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...
My attempts to capture the Elite Woman's cycle leg during the first leg of the World Triathlon champs.
I had strategically positioned myself at the top of the climb on Victoria Street as I figured they would be going their slowest here and would be easier to draw, wishful thinking though because these girls were absolutely flying up the hill. My sketches ended up looking more like blind contour drawings as I tried to get them down on paper.
At this stage of the race two kiwis, Nicky Samuels and Kate McIlroy were leading a breakaway bunch of 3 which included the eventual winner, Jodie Stimpson from Great Britain.
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