Takapuna Writers' Walk Preview

Text for this tour has been kindly provided by Auckland Council

Nowhere in Takapuna is far from its beach, and most of the writers who lived in the town chose homes within easy walking distance of the glorious sweep of sand which extends from The Strand to Hauraki Corner.

Frank Sargeson's house is the highlight of the tour and those wishing to view the interior can borrow the key from the Takapuna Library. Several other important authors have also resided in the area and are not within the area of the walk. Allen Curnow lived at 13 Herbert St overlooking Shoal Bay, an outlook which inspired several of his poems in the 1950s. Children's author Tessa Duder began her writing career at 8 Fentham Rd, between 1971 and 1981. Novelist Maurice Gee occupied 20 Horarata Rd in 1973. His children's novel, Under the Mountain (1979), is set in Milford and on Rangitoto Island and In My Father's Den (1972), contains scenes set at a Takapuna beachfront property.

Terrain: Over Takapuna Beach, gently sloping and level ground, and two busy roads at intersections. Most of the route moves through the lattice of quiet streets between Lake Rd and the beachfront. A short section of Burns Ave is the one section of the walk which is steep.

Parking: Available in some of the streets off Lake Rd, such as Hauraki Rd, Ewen St or Napier Ave.

Privacy: The walks are along public roads and contain historical facts about the buildings and the area. Most of the sites on the walks are private property and many are used as private residences. Please respect the environment and the privacy of local residents, and do not trespass on private property.

Text for this tour is Copyright Auckland Council.

Start at Hauraki Corner on Lake Rd. Walk along to 6 Hauraki Rd.

Continuing along, 41 Hauraki Rd was the site of the home of one of Takapuna's founding writers Susie Mactier.

At the end of the road, turn left onto the beach and walk along to the next street. 26 Ewen St was the childhood home of Bruce Mason.

Turn right into William St and left into Rewiti Ave. Here, at 9 Rewiti Ave Kevin Ireland.

Continue along to Lake Rd. Turn right, cross at the traffic lights and continue along to 14 Esmonde Rd. This fibrolite house is regarded as the fountainhead of New Zealand literature Frank Sargeson.

Novelist and poet

Considered New Zealand's most distinguished living writer, Frame spent several periods of her life on the North Shore. In 1954, after her release from Seacliff Hospital in the South Island, where she had been wrongly diagnosed as having schizophrenia, she met Frank Sargeson and was invited by him to live in the old army hut at the rear of his house. Here, during 1955-56, she worked on her first novel, Owls Do Cry (1957), before travelling to Europe.

She returned to New Zealand in 1963, and has at various times lived in Northcote, Devonport, Browns Bay and Glenfield. Frame describes the beginning of the crucial period of her life at Esmonde Rd:

Our visit was short. What could I say? I was self-conscious, the 'funny' sister being taken for a drive. Mr Sargeson, a bearded old man in a shabby grey suit and grey pants tied with string, smiled kindly and asked how I was, and I said nothing. He had an army hut in his garden, he said. I was welcome to live and work there. I neither accepted nor refused, I was so overcome by my 'mental' status, and by seeing in person the famous writer whose anthology of New Zealand writing, Speaking for Ourselves, was a treasured book; the famous writer for whose fiftieth birthday I had signed a letter of good wishes, not knowing him and knowing nothing of the other signatories of the letter. Frank Sargeson. Mr Sargeson.

- An Angel at My Table, Janet Frame

Frame's novel Living in the Maniototo (1979) contains elements of Glenfield, fictionalised as 'Blenheim', and there is a moving account of her time at 14 Esmonde Rd in the second volume of her autobiography, An Angel at My Table (1984).

Continue along, cross at the traffic lights into Burns Ave and walk past Tennyson Ave on the left. It is fitting that the streets in this part of Takapuna are named after famous poets (Burns, Byron, Tennyson) for at 24 Tennyson Ave lived R.A.K. (Ron) Mason.

Novelist, short story writer and editor

Lay lived in Tennyson Ave from 1972 to 1973. He later moved to Devonport.

I rented a small, beach-side flat on the North Shore of the city. It stood alone on a lawn at the bottom of a flight of steep steps which descended from a cul-de-sac to the sea. The place was very small, just a tiny lounge with a bathroom and a kitchen leading off it at one end, but it was peaceful and private, sheltered by gnarled pohutukawa trees, and from the window at one end of the bach I could lie on the bed and look out over the Channel, watching the ships as they passed between Rangitoto Island and the land. The presence of the sea was comforting, but as October came, and with it the first days of spring, I only grudgingly acknowledged the pureness of the sea and sky, thinking of the beech trees turning to gold, and the mists suspended in the hollows of the Downs.

- The Mentor, Graeme Lay

Lay's novels include The Mentor (1978) whose central character is modelled on Frank Sargeson,The Fools on the Hill (1988), Temptation Island (2000), Leaving One Foot Island (1998), The Wave Rider (2000) and Return to One Foot Island (2001). The Town on the Edge of the World, his new and selected short stories, was published in 2002.

Walk down the steep dip into the hollow in Burns Ave. At the top of the rise, turn right into Bracken Ave. On the corner, Bracken Ave, now a doctor's surgery, lived Karl Wolfskehl.

Make your way towards Takapuna Beach by turning right into Lake Rd and left into Sanders Ave. At the end of the road, turn right onto the beach and walk along to Hauraki Rd where you started.