Rosebank is not where anyone goes for the view. It is a light industrial peninsula on the western side of Auckland, between the suburb of Avondale and the Whau River, a place of factories, warehouses, workshops and car dealers, with a single long road running down the middle. But it has a surprising history, and it is a practical, unpretentious place to start a ride into the Waitākere Ranges.
In the early twentieth century, the Rosebank peninsula and the surrounding area were full of orchards, market gardens and vineyards, many of them run by immigrants from Dalmatia, on the Croatian coast, who came to New Zealand to dig kauri gum and stayed to farm. Their descendants founded many of the wineries that made West Auckland the heart of New Zealand's early wine industry. Today the orchards have gone, but some of the old families and their wineries remain in the area around Henderson and Kumeu.
Nearby Avondale has a racecourse, where a large Sunday market sells fruit, vegetables and everything else, and a lively, multicultural main street with cafés and takeaways serving food from Asia, the Pacific and the Middle East. It is a good place to get breakfast and coffee before setting out.
The ride west from Rosebank heads across the suburbs to the Waitākere Ranges, a block of forested hills on the city's western edge, and to the black-sand beaches of the west coast, Piha, Karekare and Muriwai, famous for their wild surf, dramatic cliffs and volcanic rock formations. The roads in the ranges are narrow, steep and winding, with tight bends, wet patches and plenty of traffic on summer weekends. Rosebank, Avondale and the surrounding suburbs have fuel and food on every corner. Auckland's weather is changeable, so be prepared for sudden showers, even on a sunny day.