Auckland Harbour Front

Ladies' Mirror, Volume I, Issue 5, 1 November 1922, Page 28

Auckland Harbour Front

by G. A. COLLARD

and the Spirit of It

'"PHERE is a strange, -subdued ■7- excitement in achieving intimate contact with the sea and its wayfarers for the first time. "Until now, I have known it merely as a casual acquaintance," you whisper to yourself. "But I shall now be admitted to its intimacy." One can ask for nothing better; the sea herself is an. eternal delight. But, in contact with the seafarers, romance dulls considerably. You have, in your innocence, reasoned thus: "These men have seen places that are mere spots on the map to the remainder of us, and have slept in towns whose very names tingle with romance; they are on easy terms with the most elemental of the elements, and they have seen mankind in the raw. It follows, then, that they will be philosophers and poets of sorts, good men to meet and talk with." But, after a year or more of interviewing second officers and of sitting in pursers' cabins, you are driven to admit that they do not seem to have made the best use of their opportunities. You throw out leading questions about Madras, and the ports on the African Gold Coast, but your appetite for romance is blunted by "The last place on earth, old man; six houses and niggers," or, "Oh, it's not a bad hole; town a long way from the port, but there's a fair music hall." Thus do they dispose of Accra and Abbazzia. And you go home to Masefield, and Conrad, and "Port of Holy Peter," with an enhanced admiration for the minds that could create so gorgeous a tissue from skeins so grey. Romance at Our Gates A ND so, if romance from across **■ the waters be denied, you look for it nearer home. You need not seek far. The harbour front of Auckland has a personality distinct from that of any other port in New Zea-

land ; nor does it depend wholly upon the length of wharf frontage nor upon the amount of shed accommodation. Probably not one of the hundreds who use the wharves as a daily noontide promenade can define the peculiar spirit of the wharves and quays that they know so well-; yet they are obviously responsive to it. No one, of course, can deny preeminence to the Queen's Wharf, that important continuation of the principal street, with its wide, clean spaces and its berths that shelter the bloated Vancouver mail-boats. It is a prosperous, well-groomed wharf ; but it is not proud, and will often give shelter to a seedy little phosphate steamer. With its motors and prosperous tourists, it is the least sea-impregnated of all the wharves, and it comes into its own only on mornings of storm and high wind, when the spaces between the sheds are deserts, and clean swathes of rain sweep it from end to end. Wharves of Many Cargoes TTER shabbier sisters hold far more •*--*- material for the seeker after romance. The Central Wharf has no special personality, and her charm is nondescript. All is grist that comes to her mill, from the lanky Canadian Importers and Canadian Raiders that make her their terminus, to the thickset Japanese colliers with their courteous little officers, who will offer you beautifully made cigarettes, that arc most unsatisfactory smoking, and ( a thin apple cider. This wharf, too, is the most frequent homing place of the Southern Cross, that strange,

high-decked vessel with the head of Christ upon her bows, and red-jer-seyed natives upon her sides. But you will find the real spirit, the frank open-handedness of the sea at its best, upon the King's Wharf. She is the busiest and yet the most aloof of them all. She stretches farther into the calm reaches of the harbour than the others, sheltering a drove of tiny boats upon the sea-wall. "Where the world is quiet" is a phrase that springs to the lips unasked at ten o'clock of a calm autumn morning, as one walks along the harbour side of this wharf. The sea fades, grey and very quiet, into the mist, while a charcoal brazier sends quivering flame into the air. Yet the wharf recks with industry. The grains scattered underneath the coamings of the wharf show that a wheat boat from Melbourne has but recently sheered off; the unforgettable scent of copra tells of the nearness of an Island trader. The crunch of gritty dust and the hideous tearing noise that always attends the discharge of coal testifies to the presence of at least two colliers. Occasionally an Island steamer shelters here and huge bunches of unripe bananas can be seen within the sheds, while the air is heavy with the sickly scent of rotting oranges. It is a place for long halts to be made. Vessels are tucked away at this end of the harbour, and seem to be forgotten by the harbour authorities until one mornin°" the berth is found empty. From the end of this wharf the signalmen watch the harbour from midnight to midnight. Hobson Wharf is the Cinderella of the waterfront, but those who know

D. J. Payne, photo. how to brush away the lady's ashes swear that she is the most beautiful of them all. You trudge past the launch anchorage, cross the muddiest patch of road in all Auckland, and find yourself in a land where it is always afternoon. Here it is that Calcutta traders sidle up, bringing to this sunny place an air of leisure and still more sun. She is drowsy with rattan and bales of Indian silk, while the names upon the cases read like a poem; Haidarabad, Kwala Kangsa, Mandalay and Rangoon. The Island boats know that they are always welcome here, and the eternal collier hides a grimy head from the town behind the wharf sheds. But even Hobson has been bitten with the progress bug, and her quaint charm is departing with her new glory. If you push your explorations farther still, past Hobson, you will find a network of little quays, almost forgotten, asleep in the sun—Fitzroy, Albert, Nelson Wharf, Julian's Wall —where the trawlers dry their sails and skippers tell of heavy weather in the Bay of Plenty. At the other end of the quays, between Central and the King's Wharf is that of the Northern Company, a busy, commonplace quay enough during the week, at its best on a Saturday morning, when the greater part of the fleet returns from its weekly labour in Northern harbours and berths for a drowsy week-end. There is something appealing in the sight of these stout little vessels, each of them the principal link with the world to some stout river town. They return home to merge into nothing among the big liners. But at night, when a blue mystery of darkness swathes the whole front, all individuality is lost and it is a place of trembling light and of infinite distance. A boat berths, and all is life and bustle for a half-hour. Then the taxis depart, the gates are closed, and the wharf is left in the

charge of the lanterns which keep watch at the head of each silent gangway for the men “enjoying life” on shore. Above the launch anchorage glows an orange of light, which dominates the entire scene. And the ferries with their freight of warm humanity are the only living things in the picture.