I started the day rather late, i.e. around 11am before I was ready to actually get up (something I have echoed again today...mmm they generally start work at 8:30 here....still it is not like I was ever late getting into Witham ;). Anyway, the sun was shining and I was feeling fine, so I decided to head up to the Botanic gardens for the views and more photo's for my book (no it is not about plants).
The tourist access to the Botanic gardens is via a cable car from Lambton Quay and this features in many of the stock photographs for Wellington. It is actually a fairly frequent service operating a departure from the Quay once every 10 minutes, and during the week it is used by commuters who park under various bridges and roads along its incline. Therefore there are two stops on what is less than a 1km of track - however one of these doubles as a passing place for the descending car. The effect of these stops is a rather slow ascent and I feel that if using it as a commuting route I would get frustrated with this over time - So my top tip is do not invest in cable car futures, they are best suited as tourist attractions and ski facilities.
Upon finally reaching the top, which is 220 meters above Lambton, you are rewarded with an impressive vista of the city and harbour area. I have subsequently found out that this view or 'viewshaft' is written into the Wellington City Council mandate as being protected, therefore no buildings within a certain distance are allowed to be high enough to impact this view. I snapped a quick photo, but unfortunately with the slow speed of the cable car, I could not get a shot with it in. Still just imagine a red train like thing with Wellington Cable Car in gold letters and you will get the drift.I left the station area and headed into the botanic gardens. These are a pretty large affair which sit atop the hill and also sprawl down the sides. I had not really looked into what they contained or where I should be headed for my best photographic chances - so instead I just picked a 'least populated' path and started walking down it. A good choice of path it turned out, as it started with a gentle descent and after a few yards I saw a sign which offered me 'Rose Gardens' or 'Herb Gardens' or 'Cable Car' - it was rose and herbs for me then.
Strolling along the path through the tall specimen trees with just the sounds of common and also exotic birds in my ears, a feeling of relaxed warmth started to envelope me. He was I, in late November, walking through a sun dappled park in shirt sleeves, shorts and sandals - heady smells of the wild and planted flowers filling my nose, the melodic singing of the Tui in my ears and absolutely no one else within ear or eye shot...ah bliss...well almost bliss, I could have enjoyed it more with having one other special person with me...but she was busy at work as a later text would confirm.Turning a corner I came upon my first chance for a photograph. A
group of what looked like trainee tree climbers, were watching two of their members dangling about 10 feet from the ground on orange rigging. They did not really notice me as I was on a lower path, so I took the chance to take a shot or two. The situation fitted my ideal for inclusion in the book I am working on, but mainly for the guys in the background and what they were doing. I realise this does not make sense without knowing what my ideal actually is, and therefore I will give you more details in a separate post.I continued down the path heading for the rose and herb gardens - and when presented with a choice of 8mins or 10mins, I choose the longer up hill route. This brought me closer to a residential area which borders the botanic gardens, consisting of older colonel style housing with white weatherboards and tilled roofs. The main road they sat on was a noisy interruption to the otherwise peaceful surroundings of the gardens, so I was happy to veer back from this and continue up hill.
As I approached the summit of the hill I could see what looked like an unfinished conservatory sitting there - I say unfinished as for a start there was no attached house, and secondly for a garden, it's white wooden construction looked stark against the blue sky without any covering vegetation. I came closer and found that it occupied a pride of place on the hill and contained four benches along its low brick walls. The gaps between the wooden poles were glazed and therefore provided relief from any Wellington winds and enhanced the suns rays to make it a lovely warm spot. A young woman was tucked into one corner and enjoying its charms to the full with a good book, so much that she did not look up at me or the group of old age pensioners who had appeared to admire the view.
I waited for the old age pensioners to dodder out of the way, and then retreated a little to take another shot for my book. The contrasting white wood, blue sky and nearby green trees made it fairly interesting and I was able to exclude the young lady in here corner to.
I soon found the pensioners around the corner in the herb garden where they had stopped at the first patch of 'smelling herbs'. The herb garden itself consisted of a gravelled path between two low red brick walls, leading to a water feature at one end with no obvious through path. Along the sides of the path were small beds of herbs separated into usage groups by benches and signs. Again I found a fair number of photographic shots here, including one nice example of a focused foreground on a sun dial with my subject matter in the distance. You may be able to guess what I am interested in photographing by now, especially if you recall the conversations between myself and I&S just before I left.I managed to get all my shots here before the group of pensioners meandered into them and so I continued a little further on to the other side of the hill. Looking down I was rewarded for taking the extra 2 mins and uphill approach to the rose garden, as laid out below me in the brilliant sunshine was a geometric pattern of flowery delight. Every colour rose you could think of was there in abundance, and a center piece of a water fountain added to the vista. I think it was a little early in the season for some of the roses which surrounded the garden on trellis - but the ones in bloom reminded me of pictures I once saw in my grandmothers photographs, there was something about the quality of the light, the warmth of the sunshine and the mass of rose flowers which gave it an exotic and distinctly foreign air.
