Eyes Above The Waves

Today we walked up Mount Eden, one of Auckland's volcanic cones, close to our house. The crater forms a steep grassy bowl and is quite picturesque, and the view of Auckland from the rim is superb. It's a lovely spot for a walk.

Unfortunately the terrain is fragile, being largely loose scoria and dirt, and is being eroded by the passage of large numbers of visitors --- both locals and busloads of foreign tourists. To protect the crater, the authorities prohibit people from descending into it. But despite many strongly worded signs, lots of people insist on going anyway, and that always makes me furious.

Perhaps today I was feeling particularly irascible; I actually went up to a few of these people and pointed out that they weren't supposed to have been down there. Some just looked sheepish and wandered off. Others responded that lots of other people had been doing it; that response really irks me but I think I managed to be quite calm while pointing out that the fact that other people do it doesn't make it right. One man replied that if the authorities wanted to protect the crater they should put a fence around the whole thing, and again I hope I was calm while suggesting that making it ugly for everyone probably wasn't a good solution.

As usual, afterwards I figured out more compelling ways to say everything. If I'm there again and someone tells me "everybody else does it", if they have children with them (most do) I'll ask them if they teach their children that seeing others doing something forbidden makes it OK.

It's all rather disturbing, because I'm rather shy at root and I'd ordinarily never dream of breaching the wall of silence strangers carry in the city. Perhaps I'm turning into an crusty curmudgeon as I age --- or just a crank!