Saturday, December 3, 2016

Biking in Auckland


Lots of fresh and cheap veggies
Saturday we checked out the French Market organized every weekend by a French bistro on the other side of town. While public transportation is not extensive, we find buses clean and convenient to get us to most places in and around town. The market was impressive in its variety of ethnic food and low prices from local businesses. We saw oysters, Montreal bagels, paella, crêpes, turmeric juice, patisseries, and many many fresh veggies. We'll be back next week to fill our groceries bags for the week.

Even French desserts. Yummy!














Bike usage counter
The Auckland Transport organization was at the market too, collecting feedback from Aucklanders interested in biking in and around the city. Ironically Bill was wearing one of his Google Bike to Work Week t-shirts, which caught their attention as their leader is from... well, uh… Boulder :)  
They are actively recruiting citizens to design the right paths and think it should take them about two years to get Auckland bikeable. For now, some of the current bike lanes are a bit funny: Bike Lane Starts Here sign promptly followed by a Bike Lane Ends Here sign 200 meters further with a counter in between to measure how many people actually use the lane! Way to collect feedback on the ground. After meeting with the bike folks at the market, we decided to rent bikes to check out the options, and seriously considered going back and forth, and forth and back all afternoon to increase the count as the lane was sadly very empty.

Practicing a real commute
Rangitoto volcano from the
bike path
Mostly we wanted to see how possible it would be to get around by bike, and testing a commute route for Bill from a beautiful bluff where we could never, ever live. Apparently, you absolutely must have a Maserati in the driveway. We opted for one of their existing bike paths that follows the harbor to some of the beaches. The bike path at times merged with the footpath (sidewalk) which did not seem to create big issues. Pedestrians while unaware of bikes were friendly. The views are absolutely splendid, with emerald water, boats, paddle boarders, and even the volcano we hiked last weekend.


Somebody wonders why he is
not sailing
Without a car and the lack of public transportation to get out of town, we are starting to itch to discover NZ on the weekend. Working in Auckland just does not feel like we are on this gorgeous island(s) in the middle of the Pacific ocean. We're going to fix that! More on the fix later!

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like quite the adventures!

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