A Cycler's Commute

The spread-eagled city of Auckland makes for a very inconvenient place to live when one doesn't own a car. Consequently, I bought a bike. Solid, sturdy, dependable and with the addition of a profusion of fluorescent jackets, reflective strips and psychotically flashing lights, relatively safe. (yes Mum and Dad!)

The 40 minute cycle to work is busy, noisy and filled with bustling, breathing, bumbling cars which trundle the commuters treadmill, snuffing and snorting at traffic lights, coughing and hacking their way from the outskirts of Auckland inwards.

It is the evening ride home I love. Leaving the office a bit after 8.30pm I lock up and wheel my way down Princes Street, turning right onto Great South Road.

The dark highway is flushed with gloaming yellow streetlamps, burning subtly over cracked pavements and flickering at me in a friendly fashion as I pass. The beer factory at the top of the hill hums gently, its tall cylindrical silos gleaming silver in the light of a Spring moon. A thick, delicious smell like that of baking bread swirls softly on the night air, mingling with the sharp tangy odour of fermenting hops, like that of freshly cut grass.

As I cycle from Otahuhu through Papatotoe the long street of shuttered shops echoes forlornly, its bones creaking and settling like an old staircase at night as traffic lights blink from verdant green to coal-bright red and back down to florid amber in the silent night.

As my wheels sing in tune with the tarmac, lorries idle nonchalantly by the side of the road and I pass one which has stacks of flattened cars on its back, their metal bodies compressed pancake like and nestled comfortably together.

As I wait at traffic lights aeroplanes float above me, tail lights flashing as they slide smoothly towards their landing and the occasional car cruises past me, their exhaust fumes lit by break lights rosy in the humid air.

Over a bridge and up the wide sweep of the road, scrub land cloaks either side and echoes with the musical repertoire of an insomniac bird, its song mingling with the distant roar of the motorway.

Nearing home I turn off Great South Road and up Grand Vue Road which is somnolent and sleepy, scented by richly worked suburban gardens bursting with tumbling blooms.

Along the hedgerows jasmine clambers in weed-like propensity, its star-like flowers glowing pale and pure amongst the darker green of the creeper. As I flow past I drink deeply of the thick, viscous fragrance, sweet as wine and as soft as symphonies, the scent gives breath and beauty.

Finally I crest the hill and roll down, trails of glowing highways linking lonely light-speckled settlements on the dark plain between me and the velvet-edged mountains hunched on the horizon.

The stars wheel into place, their strange southern faces glittering sublimely from a silver sky and my soul lifts, the radiance and beauty of the heavens piercing this life with its grace.