View from our verandah – Wellington Airport, Kilbirne, Evans Bay and Hataitai.
One thing that I’ve noticed over the last few weeks is the silence. Outside at night you can hear – nothing.
With virtually no cars on the roads and even fewer planes coming and going, the constant background city buzz has gone. To be replaced by silence, and at night, the call of our local Ruru.
Wellington has had an awful summer – more rain and wind than sunshine. But every so often the weather surprises you – like this sunset a few days a go.
While I was out and about Monday evening, Wellington put on display one of it’s “look at me” sunsets.
This gallery contains 11 photos.
After a brief pink period, the trusty Mazda MX5 arrived home pre-Christmas in resplendent red. It was immediately despatched to the trimmer for a new hood (the old one was a bit leaky) and the car is now as good … Continue reading
After a spell of rain and bad weather, yesterday started as a sunny Wellington day. It turned ugly in the afternoon – in about 30 minutes. From our place the view of the southerly front rolling in was quite dramatic.
With winds whistling through Cook Strait at up to 140km/h today our place reminded everyone why it’s called Windy Wellington.
The normally peaceful view of small boats moored in the shelter of Evans Bay looked a little different today.
Last week a sign was erected on the hills above Evans Bay. It has been the result of 2 years of local debate and controversy and has involved everything from a petition from the public through to the involvement of some of Wellington’s finest business and political minds. All to develop a sign to welcome those arriving by plane at Wellington airport.
The sign says – wait for it – Wellington.
This story began when Wellington Airport – which owned the site – decided to pay homage to Wellington’s fabulous film industry – you know, Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings, Weta Digital, Stone Street Studios and now the two, sorry, three Hobbit movies – by erecting a copy of the famous “Hollywood” sign on the hill overlooking the harbour which would say “Wellywood”. I’m not sure where this piece of creative genius came from but it’s fair to say everyone, except the airport company, thought it was naff, silly and, lets be honest, a bit “try hard”.
The airport company stuck to their guns, the sign was going up, end of story. But after protests, hours of angry talk-back calls, comment from many distinguished Wellingtonians, and the aforementioned petition, they backed down. A committee of prominent locals was set up to oversee a contest. Anyone who wanted to, could submit a design and the best one would be selected to go up.
It turned out that the best was a “Wellington” sign being blown away. An idea that came from an Auckland advertising agency. Yikes.
That sign with the airport to the right
This gallery contains 8 photos.
A couple of posts ago (“One year ago today – 13 July”) I referred to our local beach as Hataitai Beach. To be honest I didn’t know what it was called, it has always been the beach at the bottom of … Continue reading
And yesterday the song lyrics were pretty much right. We had strong winds and rain, and the view from our front window was less than idyllic. But it was Sunday, a chance to hunker down and to do nothing much in particular. It was a challenge we were happy to take up.
To mark the last day of autumn Wellington produced one of those magic mornings that, sadly, we see too infrequently. Crisp, with no wind to speak of and just starting to warm up as the sun rose over the eastern hills.
At 8:15am the view from our front verandah looking south over Evans Bay to Cook Strait (and beyond to Antarctica as there’s not much in the way) was worth a photo.
This gallery contains 4 photos.
Having written about various parts of the world over the last year it’s time to write about our place, Wellington, New Zealand. It’s where I was born and where I have lived since. After every overseas trip or holiday there … Continue reading
toscanakiwi 