EYES ON ORAKEI.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 140, 15 June 1937, Page 5

EYES ON ORAKEI.

NEW WORKERS' HOMES

AUCKLANDERS' PILGRIMAGE.

STREAM OF MOTOR CARS. As never-ending, as restless as ever, like a winding column of shiny black beetles, a stream of motor cars ptours pleasure bound from the city every fine Sunday afternoon along the waterfront road. From thoroughfares and eide streets it is constantly swelled, until it flows slowly up and down the marine highway, where the road reaches the open and curves across the wide mouth of Hobson Bay. To thousands of Aucklanders the waterfront road—officially Tamaki Drive -—has offered a solution of the problem of what to do with a Sunday afternoon. It has beckoned them to sunny beaches and entrancing views of glittering water —and to these easily-reached attractions the stream of pleasure traffic has flowed. But just lately there has arisen a counter attraction that leads a constant pilgrimage of cars, before they have traversed as much as half of the drive, to a long, flat hilltop where timber framework makes a pattern of checks against the sky—the Orakei site of the State housing scheme.

And so the Sunday afternoon drive becomes more than a mere pleasure outing. Even as soon as the foundations for the new houses were being laid there were scores of interested people making a critical inspection each week-end; and since the first framework came into the view of passers-by on the waterfront last Sunday week those scores have swelled to hundreds, and Coates Avenue, the thoroughfare that runs along the rrest of the largest hill, has been congested with traffic.

"Where are we going to live ?" It is in search of an answer to this question that many of these modern "pilgrims" have come. That their visits have a practical purpose is soon from

the comments which arise as they step through the timberwork, examine appraisinglv the foundations, the superstructure, the size and the aspect.

Rents and prices drift through the air. "Twenty-seven and six? Why, that's less than we're paying now, George." . . . "This one is six-roomed, isn'i it? They'd ask about 33/ for that, wouldn't they?" . . . "Oh, what a glorious view! That's worth the money alone!"

For the views commanded from these hillsides above the sweeping beach and the Maori village are truly superb—the inner harbour, the North Shore, Rangitoto, the open sea beyond and the Coromandel Range, blue in the distance. On the slopes below Coates Avenup. snugly set on solid foundations and sheltered from the cold southerlies, other houses face down the green valleys towards the sea.

Here a family stands, father smiling proudly, mother dreaming of the flower gardens she could make, their young children laug-hing a s they clamber through the wooden framework. They have set their hearts on a home like this, perhaps; they picture it as it will be when it is completed; and they picture it as their own.

The sun sinks low, the "pilgrims" drive away. The roads are deserted now—but not for long. There is a rattle of iron wheels on the metaL of the road. Dragging their trolley across the kerb and through the grass, two bare-footed Maori boys pack it chockful with timber ends and scraps. That blue smoke rising down there on the flat is probably from one of the many harvests of firewood they have already reaped.