversary Weekend at the end of the month. For this last hurrah of what was an incredible month of unending sunshine, balmy evenings and chirruping cicadas, we returned to Wellington for the first time since the road trip we undertook in the first weeks we arrived in New Zealand back in 2011.

The weather gods continued to look kindly on us, which is nothing to be sniffed at in a city notorious for its regular downpours and gale force winds. While we had kept to the confines of the CBD on our first trip, this time we took the opportunity to hire a car and venture a little further afield. The freedom of a vehicle allowed us to experience the glorious coastal roads that border the city and offer stunning seascapes out across to the tip of the South Island, whose northerly mountains were clearly visible despite the haze. One special drive south west of the city took us out to desolate Owhiro Bay, where a car park and information hut mark the end of the road and the start of a coastal walkway that takes you through the middle of a seal colony to the self-descriptive Red Rocks. This gnarly iron-rich outcrop, though only a few miles away from a bustling city, felt like a different country entirely, and as we dangled our feet in barnacle-clad rock pools beneath a blazing afternoon sun, we experienced one of those little moments where the rest of the world seemed not to exist. 

Within a few hours we were back in the urban reality of Wellington but though chaotic compared to the sleepy beaches we’d stopped off at earlier in the day, we were struck by how liveable the place felt. One thing that certainly helps is its abundance of drinking and dining establishments. Not far from penniless the last time we came here, we were fortunate to be able to splash out a little more on this occasion, and so enjoyed a cocktail and craft ale at the trendy Cuba Street bar Matterhorn before a rather indulgent dinner at renowned restaurant Logan Brown. Though usually out of my price range, a belated celebration of Holly’s birthday gave us the licence to partake in the nine course degustation menu, which topped even Saffron for its attention to detail, unusual flavour combinations and sumptuous presentation.

With the hours counting down to the twilight of another amazing trip, we made the most of our last day in Wellington to visit the Chocolate Fish Café, a lively waterside establishment on the Miramar peninsular that specialises in barbecued seafood and breakfast sandwiches and was reportedly a favourite of the Lords of the Rings cast and crew. An afternoon venture to the Westpac Stadium for a Wellington Phoenix football game followed by a round of sunset beers at a harbourside bar and an affordably tasty Thai at Tory Street’s Chow rounded off our trip in such style that the memories of a great summer should keep us going for quite a while – at least until the rain comes calling anyway…

Jonny

Take The Long Way Home

My family home felt smaller than I remembered it. The walls seemed a little closer, my head a bit nearer to the ceiling. It had been like this for some years now, even before my most recent and (by some distance) longest absence. Is it just me, always seeing the places where I grew up, no matter how often I return to them as an adult, through the lens of my childhood self?

My sense of disconnect was compounded by a recent refurbishment. Walls I recalled as fading yellow were had been given a shiny lick of paint; the upstairs lounge, on my last visit a junk shop of label-less VHS clutter, had been transformed into a ‘cinema room’ (my parents' unnecessarily grand name for it) complete with multi-cushioned sofa and a TV so large and so vivid I felt I could reach in and give Nicholas Witchell a well-needed slap during one of his cringingly portentous royal correspondent crosses on the BBC’s Six O’Clock News.

Ah yes, the BBC. After friends and family, our national broadcaster - cherished and maligned in equal measure - has been one of the main things that I’ve been unable to find an adequate substitute for in New Zealand. It’s not so much the Beeb’s absence that has made my heart grow fonder, but rather the poverty of the nightly schedules served up on NZ free-to-air television. When confronted with a line-up that regularly publicises an immigration control reality documentary as its ‘pick of the day’, is it any wonder I’ve been reduced to entreating my parents to fly over DVD recordings of BBC shows to fill our evenings with? Certainly, it felt good to be plumped down on the couch in the sitting room where I’d spent so many lazy afternoons as a kid, watching programmes humming with familiar accents while my family busied themselves in the kitchen with some kind of inevitably food-related activity.

It was approaching 22 months since I had last set foot upon home soil, and in that time I had come to feel like I had taken on another life; not quite someone else’s, but certainly a life different enough from the one I had left behind in September 2010 that returning to England felt like being shaken awake from an unlikely dream. The stark reality of it all hit me almost as soon as my parents drove us out of the bubble of Heathrow airport and onto the M5’s tarmac artery. Everything seemed that bit older, the vegetation along the banks wilder and weedier than the New Zealand roads I had become accustomed to. After two years of green motorway signs, it felt strange seeing the bright British blue variety again, especially the one that grandly announces the approach of ‘The North’ as if to prepare you for entry into some foreign land (no jokes at the back there please). Odder still were the occasional glimpses of countryside: the patchwork fields and hedgerows, the ancient steeples and stone chimneys - all so different from the rugged expanses of untamed wilderness that decorate the great open highways of NZ.

