The pollution of noise
The first thing I noticed when I woke up this morning was the silence. I couldn’t hear a thing. I lay in the peace and tranquillity of the stillness, grateful to have it.
The reason I noticed the quietness, particularly this morning, was because Stephen and I, Genevieve and Willow, had just spent two nights in Auckland where the noise was deafening and unrelenting. Admittedly, we were in an apartment building very close to the centre of town and the motorway, but so were many others, those who live and work there. I felt extremely tired at the end of the first day and my energies were scattered. I really wonder about the health of the people who live there permanently. I know one gets used to the noise, but getting used to something doesn’t make it good for a person. Even waking at two and three in the morning, the roar was still there, interspersed with sirens, as cars and rescue vehicles traversed the busy motorway below.
Luckily, we had Stephen to drive for us. Negotiating the traffic was another nightmare. Again, people who live there would get used to the stress involved in driving – the waiting at the lights, eyes needed everywhere to see cars, trying to find a gap in the traffic, the time taken to reach anywhere, but again, just because one has got used to it, it doesn’t mean it is not there and not impacting on one’s health. And one of the biggest stresses was trying to find parking, even at a friend’s house where we had dinner the first night. We were advised to park at the cones as no road works would occur before morning. Other than that, there would have been nowhere for us to place our vehicle. I feel for the retailers where there is no parking outside their shops. One or two we wanted to visit, we bypassed, because we couldn’t find anywhere close to stop.
The plus side of all this was the new Puhoi motorway, which cuts out the busy stretch of road around Warkworth. This made the journey from Wellsford incredibly quick. We had been using the other highway near Hellensville on any trips we had taken in the past but this was a windy route with very few passing opportunities along it.
Another thing I noticed on our travels was the price of goods at the op shops, a pastime we all enjoy. Apparently, people were buying the cheaper items from these shops and reselling them with a huge mark-up on Trade-Me, forcing retailers to increase their prices. So, it would be fair to say, there weren’t many bargains at these shops we visited. I am sure the price of clothing would be relatively cheap all over Auckland, but this did not flow through to the op shops where one would have expected it to.
I know people in the cities find the smaller places boring, with not much to do, but having never been a city girl, I would take the rural areas every time. As I went for my morning walk, sun beaming down and the water calm, I felt blessed to live in such a tranquil part of the country. The only noise was the ringing in my own ears, caused by my deafness.