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...
The current school holiday's found me at Ohakune for 2 days with a bunch of kids desperate for their first proper ski experience. Of course I was secretly hoping the mountain would be closed so I could visit Smash Palace at Horopito.
I've probably wanted to visit since watching Steve Millen driving the Smash Palace race scenes in a Formula Pacific Ralt RT1 at Bay Park in 1981 (I had to check that, I thought it was David Oxton). Well I sort of got the best of both worlds with an hour sketching outside Smash Palace from the safety of a warm car (freezing outside), and a day of skiing once the mountain opened (happy kids = happy sketcher).
Looking forward to next time when I actually have time to go inside the place! The sketches are, top, a snow covered Mk I Jaguar, and a Rover P4 Cyclops, Austin Sheerline and Humber Snipe at the bottom.
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