Auckland to Thames
It takes about one and a half hours to get to Thames. The highway is half an hour of motorway, flat with the usual industrial buildings of varying quality. Basically you see the arse end of everything filled with all the crap building occupiers don’t want out the front. The remaining hour is rural highway, flat with animals eating grass, and trees.
Roadside Attractions
There is a palpable feel of tragic desperation hanging over some retail businesses. You know the type, fading signage, fit-out last updated in 1950, stock that looks like it has been assembled from local garage sales. When the business is a food outlet it is in some way even worse, is the food last weeks or last months, do they wash the dishes, are these mouse droppings on the floor or mummified fly carcasses. Once you leave the motorway and turn left on the rural road to Thames you have the opportunity, as we did, to visit the place pictured on the left. Further down the road we stopped at the place on the right.
Thames
People in Thames dug lots of holes many years ago and in return for this labour they got gold. This lasted long enough to pay for many grand buildings and to develop a heavy engineering industry. The engineering expertise meant the gold miners could have many big steel things to dig even more holes. Once all the holes were dug the gold ran out and Thames immediately became a place where no one wanted big steel things anymore. Lucky for Thames cars were discovered and the skills developed to make steel stuff could be applied to building Toyota’s instead.
Thames is enjoying a new gold rush, This does not involve mining gold, but a much easier activity, mining Aucklander’s! Because Thames was once biggish and richish it has a fine collection of run down grand buildings which can be purchased for nothing and rebuilt to look like they are in Ponsonby. Aucklander’s love this stuff and will spend unending volumes of money in this activity. This expenditure flows into the local economy making Thames a wealthier place. Everyone wins.
So – What Else do you do in Thames?
You ride your bicycle on the railway, which like many railways these days has no tracks. In this way you can get places, achieve fitness and not be flattened by a train.
You practice witchcraft. Thames seems to have an affinity with the occult. There are a large number of practitioners of the dark arts who can help you with life’s challenges.
Eating is also a popular pastime. Thames is blessed with an extraordinary number of large bakery/cafes catering to these with high calorie intake requirements. I did not see any bicycles parked outside these establishments.
Thames has many interesting boutique shops and narrow furniture stores to satisfy expenditure needs. But, what about cruising a mall that would not look out of place in a zombie apocalypse movie. Yes there is one available, admittedly on my visit there were minimal numbers of the undead around but given the quality of the remaining stores this was not surprising.
Thames is a gem. It has all the basic necessities to ensure its residents and visitors have what they need. But the big bonus, which gives it that added zest and makes it more interesting than other towns, is its unique sense of local weirdness. Hopefully this remains as Thames signature dish.
The Urban Ockenden 