October 1, 2007 11:30am by David Farrar

Lost in Auckland

A fairly eventual evening.  I flew up to Auckland on the 3 pm flight, getting in at 4 pm.  Now I had managed to lose my drivers licence which made picking up the rental car a small challenge.  But I got the at the international terminal to issue me a temporary proof of licence so finally had the car by 5 pm.

However by that time I now needed to get the polling database to my office so they could start polling at 6 pm.  So I ended up sitting in the backseat of the rental car in the airport car park working on the laptop and then e-mailing it to Wellington. Goodness knows what anyone walking past would have thought I was doing, especially as the steamed up.

Then heading over to Maratei where Judith Collins was hosting a “funeral” at her home for the Clevedon electorate.  Now the Auckland map doesn't extend out that far so I did a quick Google Maps lookup before I left and memorised the route. However as I got to the main road East there was major major roadworks with a multi block detour.  It took me around 10 minutes to get back on a road I had memorised.  I know Auckland CBD well but had never driven out this way before.

Thought I did rather well to get there by 6 pm. The “funeral' was lots of fun (I wasn't up specifically for it, just coincidence of timing).  It's lovely country out that way and great views even though it was pouring with rain.

On the way back to Auckland I followed Scott back to Auckland as I am staying at his place.  Now remember I found my way out to the remote location with no map, no local knowledge and a huge detour.

Now Scott was driving back to Auckland City, in fact to his home, has lived there all his life, and even worse had Navman GPS.  But we ended up not once but twice taking wrong turns followed by u-turns.  Hence I promised Scott I would let everyone know about his navigational ability.

On the plus side Scott has now lent me his Navman so I'm mobile around Auckland for three days without having to map read and drive at the same time.  GPS should be compulsory in all new cars!