I am so sorry for missing last month’s column. I have an ongoing dispute with Aidan regarding his classy magazine. I won’t go into the actual details of this dispute, but all I can say is that I get on a hell of a lot better with Dallas, his brother. I find Aidan has a bit of an attitude problem.

Dallas is a damned fine yachtsman, unlike his brother, and I have found that generally yachtsmen are good people.

What a great few days I had last month, getting up at 5am, sticking to my routine of making tea, making Vogel’s toast with vegemite and sitting nervously in front of my television, with the sound off but listening to the great PJ Montgomery and his dulcet tones commentating the America’s Cup.

What a victory it was.  What a fantastic job the team did.  It was a distant memory the last time we watched the America’s Cup, and to be perfectly honest I thought the chances of getting it back here  were slim, to say the least.

Now we have a good few years to look forward to in New Zealand, wherever it might be sailed.  My feelings are that it will be in Auckland, the City of Sails, as all the infrastructure of accommodation, restaurants, super Yacht service facilities, spar makers and sailmakers and all the industries that service the marine industry are in place here.  We have the magnificent Hauraki Gulf to sail in, which is hard to beat.  The trick this time is to hang on to the America’s Cup for the next twenty years, we could make it so hard for other people to win it off us, bugger a fair playing field, let’s just retain it.  Play all the other Syndicates at their own game and lean it heavily in our favour.

I must admit I really enjoyed having the Lions’ supporters around the Shore – they bring so much colour and enthusiasm wherever they go.  As I said in a previous column, people love coming here to experience our way of life, see a bit of our beautiful country and taste our food and our beer and wine, which they do, in copious quantities.

I have a real big moan this month, and I wonder if somebody could answer this for me.  Down in Albert Road in Devonport, Fulton Hogan the roading company, have spent all of June and much of July ripping up over 5000 square metres of paving, all in perfectly good condition.  They have replaced it with more black tar seal.  They have had a road management system there, which would have cost (I have been led to believe) well over $100,000.  My reliable sources, at the coalface, tell the contract was for well over half a million dollars.

When I queried a couple of workmen there, as to why they were doing it, they said Auckland Transport had money to spend, so they though they’d do it.  Other people I spoke to within the contracting company could not understand why these works had been done.  It is absolutely ludicrous, surely there are better ways of spending our money around town than ripping up quantities of perfectly good pavement. 

I thought the Waterview Tunnel may have been open by now, the plan was to have it open at Easter but by the end of June, it still wasn’t open.  They have endless walks through, rides through, and many public openings by mayors and politicians but it still wasn’t open at the end of June.  Could somebody please enlighten me about this one?

Also, could one of these politicians or mayors please tell me what is happening to the Devonport Yacht Club wharf which has now been closed for months under the pretext of reconstruction.  If you make contact with one of these so called community leaders, nobody can give you an answer, all they do is duck shovel you around and you’re none the wiser at the end of it all. 

I see recently we have received a bit more propaganda in the mailbox about Lake Road, and the proposed solutions to the congestion we all suffer.

God only knows what the easy answer is, but if we had a road leading from the end of Bayswater Avenue across Shoal Bay and linking onto State Highway 1 and the old toll plaza, surely this would help.  As I have said before, we could arch the road to allow boats to go in and out, it would be far cheaper than trying to reconfigure Lake Road and all the property acquisitions that would have to happen and the years it would take to do so.  That solution could be built within two years, easily – unlike the proposals we have been given which are likely to take five to 10 years at least.  That’s more than likely to be 5-10 years to get all the consents and approvals before they actually start the process.

Enjoy the lead up into Spring time!

NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER: I am not sure that Mr Gundry has ever recovered from me calling this column "Gundry's Grumbles". I thought it was a pretty good name - (AB).