Welcome to Auckland’s original ‘Municipal Destructor’. Everyone, like me, know it as Victoria Park Market – a super popular open air market through the 80's to 2000's – a great place to buy your crystals and tie-dies etc! I've always known that it was originally the city rubbish dump – when the city was waaaay smaller). There is more to the story, of course. It was originally created in reaction to a bubonic plague scare in Sydney. For sanitary reasons it was built to burn Auckland’s rubbish and waste while using the heat generated to provide electricity to power the city. Sounds pretty clever eh, and I guess we were plague free. However, we must have been breathing some seriously toxic smoke fumes! That 38 metre tall chimney must have helped a little but don't forget all the horse manure and night carts, they were definitely smellier times. The municipal destructor is now a gentrified place that's home to restaurants and businesses, like the superb Milenta restau...
We took the car ferry from Half Moon bay...
The ferry travels around Motukorea Island, one of Auckland's 50 or so dormant volcanoes...
Haven't actually drawn a map since my first job land surveying, so thought I'd try a sketchy one...
There just happened to be a fishing competition on at Rocky Bay on Saturday, and we'd taken the kids rods. No bites and we lost a lot of gear on the rocks!
Tackle box...
Beach cricket at palm beach. The water is still really warm for this time of year...
We checked out the old gun emplacements and tunnels at Stony Batter then headed down the hill to Hook Bay, about a 40 minute walk, for a swim. The view is fantastic, right across to Mt Moehau at the top of the Coromandel peninsular which looks really close from here. We had great weather but it was raining over Mt Moehau...
Drawing the batch at Stony Bay...
The kids watching Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium...
Some Waiheke Island wildlife,
sheep who persistently tried to get
at our lunch, and a Weka. This one
appeared from the bush at Stony Batter, the first Weka I've seen in the North Island, perhaps they've been reintroduced to Waiheke? And below Tuatuas, there were heaps of them at Onetangi. Have you tried the Tuatua Twostep?
The batch again, lots of yachts and launches arriving from Auckand for the weekend..
A pizza stop at
Stefanos, we satout back by
the banana palms.
The Caterina pizza was good and they even do a gluten free pizza for our resident GF...
The trip back
to Auckland,
with Motukorea
and downtown
Auckland behind...
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