A week of discovery

1. You don’t have to spend a fortune to start backyard beekeeping.
2. Marua (Maah-rua) Road, Ellerslie.  What a great street.  My new favourite lunch spot, my new favourite food store and a second hand bookshop all in a few hundred metres.
3. Mexican Specialities – cafe and Mexican importer – YUUUMMM!
4. Asian food wholesaler / retailer: Shaji’s Spices.  These guys have every kind of seed, pulse and spice under the sun, at great prices and they’re just passionate about their food.  And they get five deliveries of fresh Indian bread a day.  Five.  How cool is that?
5. Auckland’s iconic Sky Tower has (thick) glass panels in the floor of the observation deck so you can walk over hundreds of metres of thin air.  Which might have been a problem for me if I hadn’t already discovered...
6.  I can overcome my fear of heights.  Tree Adventures.  Fun and sore arms.
7. Auckland Council gives 2 hours worth of consultation free about improving the energy efficiency and healthiness of your home.  And then EECA give grants for things like insulation materials and workmanship.  But we all knew that already, right?
8. Wool insulation just isn’t as good as fibreglass, inch for inch.  L
9. A great Italian pizzeria in central Auckland.  Real pizza.  At last.  Thank goodness.  These guys are super friendly too.
10.  Medievo: an Age-of-Empires-esque computer game which I can play within my browser.  That could cause much distraction...

Melbourne - the Venice of the southern hemisphere

One of the perks of my job is the travel.  This week, I went to Melbourne to present to a client.  (Why were we doing work for an Australian client?  Because we're the best in the business, clearly.)

From Melbourne

Dawn on the Yarra river

Whilst I wasn't thrilled at the bureaucracy that accompanies getting into Oz, and then getting back in the Godzone once more, I really rather enjoyed the trip.  Melbourne is a proper city.  With a bit more population punch behind it, it has the hallmarks of a city:

iconic buildings...

public transport...





 

tourist attractions...
















...and quirky oddities like a street filled with hundreds of Italian restaurants.

I enjoyed the shopping centre with an ammo tower in it (they dropped molten lead off the tower to form gunshot back when Melbourne was fierce and violent place - I hear it hasn't changed much but they've moved on to automatic weapons).


I liked the daring architechture above all - bold polygons and embracing curves compete to create a dramatic skyline.

...............
In italiano: Melbourne, la Venezia del emisfero australe



Uno dei vantaggi del mio lavoro e il viaggiare. Questa settimana sono andata a Melbourne per dare una presentazione ad un cliente. (E perche' noi, neozelandesi, abbiamo dei clienti australiani? Perche' siamo i migliori, naturalmente!)


Nonostante la brutta burocrazia nell'entrare in Australia e poi tornare nel Godzone, mi e' piaciuto il viaggio. Melbourne e' una citta' vera. Con la forza economica di una popolazione un po' piu' grande di quella di Auckland, sembra di avere gli elementi giusti per essere una citta':

- edifici iconici (vedi foto)

- i mezzi publici

- cose da vedere per i turisti

- e persino le anomalita' come una strada intera di centinaia di ristoranti italiani.

Mi e' piaciuto il centro commerciale con la torre delle munizioni dentro. Una volta, si buttava dall'alto il piombo fuso per farsi i proiettili, quando la Melbourne era un posto feroce e violente... (Ho sentito che non si e' cambiata tanto, ma oggi si usa le arme automatiche.)

Sopratutto mi e' piaciuta l'architettura coraggiosa - poligoni dramatici e curve femminili si dimostrano contro il cielo.

Architecture II: Victorian Grafton

The discuss thrower on the gate of the Domain (a large park) 1930s (no. 2 on map)

As if in tune with my interest in the old buildings of Auckland, I found a leaflet on the kitchen table entitled "Grafton Heritage Trail" - a walk around the interesting buildings of my Auckland quarter.  How exciting!  I put my trainers on and left immediately.

The route from the leaflet, thanks to Grafton Residents Association

The route, made for Grafton Residents Association and sponsored by a local estate agent, is mostly houses from the mid-1800s to the 1930s.  Colonialists were prosperous in Auckland and it shows in the quality of the 100-150 year old buildings.  The quarter of Grafton was settled with a Crown Grant and a few bigwigs built their mansions here from the 1840s onward.

