Millwater

Day 245, Monday 23 April 2018

Millwater is one of Auckland’s newest suburbs, built on former farmland between Silverdale and Orewa. I rode around it today. There’s a mixture of houses of different densities, and a large central park, which appears to consist solely of grass and isn’t at all interesting. A couple of smaller parks appear to have mature trees.

My focus was on an estuary walkway, which was separated from Millwater by a wide stretch of wasteland. I found a road, Longmore Lane, which connected to the walkway, but although I could see the walkway entrance, I could see nowhere to park as the road was entirely lined by dotted yellow lines and bus stops. (I realised later on studying the map that there was parking just off the road in what I had thought was part of a school.) I rode back to the traffic light at the beginning of Longmore, and could see suitable parking across the road. I waited through a full cycle of light changes and realised that the traffic sensors had not registered my bike. I rolled back and forth over them to no avail. Since this was a short dead-end street, it was clear no other vehicle was going to come and trigger the sensors for me, so I waited until there was no traffic moving and turned left, riding through the red light. This road had a dotted yellow line preventing parking for a few hundred metres, so I gave up on the walkway, and rode home muttering under my breath.

Distance travelled: 79 km. Total distance so far: 31,675 km