As well as the visual appeal I was keen to sample the smells, but before I got down into the garden itself I had a couple more shots to take. Once I entered the garden I noticed the groups of people being guided about the bedding - many of them were being held by their arms in the 'guiding an older person who may fall' type grip, their blinking sunken eyes seeing a blur of colour as they crunched the gravel in slippers. I suspected many of them would not see another summers display here, and wondered how many they had seen before this.
For the record I want to say now that when I am older, if any of you happen to know me then, please ensure I am led around places by holding my hand and not my elbow at right angles. Also please consider how I look and do not wrap me in layers of non-matching colours 'just to keep me warm' - and if my socks are too large and going baggy around my thin ankles - get me smaller ones - and shoes people, not slippers! Mum, if you are reading this then I will take you to the rose garden, but we are going on Rollerblades or a bike...I refuse to become like the dying rose buds themselves and be deadheaded to make way for younger blooms!
Needless to say I took a few composed shots here, but soon every view contained either an older person with helper, or the occasional tottering baby with proud family cooing as it patted the roses. But before I left I wanted to experience the smells on offer, so I picked a warm bench and sat waiting for them to waft my way...after a few mins I was offered a smell, but not one I wanted, for just across the patio a middle aged man was sucking on a cigarette whose exhaust was drifting in my direction. I quickly got up and made my way out of the garden, muttering loudly as I did so 'bloody git, of all the places to have to smoke he chooses a bloody rose garden'. I don't think he heard me, which was a shame.
I then decided to head back up towards the cable car, taking photos as I did so. During my walk back I was thinking of Charlotte and just at the same moment she texted me - a spooky coincidence maybe, and Derren Brown would have you believe that if that sort of thing never happened it would be even more weird - either way I was happy and replied to her request to meet up for lunch. I thought that I could be with her in a few mins as the cable car would take me virtually to her feet on Lambton Quay - oh how wrong I could be, as mentioned before the cable car is not a fast form of transport! So descending down the hill again at a glacier pace I was trying to text her back to let her know I would be delayed - unfortunately my top up credit had run out, and it took until the bottom to restore this.
However the journey down was soon forgotten as my destination of a small coffee bar above the lower station and the company of Charlotte was perfect. We chatted about this and that until it was time for her to return to work - which reminded me how unemployed I currently am, at least unemployed in the 'someone paying you' sense, for I now had fresh impetus to visit the library and research some more about my book idea.
Wellington library is a large modern building located in the civic centre. This area also includes the Te Papa museum and various council offices. It is a pedestrian friendly place and in an effort to keep the links with the sea, a sculptured bridge has been built between it and the Tarnaki bay area of the harbour. The bridge was designed by a Maori artist and is symbolic of the link between the settlers coming from the ocean and arriving on the land - it is built of heavy timber and is surrounded by sculptured metal objects such as fern trees and a large floating ball of fern leaves. I have visited the bridge a number of times following on from one evening when Charlotte lost a special ring of hers on it - being the romantic sort that I am, I still scour the paths and cracks between the boards in the hope I will find it and be able to return it to her. As the weeks pass between her loosing it, I am less hopeful of it turning up, but whenever I am there I still look and guess I may do so for some time to come.
The only benefit of loosing the ring there was the background and symbolic links of the bridges history to Wellington and New Zealand itself - facts which are unfortunately lost on my local map where it is simply described as 'overbridge'.
Anyway the library was my destination now, and specifically the District Plans of Wellington as the first information desk directed me to in answer to my somewhat vague question about planning. I was wondering what state the District Plans would be in and using my English ignorance I imagined them to be some leather clad Victorian ledgers, covered in dust and needing a cotton glove to examine. Therefore I was surprised to be given three colourful ring binders of crisp white A4 laser print! I am sure the older ledgers do exist somewhere like the New Zealand archives, which I will also soon visit, but I enjoyed the easy to read and heavily indexed documents I was now perusing.
Anyone who knows me will know that I occasionally wander off of subject, so therefore having what was effectively the blueprints to Wellington in front of me did provide ample opportunity to do a little Kev exploring. After an hour or so of reading I actually only found one paragraph on my subject matter itself, but I now know all about the Chest Hospital area, Courtney Place and it's 'commercial sex industry' (I was not taking notes!), The Golden Mile, Cuba Street and the angst of its traders, The importance of a veranda for Wellington shoppers, Vistashafts, Cable car views, Concerts in Basin reserve - their hours and noise limits as measured from 21 Taranaki street, Wellington airport and its flight paths, Wind tunnel tests for buildings, Limitations on signs, Specific times that certain areas of the city must have daylight (to be measured on 21st June each year) and the importance of the inner town belt, it's lease conditions from the crown and how the development of the outertown belt is being considered. As you can tell it was a fair bit of reading, but I really enjoyed it and the style of writing was very relaxed, including cartoon sketches to illustrate various points.
