List of photos
In chronological order, newest first.
Home!, 9 August 2004, Lucy and Midnight enjoying breakfast on our own front verandah.
Topside planking, 16 July 2004, The Edwin Fox has two layers of teak planking. Here we are looking at the topside amidships, at about the level of the deck. At the top of the picture are planks that run fore-and-aft along the line of the sheer. Below them are planks that run athwartships. On the right are some remnants of the copper sheathing that used to cover the whole hull.
Edwin Fox, 16 July 2004,
Rustication, 13 July 2004, The skills of working and laying limestone are still alive in Oamaru. These rusticated piers have been recently reconstructed.
Oamaru courthouse entablature, 13 July 2004,
Oamaru courthouse columns, 13 July 2004,
Penguins crossing, 12 July 2004,
Grain warehouse, 12 July 2004,
Painted accents, 12 July 2004, This 1880s hotel in Oamaru has lost its original parapet, but it still shows some interesting painted accents on its string courses.
Slightly foxed, 12 July 2004, Slightly foxed is how I feel sometimes. Corners bumped also describes me and, on a bad day, spine distorted.
Criterion Hotel, 12 July 2004, The parapet on the Criterion Hotel has been reconstructed.
Chiselled surface, 12 July 2004, Most of the limestone masonry in Oamaru is finely finished, with surfaces rubbed smooth or finely tooled. But this shop has wonderful, boldly-chiselled surfaces.
Star & Garter, 12 July 2004,
Oamaru Post Office, 12 July 2004,
An italic apology, 7 July 2004, After I complained that the Department of Conservation had failed to use a proper italic font on its signs, I started to see lots of DoC signs with proper italics. I was wrong, and I'm sorry.
Share house living, 5 July 2004, A collection of artefacts brought back from Scott’s Antarctic hut, now on display in a corner of the hut reconstructed in the museum in Christchurch. Ah, how universal human experience is. Share houses always come to grief on the issue of the washing up. Was it the Leader Himself who wrote these stirring words?: Please leave the dishes clean. The hungry man coming in needs them. He is Empty. You are leaving with a full belly.
Food for Antarctica, 5 July 2004,
Edward Gibbon Wakefield, 5 July 2004, This enormous 1849 portrait of Wakefield overlooks the garment exhibition in a mezzanine gallery in the Christchurch museum. This picture took two Royal Academicians to paint — not because of its whopping size, but because of a division of labour. J Edgell Collins RA painted most of the picture (fee: 300 guineas). Richard Ansdell RA, specialist animal painter, added the dogs (fee: £100). The museum label sums up Wakefield’s place in New Zealand history:
Edward Gibbon Wakefield was a controversial reformer of English colonial theory and a founder of the New Zealand Company. Wakefield’s main innovation was the notion of a ‘sufficient price’ for land. Wakefield felt that English colonies had experienced difficulties because land had been given away or sold too cheaply. A sufficiently high but reasonable land price would have three benefits. It would promote stronger communities by removing the attraction of cheaper land in remote regions. It would ensure a supply of hired labour by keeping land ownership out of reach of new immigrants for several years, and it would provide a source of income to administer the colony and to finance further subsidised immigration.
He sought to transplant and protect traditional English social structures in colonial settings, and advocated the establishment of colonial centres with specific religious denominations. He was instrumental in the foundation of the Church of England settlement of Cantebury, which he intended would encapsulate his colonial aspirations.
Motoring coat, 5 July 2004, This tweed motoring coat, with leather lining, made by a London tailor around 1910, belonged to the New Zealand MP and cabinet minister Sir Robert Heaton Rhodes. The thought of this coat makes me feel extra snug as I drive our rented Nissan across the snow-capped landscape.
Christchurch Arts Centre, 5 July 2004,
Christ Church Cathedral roof, 5 July 2004,
Christ Church Cathedral dado, 5 July 2004,
Lucy playing cards, 3 July 2004,
Leaving the North Island, 3 July 2004,
Lifeboat and funnel, 3 July 2004, On board the inter-island ferry Arahura, about to leave Wellington Harbour.
Sally in class, 30 June 2004, Sally (in the middle, wearing hairclip) with her classmates at Kelson School.
Katherine Mansfield Birthplace, 24 June 2004, I had hoped to put up some photographs of the interior of this house museum in Wellington, but it was not to be.
Another group photo, 24 June 2004, Here are Margie, Lucy and Sally about to go off to work and school.
Group photo, 23 June 2004, I did not know that Sally had a biscuit in her gob. With the camera on a tripod, and me on the wrong side of it, how was I to know?
Lucy's birthday outing, 19 June 2004, Lucy and her classmate Katie, after an outing to see Shrek 2.
