Deidre's story - (Sept 23)

"I am a regular walker, and fortunately live on the coast. I have wonderful views of the harbour and Waiheke Island on my walks. I would have to say that the air over these scenes is always clear. I guess it has a lot to do with the air movement over the ocean so any pollution is blown away.

When I am driving away from the coast I drive along an elevated stretch of road and often notice a brown haze hovering over the city and out across to the Waitakere Ranges. This is always on a clear and usually windless morning.

I do restrict my walking routes to paths off the main roads as I am acutely aware of the smells and sounds of the traffic as the cars drive by me. The smell of diesel and petrol makes me nauseous, so I avoid these smells as much as possible. The coastal cliff tops are the most pleasant for walking where I am unaware of either air or noise pollutants."

Foggy-haze: Sept 7th from JJ

"This is the most noticeably brown fog I have seen while riding my bike. Once the cloud and fog had lifted there was still a distinct layer of brown smog at 9:30am."

Haze and fog: Sept 6th 2011

Nick told me that this is a spring fog and early morning haze combination. The fog seems quite settled in front of the Waitakere ranges but also hazy over the city. Still 8 degrees (cold enough to hold the pollutants in) in the morning but getting much warmer later in the day -- 17 degrees today, haze season will be over soon.

Steve's story: September 6th 2011

(By Text) "Eww there's brown haze this morning. Got pics from the deck but a bit far away. Looks like its bad over North Western motorway." (from Mt Roskill)

JJ's story: Cycling haze September 5th 2011

"I noticed the haze in Auckland today as I rode around One Tree Hill so I took a photo on my phone. The haze is very faint unless you are looking for it. What is immediately obvious is the diesel smoke at ground level from Auckland buses. I hold my breath when I am behind them."

Stephani's story: Bus Cloud

"You can imagine the grunt a bus makes when it has stopped on a steep hill and needs to merge into the traffic again. A lot of black exhaust fumes whoosh out the back of them, quite often leaving people or cars in their wake.


Times this by two or three buses doing this at the same time at the same bus stop, a large amount of exhaust fumes are generated in one place. Quite often after being disappointed that it wasn't my bus that had arrived, looking downwards on Queen Street, I could quite often see a great big smokey cloud slowly wafting it's way down Queen Street."