An unreasonable amount of amusement the other day from my daughter when I was absolutely gobsmacked that the planetarium on the hill behind our house was on our left as we walked up through the botanical gardens, rather than on our right. Not a sign of incipient dementia in this case, as it’s a problem I’ve had all my life. I remember my mother being markedly unimpressed when we climbed up one of Auckland’s hills together years ago, and I couldn’t tell if the two bodies of water I could see in the distance joined up or not. To be fair, Auckland is hellishly more complicated as far as geography is concerned than Wellington, which is quite cute and compact (apart from vast swathes of Kapiti Coast and the Hutt Valley that we don’t really care about, lets be honest). Auckland is an isthmus, which, if it was an important fact, ought to be easier to say. I suppose it doesn’t really matter if you don’t know where you are in Auckland though, because you won’t be going anywhere in a hurry* so you’ve got time to gradually get your bearings.
*this is a subtle dig about Auckland’s traffic, FYI.
