Before work, on the beach

There is no sign-up sheet. There is no group chat. There is simply a stretch of gravel around the foot of Mauao that fills, every weekday morning before seven, with people who have decided that the day starts outside.

Nurses coming off night shift walk it in the opposite direction to the ones going on. Two civil engineers have solved more of the city centre's stormwater problem on this track than in any workshop. A retired orchardist has walked it every day for eleven years and can tell you, to the week, when the kaimoana returns to the harbour entrance.

This is the least remarkable thing about Tauranga and the most revealing. The maunga is not a weekend destination here. It is infrastructure, as ordinary and as load-bearing as the bridge.

Mauao is an ancestor as well as a landmark. The stories held by tangata whenua about how the mountain came to stand at the harbour entrance are the oldest layer of everything told on this site, and they are told properly by the people who hold them.

The maunga is not a weekend destination here. It is infrastructure.