Auckland. . .the next excursion

Sidewalk mosaic in front of Western Park

Plane Tree Lined streets

 

 

 

Entrance to Western Park: Fallen Pillars

 Two days. Two walks. Two different directions. A couple of days ago I needed to go to the grocery store. My ankle is considerably improved, so I walked up the hill, past the Girls Grammar School, past the Western Park to the Countdown grocery store. This is an area in Ponsonby that has had a sort of renaissance; lots of hip shops, a great grocery store, and even a bulk food shop. This mosaic is a Maori inspired sidewalk design that is just in front of the Western Park. Maori culture is everywhere here. In fact, the first thing you walk through when you come into the airport is a huge Arch/totem carving clearly of native origin. I don't know what the whole history is, but will endeavor to find out. Perhaps with Red Wine. Anyway, the park itself looks positively fecund after being in Melbourne for four months. It's too cool, temperature wise,  to actually be tropical, but is a very moderated temperate climate. Palm trees and Norfolk Island Pines live here, as well as the camellias pictured in an earlier post.

The Enforcer

There are also an abundance of these Plane Tree lined wide streets, making parts of the city look very New England-ish. This one is alongside The Girls Grammar School, which is clearly a place for very wealthy children. All in their uniforms, chatting away. The grounds of this school also look like a lush park.

If you click on the image of the Fallen Pillars, above, you'll see that they look like what remains of some long destroyed building. We saw this in Melbourne, too. There, at least, it was a reuse effort . . the pillars really had come from some long deconstructed building.

Main Building of The Girls Grammar School

This little green dog is a sweet addition to the ever-civilized admonition to "Clean up after you pets".

Lush with Life

Unfortunately, this image of the park path doesn't begin to give the viewer the feel of rich green life that I felt as I was taking it. Plants are sprouting out of the ground everywhere, and everything is incredibly green. It is a wetter climate than Melbourne is, but it also rains a lot here. It feels like the air is clean. The sidewalks get cleaned by the rain. It makes me realize how much I miss rain, though I've heard that Boise has been particularly blessed (or cursed?) with it this spring.