I wonder how closely the rules and methods of measurements are followed by town officials, as the image of a Kiwi with clipboard and disapproving tapping pen quoting rule 17.0.0.1, does not sit well from what I have seen here so far. Still I feel like I belong just a little bit more by even knowing some of the terms used in this document exist - no longer will I talk about 'quality of light' now it is 'viewshafts'...mmm, not sure about the commercial sex industry though!
After all this study I was hungry, and with the imminent arrival of Caroline, I had yet to find an Indian which did not drown everything in bland tomato sauce. Considering the ethnic mix of the larger cities like Wellington, I remain concerned that I have been unable to find Indian food which tastes as good as it did from my local Coggeshall restaurant. For a start the national Indian dish here is Butter Chicken...and actually I do not need to say anymore than that really. However on a previous wander around I had popped into an Indian gift shop and during a conversation with the shop assistant, I asked for her recommendations. Of course this could be construed as a little stereotyped, i.e. asking an Indian where the best takeaway could be found, but I was becoming desperate to taste something...and by that I mean actually taste rather than just chew a hot spice lump of meat.
Masala and Dawitt's were her recommendations to me, both of which were close to the civic centre. Unfortunately it was only 5pm so the first one I came across, dawitt's, was closed for another 30 mins - therefore I wandered on towards Masala which is on a side street off Courtney Place. I reached this a little early too, but waited about outside - until I noticed some of the commercial sex industry also doing the same on a nearby street - then I thought sod it, I will be the first customer tonight.
The large open seating area was a little clinical without customers, but had some nice touches like comfy leather chairs, low soft lighting and cosy circular sofas for groups of 5 or 6 friends. I, however, was alone and trying to decide if I should have a takeaway or eat in. In the end I saved the NZ$5 delivery and took a seat in the window. By about 6pm several other customers had arrived and I had decided upon a starter (akairi chicken), main (Kodai Lamb), veg (potato, tomato and cheese) and drink (Kingfisher beer). I was careful to savour the flavor of each dish as I wanted to ape the restaurant critics and provide a report for Caroline - to which I can add for starters that the loos were very clean and well stocked!
I took photographs of each dish as it arrived and rather than give an in depth review of each I shall simply add that the starter was by far the best dish - its distinctive flavor and smell being the winning factor. The other two dishes had a kiwi over throw of sauce to deal with, but the inclusion of fresh coriander and peppers did lift the lamb one a bit. Overall it was the best Indian I have had since arriving here, so I assured the owner that I would return.
So with a belly full of Indian food I left and headed towards my entertainment for the evening, Wellington Comedy club in San Fran Bathouse just off of Cuba Street. I arrived early and picked a seat which was far enough away from the stage to prevent heckles coming my way - but secretly I was working on possible retorts including 'I am sitting back here so I can hear, but not smell you' and 'make me laugh with you not at you' - yeah, kinda of harsh there I guess - but as I sipped my beer I started to mellow.
Over the evening there were 4 or 5 acts including a pretty funny guy presenting each one. Looking back I enjoyed the evening, which included an unexpected kiss from Charlotte who sneaked in mid way through, but before I realised she had done so, she had left again and I spent the next 10 mins resenting the couple sitting next to me. They had succeeded in blocking me in, arrgh ran out of beer, and also stolen my 'sit here Charlotte' seat...still I suspect they did not plan to do that.
I did plan to film some of the show, but only managed a few seconds and being so far back the sound and picture quality was pretty poor - still it is not as if you are in Wellington next week and able to attend the next show - so less of a review, more of a taster for atmosphere I guess.
OK, just before I finish this long and rather descriptive blog (apologies for the lack of jokes), I will just update you on my meeting today with Chaz Harris, who is a young film maker here in Wellington. I have to say that at 24 years old he has achieved a lot so far and I think will go onto much more in the future. During our chat over coffee today, his connections to the film industry became evident, and featured studio contacts from Peter Jackson, award nominations for short films and NZ soap stars appearing in his latest film which was called 'The Shoe Box'.
I expressed my desire to be involved in the film industry here in anyway I could - even making coffee and lugging boxes about would be a start - and he seemed interested, so hopefully after Christmas I will be able to take him up on this.
His short film is available for viewing here : http://www.theshoebox-movie.com/. Of course it puts all my efforts to shame as for a start he had a script, crew and actors...and I have to say the story is a nice one too.
Well that is it for today's blog - I am going to pack up my apartment now as I move out tomorrow (an earlier mix up had me worried this morning when the reception called to ask why I had not left yet - but they helpfully extended the booking for one more night). I am not sure when my Internet will be up and running at the new place - but I will try and post remotely if I can in the mean time.
Thanks for keeping up with my rambles, and apologies if my spelling and inclusion/exclusion of 's causes you grief - at least you are trying to read it ;)