Huntly House 1876 (no. 10 on map)

Another grand residence was Eden Hill, which the Outhwaite family later donated to the city.  The house doesn't survive, but the garden - complete with several original trees imported by the French  Madame Outhwaite from Europe - is now Outhwaite Park.

 Outhwaite Park (no. 7 on map)

The tour also takes in more modest dwellings - some of my favourites are these colourful workers' cottages on Seafield View Road.

Seafield View Road, workmen's cottages from 1850s-60s (no. 19 on map)
 

I have a few more pictures I'd like to share, so I'm trying to make a slideshow for the first time.  Hope you like it!

For more info about the trail, or to tell me what you think, drop me a comment!

In italiano!: Architettura II: La quartiera Grafton di cent'anni fa

Come se qualcuno avesse sentito la mia voglia di conoscere l'architettura di Auckland, ho trovato un depliant nella casa: "Percorso storico di Grafton" - Grafton e' la quartiera di Auckland dove abito.  E' uno dei primi posti di essere colonizzati, dalla meta' del ottocento in poi.  I coloniali erano ricchi, e si costruivano dei palazzi belli a Grafton.  Il percorso ricopre anche le case meno ricche - mi piacciono queste colorate degli operai degli anni 1850-1860.
Fammi sapere che ne pensi con un commento!

Auckland architecture

 

A public loo on Symonds St, Auckland - circa 1910, but still in use

In the brief time I lived in the States, I was sorry to find my every prejudice confirmed about the place.  Houses, cars, roads and shops were big and tasteless, as if sheer size could overcome their lack of charm.  It was ordered, modern and clean - and for me, it lacked any ounce of character that, I assumed, only places with history could have.  (I extend humble apologies to the Americans I've had the pleasure of knowing and those I haven't for my lack of appreciation - without a doubt, it's somebody's paradise, just not mine.)
New Zealand's towns grew up in the same period as the towns of the western USA, and an inkling of concern ran through my thoughts before I left Italy.  What if I, so in love with the ancient architecture of Italy, found myself once more surrounded by new world styles which I couldn't help but loathe?

 

Auckland building facades that wouldn't be out of place in Northern Ireland

My curiosity battled my sleepiness to let me have a look at New Zealand on my first car ride from the airport.  I noticed the strangest thing.  Alongside the mirrored skyscrapers and the modern beach houses, there are lots of Victorian-style buildings which I guess are about 100-130 years old.  I felt an odd jolt of familiarity.  The buildings wouldn't be out of place in Belfast or other industrial cities of the UK!

 

Old architecture contrasts with new trends in central Auckland

Of course, there are differences too.  The skyline of the city is dominated by tall buildings - some stunning, some ugly - and the most dramatic icon for Auckland, the Sky Tower.  This graceful pinnacle is so high above everything else (the highest in the southern hemisphere in fact) that people bungee off it.  Given that the Sky Tower is visible for miles around, it's not hard to see this phenomenon... a dark speck dropping off and dangling from the tower.  I've little desire to try it.

 

The new and rather textural Imax building with the Sky Tower behind

Meanwhile the style that typifies Auckland for me is to be found in the city's oldest houses.  These are sometimes brick, sometimes wooden clapboard and often a mix.  They are abundant with lathework and latticework, an apt demonstration of the richness of wood that the colonists found here.  It might be called New England-neogothic-victoriana and it's a little too overdecorated to be my dream house.  But it's lovely to walk through the old residential streets on my walk to the Domain (a large park and botanical gardens) and nosey at their quirky style.

 

 New England-neogothic-victoriana?

In italiano!: L'architettura a Auckland

Dal mio breve periodo negli stati uniti, temevo che lo stile del "nuovo mondo" sarebbe tutto cio che non mi piace: grande, ma senza stile.

Invece a Auckland, l'architettura mi ricorda molto del mio paese, e di diverse citta' brittanniche dell'epoca industriale.  Ci sono tanti edifici che hanno 100-130 anni, insieme con i grattacieli.