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...
You may not have spotted it yet as you zoom through spaghetti junction by car, but the old Nelson Street motorway off ramp is being converted into a cycleway.
The Nelson Street Cycleway will connect the existing cycle lanes to the city, linking the Grafton Gully Cycleway and the Northwestern Cycleway via a curvaceous steel ramp that is currently being lifted into place from Canada Street. If your cycle commute is from out west then this connection will slash minutes off your ride, not to mention take the pain and danger out of negotiating traffic around Upper Queen, Pitt Street and Karangahape Roads.
Looking forward to taking a spin over it in December!
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