Wellington Pictures

Here are some of my crappily-taken pictures for your crappily-taken-picture-viewing enjoyment this weekend. Of all the people I know, I am possibly the WORST person in the world to go to a beautiful place and report back about it because a) I always forget the camera and b) if I don’t forget to put it in my bag, I forget to take it out of my bag and actually use it and c) if I do use it…the pictures are crap. I’m sorry. I do not deserve the nice camera I got for my birthday this year, or any camera at all.

However! Let’s look around Wellington anyway.

Here’s a view of the city from either Mt. Victoria or the Botanical Gardens, I can’t remember which. For some reason it was sunny the day I took this.

Here’s the harbor, seen from Oriental Parade, on a slightly more normally cloudy day.

And here’s the skate park!

Along the waterfront they’ve made these sculptures of poems by local poets. This is one of my favorites, by James K. Baxter.

The text is:

I saw the Maori Jesus
walking on Wellington Harbour.
He wore blue dungarees.
His beard and hair were long.
His breath smelt of Mussels and Paraoa.
When he smiled it looked like the dawn.

Here’s another cool one, from “Milky Way Bar” by Bill Manhire:

I live at the edge of the universe,
like everybody else. Sometimes I think
congratulations are in order:
I look out at the stars
and my eye merely blinks a little
my voice settles for a sigh.
But my whole pleasure is the inconspicuous;
I love the unimportant thing.
I go down to the Twilight Arcade
and watch the Martian invaders,
already appalled by our language,
pointing at what they want.

Here is a lovely paua shell, at Owhiro Bay I think.

This isn’t really Wellington, but here are some stereotyped New Zealand pictures from a day hike I went on last weekend. Here we see a lot of green and a lot of mist:

I didn’t get to take a picture of the high ridge over which I was almost blown off (while wearing all cotton and having forgotten to bring my waterproof jacket: sorry, hiking dorks) but I did manage to document some cows.

Aaaaaaand wait for it…yes, here are some sheep.

Let’s go back to town and check out some carvings at the beautiful Te Papa marae.

(That last one there is maybe the best picture I’ve ever taken. Which is not saying much. But still.)

Here is something that’s only interesting to me and the Key Girls. WEST SIDE REPRESENT!

And this is a funny mural that’s right across the street from my house. I really do love pukekos, which, here, is a little like saying I really like Canadian geese or something, but I can’t help it. I love the purple swamp hens! In fact, I even like saying the phrase “purple swamp hen.”

Here is another mural, right on the side of the road on Oriental Parade.

But don’t think we’re all about pretty birds and shells and trompe l’oeil cottages here in Wellington. No, no. Sometimes we’re a bit more edgy.

Sometimes, we just tell it like it is.

Here are a few of my favorite things: an octopus, a really good book, and the famous Espressoholic bowl of hot chocolate, into which I can gently drop my entire face.

And here, finally: the thing that blew my mind the first week or so I was here: those non-refrigerated eggs I keep talking about! Photographic evidence thereof!