Lunch is often the trigger for a visit to town, and subsequent wandering.
So it was yesterday. Before I got to the excellent Leuven Restaurant (consistently good mussels and Belgian beer a specialty), I wandered the side streets between Lambton Quay and Featherston St. Behind Midland Park, there is the Vodafone tower block, completed in 1998. Few Wellingtonians give a thought to the buildings on either side of the tower. In earlier times, they were the Wellington Central Police Station. As far as I know, there is no residual police presence there, but the facades on Waring-Taylor and Johnston Streets still proclaim the buildings’ former role.
After lunch I headed South, and around Oriental Bay. There was a stiff Northerly and the Carter Fountain was playing. It used to be the case that when the wind was strong enough for the spray to reach the shore, the fountain would shut off. Residents and car owners were not keen on additional salt spray attacking their paint work. Perhaps the device has been removed or was simply broke, Either way there were drifting curtains of salt spray across Oriental Parade, and I chose to get downwind, though the wind direction kept changing through a wide arc. Happily the Olympus and its lens are reasonably weather sealed.
From approximately the same spot, but out of the spray, there was a good view back to the city. The colours and textures of the city are always appealing, and at this time a small fleet of yachts belonging to a sailing school were being towed into position, though the fourth little duckling was having trouble hoisting its sails.
Wellington’s Southern suburbs remain a foreign land to me, especially those not on the coast. Southgate, for example is bordered by Berhampore to the North, Island Bay to the West, and Houghton Bay to the East. I didn’t know there was such a place until yesterday, though the existence of buses going there should have raised the possibility. It’s clearly one of thee older suburbs, judging by the age and decrepitude of some of the auxiliary buildings on street frontages.
Something different tomorrow
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