Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
The historic Bethany Centre is on the move. The Salvation Army berthing centre recently sold to a developer with plans to either remove it or demolish it to build a few new homes.
Supposedly the Grey Lynn/Ponsonby area contains the largest collection of Edwardian and Victorian wooden houses in the world (ok, this place is neither Edwardian or Victorian, but it is old and it is wooden!) and considering Auckland's current housing shortage wouldn't it be better kept for something more useful and keep the areas character intact at the same time? Wouldn't it make fantastic apartments or even an aged care centre?
Here we are post Christchurch earthquake, a city that's trying to save what heritage buildings it has left after the earthquakes, but in Auckland we're still pulling down anything remotely old and interesting!
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