If there was something halcyon about that drive, reconnecting to a landscape I’d temporarily boxed away in my memory, then my first proper reunion with British life was a rather more sobering experience. Enter Thurrock Services, supposedly a “Gateway to London”, but not an entrance you’d dream of escorting a tourist through on a maiden visit to the capital. I’d grown up with these places, come to appreciate them even, as havens from the crushing inevitability of motorway gridlock where you could sink a greasy Full English and cup of coffee en route to a day trip or holiday destination. But in my time away I’d become spoiled by New Zealand’s superior roadside offerings – less frequent yes, but usually independently owned and almost always guaranteed to serve a city café standard brew and gourmet sandwich made to order. At first, Thurrock seemed to sum up everything I hadn’t missed about my homeland: the homogeneity of its shops and food outlets; the price premiums on substandard, production-line food; the shit coffee. And yet, as I sat cradling a watery Americano and surveyed the scene from a table in the middle of its crowded communal seating area, I also saw that it was wonderfully, viscerally alive with people from every walk of life, all creeds and colours, rich and poor, northerners and southerners. In short: Brits. Brits like me and Brits not like me, but Brits nonetheless. And it was then that it really hit me: I’m home.

If the coffee and the people at Thurrock services had piqued an assortment of feelings, then I was more resolutely cheered by a brief flirtation with a Marks & Spencer ‘Simply Food’ store on the way out. Another British institution that I didn’t really think to miss until I found myself hunting for lunch in an Auckland supermarket and failing to find anything even approximating a pre-packaged sandwich, M&S stirred happy memories of a time before Pak ‘n’ Save and Countdown were the destinations of my weekly shop.

This wasn’t quite M&S as I had known it though. While the shopping experience it offers has always been unmistakably British, the stores were not previously known for ostentatious displays of national iconography. On the occasion of my return visit, however, even the most indifferent republican (among whose number I, in zestful and impudent youth, might have counted myself) would have failed to notice the surfeit of British regalia festooning every shelf. Countless products seemed to carry a Union Jack or be branded as some kind of Diamond Jubilee ‘special edition’, and you had to duck for festive flags and bunting. In all honesty, I hadn’t ever seen anything like this. 

Of course, I knew this was an important and historic year for Britain, what with the serendipitous alignment of London hosting the Olympic Games and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee (and all this only a year on from the Royal Wedding), but I was not quite prepared for the sheer extravagance of the celebratory memorabilia that I came to find in almost every high street and establishment I encountered during our two week trip. My surprise was perhaps a consequence of having observed over the 27 years I had spent living there Britain being so spectacularly bad at venerating its national identity. I grew up watching our flags be abused by fascists in the 80s, tackily reclaimed by Britpop and the Spice Girls in the 90s, and all but ignored in 00s. All this, and the reality of me spending two years on the other side of the planet slowly forgetting the day-to-day idiosyncrasies of British life, meant that my sudden exposure to these apparently heartfelt displays of national pride caught me off-guard. Was I really home, or in some Disneyworld version of England where there’s a red telephone box on every street corner and all the men wear bowler hats?

Our first weekend back, at the tail end of June, happily coincided with the final of football’s European Championships, which, due to the time difference, had proven something of a chore to follow in New Zealand. In truth, it was not at all a coincidence, for I had ensured our outward flights were precisely timed to prevent me being mid-air somewhere above the Himalayas as Wayne Rooney scores the 90^th minute goal that wins England the tournament in a dramatic comeback against arch-rivals Germany. As it transpired, the Three Lions had been knocked out of the tournament a week earlier in a lifeless draw against Italy, so my dream of watching our greatest sporting triumph in some dirty local pub surrounded by my fellow countrymen would have to wait until the next World Cup. Instead, I had the pleasure of seeing Spain out-masterclass Germany in a superlative 4-0 victory, but whichever nations had been in the final, I think I would have found watching a football game back home amongst family and familiar things every bit as thrilling.