Winter in the Hutt Valley, 17 June 2004, The morning view from our house. The weather’s changeable — one minute it’s cold with windswept clouds, the next it’s colder with lashing rain.
A pair of shops, 13 June 2004, A smart pair of shops in Tinakori Road, Wellington, freshly painted in earthy colours. This is a break from the usual preference for white and grey colour schemes among custodians of older New Zealand timber buildings.
The Wedge, 13 June 2004, On a triangular allotment off Tinakori Road in Wellington, is this house designed and built by the architect James Bennie.
My mum is Helen Clark, 13 June 2004, On the footpath outside the residence of the Prime Minister, a strange chalk inscription.
Arts and crafts gate, 13 June 2004, Let's hope the feeble winter sun stays around a little longer, and dries the laundry.
Arts and crafts, 13 June 2004, Among the many timber villas and cottages along Tinakori Road, a fine brick and tile essay in the Arts and Crafts mode by the architect James Chapman-Taylor. This house was built for the Tombs publishing family in 1910.
Fell brake van, 5 June 2004, This is brake van F210, one of seven used on the Rimutaka Incline to control the speed of descending trains. It was built in Petone Railway Workshops in 1898.
From the museum brochure: Each van was operated by a specially trained man, known as an Incline Guard. On ascending trains, all brake vans, up to five, were at the rear. On descending trains, up to three vans were placed behind the Fell engines, all of which were at the head, with one van in the middle, and one at the end.
This is a view through the open doorway at the front of the van. As the museum brochure explains: The brake gear comprises four massive upright cantilever arms pivoted on the floor of the van. On the lower ends of these arms were bolted the four brake blocks which gripped the raised centre rail. The brake blocks were cast iron, and a new set was fitted after each descent.
Fell loco number, 5 June 2004, This detail sums up the condition of the loco – parts are heavily pitted from its time in the open air, but all is smartly painted.
Fell loco cab, 5 June 2004, Here is the cab of loco H199, with all the controls labeled for the benefit of visitors. Notice the two horizontal regulator levers in the middle of the picture – one for controlling the power delivered through the normal driving wheels, the other for the wheels on the central rail.
Out of frame on the left is a large crank used to control the pressure of the wheels against the central rail.
Fell locomotive, 5 June 2004, Here is the last Fell loco in captivity. H199 was built by the Avonside Engine Co of Bristol in 1875, dismantled, shipped to Wellington, reassembled, and put to work on the Rimutaka incline. H199 hauled trains up and down the incline until 1955. When a railway tunnel under the Rimutaka Range superceded the incline, the Fell locos where all cut up for scrap, except this one which was presented to the people of Fetherston, as a memorial to the men and women who for 77 years had provided the services over the ranges.
From 1958 the loco sat in a park, beset by the weather and the vandals. In 1981 volunteers started work to conserve the loco and in 1984 it was moved to this purpose-built museum.
Visitors can climb the little stair provided at the back of the loco and look into the cab. At the front of the loco you can climb down into a pit and look at the most remarkable part of this machine – the horizontal driving wheels that gave terrific traction against a central rail on the permanent way.
Sally and her scooter, 29 May 2004, At an open air market at Lower Hutt Sally saw, and demanded to have, a new scooter.
Wall painting, 23 May 2004, This scene is painted on a roadside retaining wall at Oriental Bay, Wellington.
Manhole cover, 23 May 2004, I admire these cast iron manhole covers, used all round Wellington. The bas-relief pattern suggests the ocean waves, and the hilly landscape dotted with buildings, all with the decorative flavour of Maori carvings. This is an artefact that speaks of its particular place in the world. I was reminded of manhole covers in Chandigarh.
Oriental Bay, 23 May 2004, A fleet of deck chairs kicking along, with a good wind on the port quarter.
Bungy trampoline, 22 May 2004, Sally and Lucy in a park on the Wellington harbour foreshore
Engraved rock, 19 May 2004, In the plaza in front of Te Papa stand three boulders. One is engraved with a record of the museum's inauguration. Unlike so many other commemorative boulders, this one is a delight. The inscription is nicely engraved in Roman serifed letters, subtle and understated.
Dummy driver, 19 May 2004, This chap is showing how to drive a cable tram. In the middle of the gripper car is this narrow windowed space, equipped with two big levers and a big handwheel for controlling the tram. On each side of the driver's compartment are open seats for passengers. Behind and in front are enclosed passenger compartments. I took this picture through the glass division between the compartments.
Winding gear, 19 May 2004, At the Wellington Cable Car Museum, the lower storey room containing the winding gear has been made safe for visitors. The image of a rotating wheel is projected onto the floor at the bottom of the stairs, perhaps to induce people to walk down and see the works.
