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...
Although the title of my post is not actually true as Kiribati, and
Samoa just beat us for that honour, this is my big chance to be the
first to wish you all a happy New Year!
My New
Year sketch is a view from above St Heliers bay, from a point called
Te Pane O Horoiwi, through flowering pohutukawa towards central
Auckland city. The Pou Whenua in the foreground are Hoturoa, Taikehu and
Horoiwi, Maori ancestors who arrived here on the Tainui waka over 600
years ago. I think these guys really were the first - the first to see
in a New Year - Auckland style.
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