While acute jetlag contributed the somewhat dream-like quality to those first couple of days back home, it soon dawned on me how little time I was actually going to have to enjoy it. A total of three weeks’ leave from work had seemed like a lot on paper, but with the travel time, time difference and jetlag factored in, it left little more than a fortnight to reacquaint myself with my old life. This, of course, is the unfortunate reality of living aboard and so far from home. Few of us have the luxury of extended leave – not to mention riches – to enable significant or frequent return trips, and the two years I had spent away meant that I felt a lot of pressure to fill every minute of my visit with something noteworthy, whether it be a catch-up conversation with the family, a reunion with an old friend, or even something as simple as sipping on a pint of beer with a bag of crisps in a traditional English pub. 

While these little reappropriations of my old life were joyful in many ways, their fleeting nature caused me to belatedly realize that the true price of living in New Zealand is not the long periods of physical separation from home, but the fact that homecoming visits must be so cruelly short-lived. Those two weeks hurtled by like a runaway train. Looking back now, I see a whirligig of old faces, boozy nights and the best of British. Loughborough, Nottingham, Lancaster, The Lakes, Manchester, London, Brighton, Newark – did we really cover all that ground in 15 days? While this frenetic tour of people and places left me with a degree of sadness at how little time I’d been able to spend back home, I returned to NZ with an appreciation of it that I didn’t have two weeks earlier, and in truth probably never had before. Absence makes the heart grow fonder? Definitely, but the real tug on the heartstrings is having  a thing back only for it to be swiftly taken away again. Until next time, clouded hills…

Jonny

Coffee Homeground

 There are few things in life as highly anticipated but so frequently underwhelming as a cup of coffee.

For a beverage so widely consumed and so long ago introduced to mankind’s palate, it is remarkable that the experience of drinking the stuff is so often a disappointment. I am aware that this view might open me up to accusations of coffee snobbery, but if that is the case, then so be it. At its best, coffee is something worth getting out of bed for; a smell to set nasal hairs quivering; a taste that can transform a bleak morning into a bearable one. And yet, despite it being now a multi-billion dollar global industry, the hit-to-miss ratio of a commercially prepared brew weighs heavily with the latter. We deserve better.

Thank god, then, for New Zealand, a country which prides itself on serving up good coffee with the same devout enthusiasm that we Brits do a voluminously headed pint of beer.

Ironically, I first became aware of the Kiwis’ mastery of coffee-making during my last days in London, where a handful of upstart Antipodeans – no doubt sick to the stomach of the lazy muck being served up by the locals - opened cafes that provided exemplary espressos and pretty much invented the Flat White for the British market.

My personal coffee requirements are simple. There is no fannying around with milk or syrups or cocoa powder. I have my coffee served black and strong; an espresso topped up with a dash of hot water. It therefore makes it very easy for me to compare coffee from different outlets, and I grew to be particularly discerning of the finest purveyors during my five and a half years in London, where my routine entailed the purchase of at least two takeaway cups a day. 

 

As anyone who has spent any degree of time there will know, the UK coffee market is dominated largely by corporate chains, kingpin of which is the ubiquitous Starbucks. For a company whose very raise d’etre is coffee, it is startling to find just how nondescript its core product is. A standard black filter coffee from Starbucks, while just about drinkable, is almost invariably too watery, and lacks all of the craft and expertise you’d hope to associate with a market leader. Selling exclusive albums by Paul McCartney is not enough to disguise the fact that what should be the mainstay of Starbucks’ business is dismally substandard. Homegrown chain Costa is no better, and while (non authentic) Italian-style Caffe Nero offers better coffee, it is clear when walking into one of their outlets that food and frappuccinos are their primary concerns.

Coffee from outside of the big chains can vary wildly. London, inevitably, has its fair share of quality coffee houses, including on-site roasting Monmouth, the benchmark by which any self-respecting coffee outlet should judge itself. But the good ones are all but drowned out by cafes for whom coffee appears little more than an apologetic afterthought to the ‘sandwich of the day’, and ‘greasy spoons’ that have long since lost their kitsch value and should politely be pointed in the direction of the 21^st century. Outside of London, things can be even worse, as I discovered on a recent trip to my homeland, my first since I first left for New Zealand two years ago. (Blimey, has it really been that long?)

 

I recall one particular occasion the morning after a good friend’s wedding, when Holly and I, having shamefully slept through the newlyweds’ breakfast banquet, departed the rural venue in search of a hangover-curing fry up and, of course, a good cup of coffee. Arriving in the historic market town of Newark, I probably should have known better than to be lured in by the offbeat exterior of an independent coffee shop in the main square, rather than opt for the neighbouring Starbucks, where we would at least have been guaranteed a vaguely palatable brew. Sadly, this bastion of sovereignty in a mush of clone stores and shops proved to be an almighty disappointment. Not only did the coffee taste like it had been made with freeze-dried powder, but my so desperately needed sausage sandwich, having taken a good twenty-five minutes to arrive, resembled a char-grilled finger in a cardboard banana skin.

