Franklin Rd

In Auckland, there is a street called Franklin Rd. By day, this is just a regular residential street. By night, however... it turns into a Christmas Las-Vegas of sorts. Every single house is lit up and decorated. Music is playing or being played live. Sometimes carolers would gather. And there is a real crowd of people walking up and down every night, some dressed up in Santa hats and some of the really small children are even in costumes. It's like Halloween, only with Christmas.

 

A man and his dog on a warm spring night listening to Christmas music sung under empty clothes lines.

I was lucky enough to stay in Auckland when the Red Bull drifting event took place. Down Franklin Rd, is Victoria Street. It was closed off and an obstacle track of sorts was constructed (including an elevated truck called "The Undertaker", a car wash, round obstacles a car can go around and curved walls). A driver is given 50 seconds versus the course to basically gather points by drifting close to obstacles. There are proximity sensors on the obstacles and the driver must hit all of them to earn "a combo". Pretty intense to watch, I gotta tell you. The neg of this is breathing burned rubber and picking up tiny pieces of tires from your hair afterwards.