28-Dec-2025 -- I’m spending much of this Southern Hemisphere Summer back in my home town of Auckland, New Zealand. I had previously visited this local Degree Confluence Point almost 13 years ago, but decided to revisit it, because I noticed that recent satellite imagery seemed to show that much of the forest near the point had since been cleared.

As before, I chose the suboptimal but discreet route to approach this point: I parked beside Fitzpatrick Road, 500m NW of the point, then hiked down a steep bank covered with native bush, crossed a small creek, then climbed up a steep grassy slope, then hiked beside a farm field (with horses grazing), then down another steep slope (planted with exotic Monterey Pine (“pinus radiata”)), down into the gully where the point lies.

As I dropped down into the gully, I saw that most of it had, indeed, been completely cleared of trees. The Degree Confluence Point, which was previously in a pretty grove of native ferns, was now a tangled mess of downed trees. By walking carefully across this (somewhat dangerous) tangle of downed trees, I was able to get within 1m (+/- 1.8m GPS error) of the point, but didn’t get close to getting ‘all zeros’. (Because this area is within controlled airspace from the nearby Ardmore airfield, I wasn’t able to fly my drone to get an aerial view.)

It’s disappointing to see forest cleared like this, but one can’t begrudge the owner of this land for wanting to make some money. Perhaps this land is being subdivided into ‘lifestyle blocks’? In any case, as Auckland continues to grow, this point is likely to continue to change considerably in decades to come.

Just 5 months ago, I was on vacation in Spain, and visited the antipodal point [37,-5]. I thought about how different that point was: flat dry land, next to a railway track. But it's fun to think about having stood on points on exact opposite sides of the world!