There were many wonderful things about being back home and surrounded by familiar sights and sounds, but the dearth of decent coffee was definitely not one of them. Of course, I have been spoiled rotten by the New Zealand coffee scene, which I venture must be one of the world’s finest. France and Italy might deliver a fist class espresso, but New Zealand is the first place I’ve been where my favoured strong black coffee is served close to perfection wherever I go. From the hippest Auckland café bar to the dirtiest roadside cafe, the coffee is of an exceptionally high quality here, and it’s made by people who clearly care about what they’re handing out to their patrons.

Rather than being jobbing students (as they often seem to be in the UK), the staff who make your coffee in a typical New Zealand café are more than likely trained baristas who take a professional pride in their craft. I don’t ever order Flat Whites for myself, but I always enjoy watching a skilled barista making one as I wait for my Long Black. Ah yes, the Long Black, a coffee option that is inexplicably absent from UK café menus. A Long Black is exactly what I want my coffee to be: a strong, dark espresso shot topped up with a modicum of freshly boiled water. Takeaway versions can sometimes disappoint as the volume of added water is dictated by the barista rather than the customer, but when sitting in, the water is usually provided separately in a metal jug, allowing you to strike the balance required by your tastes.

When back home, I was so frustrated by bland, over-diluted black coffees that I took it upon myself to dictate the composition of the cup I was handing over unfavorably converted British Pounds for, requesting ‘an espresso with a little top of water’ to multiple raised eyebrows. If and when I am living back in Britain again permanently, I plan to make it my mission to bring decent coffee to the masses. For a nation practically weaned on the stuff, we appear to be frustratingly apathetic when it comes to demanding quality in exchange for our hard-earned cash. In the same way that over the past decade we have insisted on better food in our pubs, a greater choice of fruit and vegetables in our supermarkets, and more top end restaurants in our cities, we should say a collective “good riddance” to the scourge of bad coffee in our country and start a Long Black revolution. Who’s with me?

To conclude this blog, here are 5 of my favourite Auckland cafes, notable, in particular, for their expert takes on the dark stuff:

1. Marcello’s, College Hill. ‘Service with a smile’ is putting it mildly. Marcello the Italian is one of the friendliest café proprietors I have encountered anywhere and his coffee is every bit as good as his behind-the-counter patter. 

2. Queenies, Spring Street. Royalty themed oddity, tucked away on a side street behind Victoria Park. The Long Blacks are so good here I usually order two when I’m having breakfast (the Egg & Bacon Sammie is to die for). 

3. One 2 One, Ponsonby Road. A great spot for an afternoon tea. Coffee + homemade muffin + courtyard seating = heaven. 

4. Atomic, New North Road. These guys roast on site and you can smell the goodness of the beans a mile away. Sit in, drink and marvel at the bedazzling array of coffee roasting tech, surrounded with hessian bags over-spilling with beans. 

5. The Pah Homestead, Monte Cecilia Park. Auckland’s best kept secret: fine coffee and food in the glorious surroundings of an old colonial manor house converted into a café / art gallery in the middle of gorgeous undulating parkland. 

Jonny

Wined and Dined

Working life in Auckland has felt so consuming of late that it’s become easy to forget that my main motivation for moving to the other side of the planet (apart from the missus, obviously) was to experience new people and places and explore sights and scenery unique to this faraway isle. With a meager twenty days of annual leave to escape the trials of The Office - and most of this year’s allocation reserved for a trip back to the UK - I have been relying more than ever on public holidays and their consequent long weekends for opportunities to travel and tick off the ‘must sees’ from my indispensable Rough Guide to NZ. 

            This year, we took full advantage of Easter to undertake one of the great Kiwi road trips, from Auckland to Napier. While many of my plaudits in these blogs have been reserved for the scenic grandeur of the South Island, large swathes of the North have remained unexplored during my time here to date, and I was grateful for the chance to spend three days in the Hawke’s Bay area over the mood-brightening four day weekend.

            As is often the case in NZ, the journey there was every bit as intoxicating as the destination. It was not a quick route though, and we spent much of Good Friday on the road as we traveled, first, down through the Waikato and across to Lake Taupo, and then down along the remote pass linking the Central North Island to Napier on the east coast. The final two hours of the drive were carved through thickly forested mountains, with vast stretches of wilderness broken only by the occasional farm and roadside cabin. Emerging, at long last, into the Bay was one of those classic awe-striking moments you never tire of in this country, as the road opened up suddenly and a crystalline seascape surged dazzlingly into view.  

