NEW SERIES: Each week 'My Commute' will look at how different Kiwis get to work each day. First up, Julie Hill a journalist (and fiction writer), who commutes from her home in the inner-city Auckland suburbs to Waiheke Island. Here's how she does it.
I live in Mount Eden, Auckland, and work for a publication on Waiheke Island.
In terms of total cost, the bike ride is obviously free but a monthly ferry pass costs $400, which is a nutty, unjustifiable, outrageous price which, like many messed-up things in this country, is the result of a monopoly.
I wake up just before dawn, which is when my master summons me to prepare his breakfast and if it’s not a specific flavour of Purina he'll sulk. I try not to wake my boyfriend but usually fail. I make a pot of coffee, try to finish showering before it boils over, get dressed, ride my bike down the hill to the ferry building. By that time the sun is rising and Tāmaki Makaurau, you’ve been an absolute smoke show the last few mornings.
I've started to recognise some of my fellow ferry commuters. I do a very gentle East Coast wave to the other guy with a bike but it’s hard to be enthusiastic at that hour. Maybe in a year or two we will graduate to a hi.
There are always tradies coming across. They start the day fresh and clean and by the time I see them again they're all sweaty and have paint stuck in their hair. One started calling me ‘toastie lady’ after accidentally giving me a toastie that was meant for his mate. He would yell out at me in the queue: “Hey, toastie lady!”
I do quizzes or read on the boat. I have Dream Count by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie on the go at the moment, about African women living in the US. It’s gorgeous stuff. Or I listen to The Daily from The New York Times – I really like the way the host always says “huh” when he’s digesting information. I loved the podcast Death of An Artist about Ana Mendieta and am now cracking into Juggernaut about the fourth Labour government by the funny brainbox Toby Manhire.
For the price of the ferry ticket I really feel that someone ought to serve us champagne as we board – it's apparently one of the most expensive on earth. Sadly though there's just some pretty average coffee and a few flaccid sandwiches. No disrespect to the lovely workers who serve them. Luckily the idea of eating that early in the morning does not appeal.
The view on the way over never gets old. I love the part when we wind around Rangitoto and the sea when you get to the island is so green. The other evening the ferry had to slow down to make room for a whale and once I saw a wee kororā swimming along, which was just stupidly adorable.
Once I reach the island it’s just a five-minute ride to the office and the view coming into Oneroa village is so majestic, it makes me forget the world is totally effed.
Waiheke is a mad mix of artists, activists, sailors, fairies, boozehounds and just regular working humans. Then there are the ultra-rich people who spend a few weeks a year in their mansions and the rest of the time leave them empty. I’d like to propose that they offer their places up to be used as artist residencies when they’re not there.
I definitely prefer the morning over the return trip, when the ferry is stuffed full of visitors who’ve been quaffing winesies at the vineyards all day. They can get quite shouty. I mean, all power to them; I’m just quite a wilted wee daisy by that point in the day.
The commute was definitely a consideration when I applied for the job. It’s an hour of travelling each way and I knew it would be hard to fit other things into my day like, I dunno, eating dinner and sleeping. But I work four days which is manageable, and it’s thrilling to still work in journalism before we all get replaced by chatbots or whatever the hell.
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