Gundry's Grumbles With Simon Gundry

Simon Gundry is a Devonport and North Shore identity, and character, who is known for calling a spade a spade. He is a director of contracting company Gill & Gundry, is an enthusiastic and active sailor (past crew-member of Ceramco New Zealand and Lion New Zealand in Whitbread Round The World races and Shockwave in Admiral’s Cup) and is a life member of the North Shore Rugby Football Club. This is his regular and lively contribution to CHANNEL.

A Wonderful Summer, But…

As we all know by now, it’s been a wonderful summer so far – except for the little glitch of the tropical depression that hit us mid January, just in time for concrete contractors to be going back to work.
I didn’t do too much with my holiday time, which was spent in one of the prettiest little seaside villages in the world, Devonport. My daily routine was centred around the wonderful Ashes Cricket series in Australia, watching all sessions live on television. I swam every day, barbecued for family and friends most nights, and didn’t venture past Belmont for nearly three weeks. It was sheer bliss.
On or about the 14th of January, I realised I had to make the trip north to BP at Clifton Road to get some diesel for the truck and lawnmower fuel for the old Masport parked underneath the upturned sailing dinghy on the front lawn. So inconvenient, not having any garages in Devonport any more. A couple of decades ago there were six petrol stations in the Devonport area. The Shell station at King’s Store; the petrol station at Belmont where my lovely chinaman mate now has the liquor store; the Caltex ones in Wynyard St in Devonport, and in Tainui Road, the old Mobil in Lake Road and the old Shell station opposite the Devonport Yacht Club. They’ve all been gobbled up by the international conglomerates. Sad to say with the new gas stations these days, there’s more chance of getting a hot pie and a latte
than borrowing a set of spanners to do a quick repair, or a set of jumper leads to start the car.
Late on Christmas Eve my no. 3 son arrived home from Brisbane, where he is working as a surveyor on the Northern Busway Airport link project, which is a series of transportation tunnels under the river and city of Brisbane. He arrived home with much hilarity after driving down Lake Road, from Esmonde Road to Hauraki on the way to Devonport. He commented that they’d drilled several kilometres of tunnels on his project but they still hadn’t finished the Lake Road project which has now been going on for three years. He commented that it didn’t look any different from when he left in January last year, which I agreed with. I think there should be a national enquiry into the cost of this project. This 400 metres of roadworks which has now been going on for three years, there doesn’t seem to be any end to it. They seemed to have finished the western side of the road running towards Takapuna, some sort of temporary seal that rides more like a goat track than a road. I had a quick tot up the other day and reckoned that the hireage for the temporary fencing and safety barriers on the eastern side would be about $10,000 per week. The Takapuna and Devonport residents are all absolutely fed up with this whole construction shambles.
No. 2 son arrived home from his sailing adventures in Europe a couple of days before Christmas, he’s a boat builder and spends his life sailing in different regattas round the World. He also hadn’t been home for a year. We wandered on many occasions down to the beaches of Devonport, at full tide, to have a swim. He commented on the state of our beaches, and asked why they couldn’t be tidied up like other beaches in the world. Sometimes I think we should stage a citizens’ revolt to get the basic things in the community, like clean beaches. Large weeds shouldn’t be growing out of the footpath cracks and promenade areas in waterfront Devonport as they now are. All very well with the Lord Mayor of Auckland, Len Brown, going on about free pools for Auckland citizens, why can’t we get back to the basics and start off with clean beaches.

The year 2011 is going to be a wonderful year for this Country, with the upcoming Rugby World Cup. They predict we’ll have over 80,000 visitors coming to see us. This will not only be about Rugby but also give us a wonderful chance to showcase our Country. Every one of us should embrace this festival and make our visitors welcome. Hopefully they’ll leave here with the feeling they’ve had a great visit and enjoyed the hospitality and the warm heart of this country and its people. We should aim that all these visitors leave our shores with the feeling that they would love to return. Let’s not be too money hungry, this is more than a festival of sport, it’s a once in a lifetime chance to show off our country and its people to the world. I cringe every time I hear people boasting about how much they are going to make when renting out their houses or in their restaurants and bars when these visitors come. We will never see a festival again like this in our lifetimes, let’s make the most of it, let’s not screw it up by being greedy. These visitors to our shores are well travelled, intelligent people, and they’ll know if they’re being fleeced. Bad press travels very quickly.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great 2011 – make the most of this year, it’s going to be a memorable one.