            I found Napier, the cultural heart of Hawke’s Bay, to be an intriguing place, one quite unlike anywhere else I have visited in New Zealand. It has something of the faded seaside glamour of the French towns that line the coast of the northern Mediterranean, but its Art Deco buildings, designed in a statement of the contemporary architectural zeitgeist after a devastating earthquake in the 1920s, can’t help but recall New York. In reality, Napier is not as hip or happening as either, though our timing was unfortunate, our visit coinciding not only with an Easter exodus of the locals, but some unusually dreary weather too. 

I was startled to learn on this trip that New Zealand - surely one of the world’s most secular countries - has peculiarly strict rules regarding alcohol consumption on days of religious festivity. Arriving as dusk was falling on Good Friday, our plan had been to relieve tired car-stiff bodies with a couple of drinks in a central pub before undertaking a recce of the local eateries for dinner. Unfortunately, as we strolled through the muted streets, we quickly discovered that most of the Rough Guide recommended establishments were closed, and those that were open were not allowed to serve you booze without a meal to accompany it. Consequently, we had little choice but to dine much earlier than we would have liked, and at a restaurant that, were it not for the dearth of options, we probably would have sidestepped on another night.

Despite the rain and rather subdued atmosphere, Napier was not without its charms. The Art Deco facades, though small in scale compared to their architypes across the Pacific, were fascinating to behold, the uniformly stylized streets a novelty in a country that usually prides itself on the diversity of its buildings. On Easter Saturday, which was ‘business as usual’ compared to the public holidays falling either side, we were heartened to discover some decent eateries, highlighted by excellent coffee and eggs benedict at the motley Ujazi café, and the modern strip of waterfront bars and pubs in the trendy suburb of Ahuriri, which offsets an impassive industrial skyline with pretty rows of moored yachts. The outlook from the summit of one of the city’s highest hills afforded us a glorious twilight view down over the freight shipping harbour, with the flickering lights of distant ocean liners providing the only counterpoint to the dark expanse of the Pacific. 

            For me, the highlight of the trip was not Napier itself, but a day spent driving through the surrounding countryside and visiting the many wineries that have made the name of Hawke’s Bay an omnipresent in every British supermarket. Dotted around a landscape of undulating valleys and steep ridges, the vineyards and their accompanying facilities provided a visual as well as sensory feast. Some of the architecture on display was very impressive, with more modern structures of stone and glass demonstrating that the Art Deco isn’t the only building style worth coming to the area for. 

            Of course, the real test of quality is a winery’s alcoholic output and we were delighted to discover that most of the estates offered free tastings, suggesting a confidence that the majority of customers wouldn’t be able to resist purchasing at least one full bottle. So it proved for us, but the wine was of such a universal high standard that we struggled to select our favourites and ended up making some quite random choices. Elephant Hill at Te Awanga would be our special pick, with a fine selection of wines to be sampled in a modern setting perfectly attuned to the glorious views it offers out over the surrounding hills and of the iconic Te Mata peak. If you’re not short on time, I’d also recommend driving to the summit of the Peak itself, where you can admire from on high the epic sprawl of the vine-mottled landscape. 

            Slinking our way back to Napier after a day exploring the bucolic scenery around it, we couldn’t resist a peek inside a roadside antique shop over-spilling with flotsam and jetsam. What was most intriguing though was the proprietor, an Englishman whose 40 years in New Zealand – so it transpired – had failed to dull his thick cockney accent and East End market patter. This little reminder of home in the most unlikely of places was enough to sway us to purchase a tatty painting from him, though I think we both questioned its appeal once the sentimentality had shaken off.

            Back in the town, we retired for a final night in Criterion Backpackers, a hostel we’d chosen more because of its funky Art Deco stylings than the quality of its rooms. In retrospect, this was something of an error, as ours was dull and musty to the point of being disagreeable and some of the clientele lurking in the communal areas made us feel less than comfortable. Still, it would be churlish to criticize somewhere that unashamedly pitches itself as budget accommodation and the management shouldn’t be held responsible for the occasional oddball arriving through their doors.

            The weather and Easter shut-down meant we left Hawke’s Bay with somewhat mixed feelings but there was enough left unexplored to warrant a return visit at some point and I imagine in sunnier times Napier might just pull off the illusion of a dreamy resort on the coast of Provence…

Jonny