The Deepest Station

Hello everyone. We're standing at the foot of the longest escalator in New Zealand.  From the time you step on it, in the picture just above, to the time you step off takes one minute and 22 seconds. Then of course, you still have to take the other escalator, shown above this picture, to bring you to the surface.  

We are on the Pitt Street side of the Karanga-a-Hape train station and we're ten stories down.  This is the deepest point of the newly opened portion of the train system in Auckland.  

I'm delighted with the change.  Let me give you one reason. 

Martha's Backyard is the American products store in Panmure, which is on the East side of Auckland, and is a place we to love to shop at every now and then. (They have Crisco)  Before the train upgrade, to get to Martha's, I'd have to take our local Western train to Britomart, wait about 15 minutes for the connection, and then ride an Eastern Line Train to Panmure.  Total time involved was about an hour, 40 minutes.  

Or, I could take our Western Line train to Grafton, get off, wait for bus 70 to come along, and ride it to Panmure.  Total time was also about an hour 40.  

Since the new line opened up, I get on our new East-West Line train and ride directly to Panmure.  Elapsed time is about 55 minutes.  

If I want to, I can jump off at the K' Road station (Karanga-a-Hape) in either direction and ride the escalators.  The trains come along about every 12 minutes so doing such a side-trip wouldn't slow me down much at all.  

And believe it or not, for folks over 65, all the train, bus and ferry rides here in Auckland are free. (You do need to apply for a Gold Card, which is easy, and you have to log on and off each conveyance with your ATHOP card. And, some businesses give a Gold Card holder five to ten percent off on purchases.)

Let me also show you a couple of other shots down here.  I'm taking the green E-W Line toward Swanson, (My stop, Henderson, is two stops before Swanson) so I don't have long to wait.  If I were going to Martha's, I'd take the E-W line toward Manukau.   

This is one of the cross-tunnels.  

It's hard to get a sense of distance in a tunnel like this, but this is about two blocks long. I'll show you the two stations up on the surface next.  They're two blocks apart.  

This is the station I usually come up to.  It's on Pitt Street.

  

This is the other one, on Mercury Lane. 

We're back on Pitt Street and outside a favorite of mine.  This is where Jeanne and I come to buy various crispy flat breads and where we found Quark, the soft cheese. We've found that we like the cheese even better when Jeanne adds chopped chives and a little garlic salt to it. 

So now you're somewhat more familiar with our new City Rail Link. (I should probably also show you what's deep below Auckland's Sky Tower.)  

Check back soon.   -djf

 

It Has Been a While

Yes, it has been a while. I haven't published a post for quite some time now. Could it be that I'm getting old? My 75th lap around the calendar is coming up soon, so that sounds like a plausible excuse to me. Not that I really need one.  

I'd point out to anyone who says that they think I ought to keep cranking posts out at the same rate as during my peak production of one every five or six days, that there are 688 other posts just sitting there, waiting for someone to read them.  You don't really need a new post very badly. Go back and start at the beginning and work your way through.  

They're over on the right side of the home screen. Just scroll down and you'll find them.  Click, and away you'll go.  

I have no clue about how many words I've actually written over the course of my blogging.  Some might say that much of my writing has been nothing more than adding captions to the pictures I've shown.  That's true of course, but I'd argue that the rest of my content has been of some interest, if only to me.  If I assume a modest 500 words per post, then I've written a total of 344,000 words since 2014.  That impresses the heck out of me. 

Of course, I'm easy to impress.   

Enough of this. I said something quite similar to this on another post not too long ago and should move on. Today, I'm going to show you a few pictures I took while traveling into Auckland, and across the harbor to Devonport.  

There's my bus, number 14, due at 9:09. Notice that the trees in the distance have lost that springtime look.  

Many of  you already know that the yellow arrow shows our balcony.  

I'm in Auckland. Springtime means the cruise ships have started arriving.  

I'm waiting in line to board the ferry. It's an eleven minute ride across the harbor. 

I've arrived in Devonport and am looking back at the ferry as it loads for the return trip.

No trip to Devonport would be complete without a quick look at the 'big fig.'  It passed 100 years old a long time ago, and notice that what appear to be smaller trees toward the sides, are actually air roots that now support the enormous branches.  I like to imagine what a forest of such trees would look like after several hundred years.  

This quirky cafe is in The Arcade, which is just off the main street of Devonport.  

I'm sitting next to the bike racks on my way back to Auckland, on a much larger ferry.  The crowds have about tripled it seems, since I began my adventure this morning,  and I'm glad to be on my way home.  

One more thing though. My breakfast cornflakes are a distant memory.  I need some sustenance to see me through the return train and bus rides.  

A pretzel with cheese will do nicely. I bought it from a stall at the Saturday market behind Britomart.  

There, I finished post number 689.  

You know, when you've written that many posts over the years, you can't help but receive a lot of views.  I checked my statistics before I started writing this one and saw that 559,799 people around the world have happened across one of my posts since 2014. I never imagined it would get this big when I started it.  What fun.

So, see you next time.  Yes, I do want to continue. I'd like to hit 700 posts at least and then, who knows?   -djf