Dummy engineer, 19 May 2004, In New Zealand museums I have seen a lot of excellent dummies. This one is lurking in the Wellington Cable Car Museum, watching over the electric motors that replaced a steam engine in 1933.
In a cable car, 15 May 2004, Sally and Lucy riding in a Wellington cable car. (See my review of the cablecar museum).
Body raft, 9 May 2004, A piece of furniture, designed and made by David Trubridge, on display in Te Papa. The label explains: Body Raft 2000 is a balanced, lying-down rocking chair. It echoes the shape of a traditional Moriori waka puhara (reed canoe), and suggests the comfort of a hammock. The chair is made of steam-bent American ash, Australian hoop pine, plywood and stainless steel.
Self portrait with Phar Lap's bones, 9 May 2004, On the right, the skeleton of Phar Lap, the race horse who died in America, whose stuffed hide is in Melbourne, and whose heart is in Canberra — read the story. Here in Wellington's Te Papa Museum, Phar Lap's bones rest quietly in a glass case on level 4 near the stairs. They are not shown-off with the same prominence as his skin or his heart.
Trompe l’oeil, 6 May 2004, I enjoyed this little architectural joke in downtown Wellington: On the left, a building in stripped classical style, with elegant trompe d’oeil decoration that gives it back its clothes. The building on the right is faced with solid stone (trust me).
Government Building, 6 May 2004,
Dog’s life, 5 May 2004, Spot the warmest dog in the hikoi. (Hint: see the woman with the Burberry hat and Māori pattern scarf).
Nothing’s foreshore, 5 May 2004, The hikoi passed along Lambton Quay, which marks the old shoreline before extensive land reclamation in the nineteenth century shifted the foreshore out several blocks. In this photo our view of the sea is blocked by Government Buildings which stands on fill.
Flags in the wind, 5 May 2004, A flag needs a stiff breeze to show itself well. The flag in the middle, with the green fern tendril, is the Koru flag, designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser.
Moko, 5 May 2004, The moko (tattoo) is a powerful mark of identity, even when applied just for the occasion.
The seabed and foreshore hikoi, 5 May 2004, I was at Parliament House to see the hikoi arrive — a protest by Māori people and their Pākehā supporters against legislation that will extinguish Māori rights over the foreshore and seabed.
The hikoi (journey) began in the far north of the country, and progressed south to Wellington, gathering representatives of iwi (tribal groups) as it went. 15,000 people marched on Parliament House in Wellington, some in traditional dress, carrying flags and banners, singing and dancing. The atmosphere was solemn, joyful, good-humoured.
This is autumn in Wellington — overcast sky, some showers, southerly gales fresh from Antarctica. I was glad of my beanie, jersey (jumper) and hooded raincoat.
Handrail, 3 May 2004, The entrance to the National Tobacco Company office in Napier.
Decorated parapets, 2 May 2004, Napier's commercial centre was rebuilt after the earthquake to a consistent scale, but with a good deal of stylistic variety.
The 19 Thirty’s Cafe, 2 May 2004, Did people in the nineteen thirties have a better grip on the apostrophe than they do now?
Boer War ferns, 2 May 2004, The names of the men in each contingent sent to the South African War are listed on tablets on a memorial in Napier. The lettering, and the little fern front motifs, are incised in the marble and infilled with lead.
Boaters, 2 May 2004, Art deco is a marketable commodity in Napier.
Napier rebuilt, 2 May 2004, A ceramic plaque by Sue Earth, 1992, photographed hanging on the wall of the Deco Centre, Napier. The label says: This plaque is identical to one of the seat inserts in Emerson Street. It is based on the New Napier Carnival poster which promoted the carnival held to celebrate the reconstruction of Napier in 1933. The plaque is about 300 mm diameter.
Bollard tiles, 2 May 2004, A series of round glazed tiles which decorate the tops of recently installed street bollards in Napier. They are, I think, the work of a local ceramic artist, inspired by the post-earthquake architecture of Napier.
Sound shell, 2 May 2004, The sound shell on the foreshore at Napier. From The Guardian: All that jazz.
Roadside crosses, 1 May 2004, These crosses mark the place where five people were killed in a car crash. All my road trips in New Zealand are punctuated by death-site markers like this — even the journey to the supermarket.
Falling rocks, 24 April 2004, Along the foreshore at Eastbourne, on the faultline where the Pacific and Australian plates scrape past each other. This tipped up landscape, dotted with foreign Scottish gorse and feral goats, looks like it's on the move.
Pebble beach, 24 April 2004, Did pebbles like these make the English immigrants feel at home, when they arrived in Wellington Harbour in 1840?
