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...
I’m not a huge tennis fan or player. It’s a fact that makes me a bit of a minority in my own family. Despite that I usually end up at the West End Cup at some stage.
Billed as the biggest NZ tennis tournament outside of the ASB Classic, it usually has most of the top kiwi players and sometimes people from offshore which makes for pretty good viewing. This year there seemed to be more Australian players than Kiwis and a couple from even further afield like Julia Glushko who took out the women’s title this year.
Here’s Finn Tearney serving to Ajeet Rai in the semis. (The men’s title was eventually taken out by Australian John Patrick Smith.)
Here some spectators enjoy a close-up view from catered the courtside tables, and below even Sky TV were there to broadcast this years event...
And it’s not all heavy duty tennis with local cafe Juk (Jess’ Underground Kitchen) serving up delicious tacos and the Brulee Bike busy adding the finishing touch to their delicious crème brulees with a blowtorch!
Billed as the biggest NZ tennis tournament outside of the ASB Classic, it usually has most of the top kiwi players and sometimes people from offshore which makes for pretty good viewing. This year there seemed to be more Australian players than Kiwis and a couple from even further afield like Julia Glushko who took out the women’s title this year.
Here’s Finn Tearney serving to Ajeet Rai in the semis. (The men’s title was eventually taken out by Australian John Patrick Smith.)
Here some spectators enjoy a close-up view from catered the courtside tables, and below even Sky TV were there to broadcast this years event...
And it’s not all heavy duty tennis with local cafe Juk (Jess’ Underground Kitchen) serving up delicious tacos and the Brulee Bike busy adding the finishing touch to their delicious crème brulees with a blowtorch!
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