Reading the treaty, 23 April 2004, In Te Papa is a display about the Treaty of Waitangi. On opposite sides are panels displaying the texts of the treaty in two languages, with comfortable seats to read and ponder the words. I noticed Māori people sitting on one sofa with a good view of the Māori version, while Pākehā (Europeans) sat facing them, reading the English version. Each group looked over the heads of the other, ignoring the other version (with its small but significant differences) behind them.
Tin car detail, 23 April 2004, A detail of the tin covered Holden.
Tin car, 23 April 2004, In Te Papa is this tin covered Holden.
Raurimu spiral viewing platform, 17 April 2004, From the elevated viewing platform on the left you look across the model of the railway spiral towards the view.
Raurimu spiral model, 17 April 2004, The interpretive model of the loop and tunnel system.
Raurimu spiral, 17 April 2004, I have ridden on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, so I'm not easily impressed by spirals, zigzags, and the like. But I was impressed by this view of the Raurimu spiral. Railway enthusiasts have built a platform for viewing the path of the railway through cuttings and tunnels. Close to the platform is a clever model, standing on a pole, showing the hairpin turns and tunnels and showing the whole scheme in the round. A panel with a map explains the background:
Here in 1898 W Holmes carried out surveys and devised the spiral alignments whereby the railway ascends from this valley to the Waimarino plain 220 metres above. John Rochfort's original survey 15 years earlier had broadly defined the route but had left unresolved the problem of a working grade for this section.
Anti-possum band, 17 April 2004, Many power poles in New Zealand have metal bands around them, to stop feral possums getting into the wires.
Kelly’s Motel, 17 April 2004, This is for Simon Kelly, whose family ran another Kelly’s Motel, elsewhere. The principle of conservation of apostrophes tells us that the apostrophe that has gone missing from this sign will not float endlessly in the ether — it will randomly bond itself to another terminal s. Nature abhores a floating apostrophe.
Sea lions, 15 April 2004, Sally and Lucy watching sea lions doing their laps, at the Auckland Zoo.
Tin elephant, 15 April 2004, Corrugated galvanised steel elephant at the Auckland Zoo.
Kauri drawers, 15 April 2004, Detail of a chest of drawers of kauri, in the Kauri Museum.
Kauri sisters, 14 April 2004, The walkway surrounds a cluster of Kauri trees called the four sisters.
Tane Mahuta, 14 April 2004, Lucy is looking at the largest living Kauri (Agathis australis) whose trunk is almost five metres in diameter. The tree is called Tane Mahuta, Māori for Lord of the forest. Read more about the Kauri.
Mission House verandah, 13 April 2004,
Kerikeri Mission House, 13 April 2004, Built in 1821, this is the oldest wooden house still standing in New Zealand.
Kegs in the attic, 13 April 2004,
Pit saws and crosscut saws, 13 April 2004, Some crosscut saws (left) and pit saws (right) are displayed in the attic of the stone store. The space was dimly lit by the dormer windows. I sat my camera on the floor for a long exposure.
Blankets, 13 April 2004, For sale in the Stone Store: new textiles made in the same way as the trade goods that were stocked by the Church Missionary Society. Here are wool flannel blankets and bolts of printed cotton. The women who work as volunteer guides in the store are dressed in long dresses in nineteenth centry style, and are able to talk in an informed way about the practicality of such garments. Fortunately they did not affect silly accents, nor pretend ignorance of cars or cell-phones.
Inside the Stone Store, 13 April 2004,
Mill stones and hardware, 13 April 2004, The Church Missionary Society introduced the cultivation of wheat. These are the querns that milled the flour that made the bread. In the background, a display of forged iron hinges, of the sort that was needed to hang a door on a barn or outbuilding. Sadly, the display blurrs the distinction between the authentic artefacts (such as the quern stones and iron hinges) and the modern props (such as the wooden crates and mock-writing-slate interpretive signs).
Rolls of cloth, 13 April 2004,
Stone floor, 13 April 2004,
The Stone Store, 13 April 2004, This store building, built at Kerikeri for the Church Missionary Society in 1835, is the oldest stone building in the country.
Department of Conservation sign, 13 April 2004, The Department of Conservation, called DoC by New Zealanders, marks its parks and reserves with clear and readable signs like this. The font appears to be ITC Garamond (my favourite among the many modern revivals of Claude Garamond's type designs). Most of the text is set in the bold weight. I only wish they would use a proper italic font for the Māori text (in either book or bold weight) instead of pushing the roman sideways like that. That’s nasty.
Update: Perhaps this was an isolated lapse, since I have seen lots of DoC signs with proper italics.
Kerikeri, 13 April 2004, Looking across the Kerikeri Basin to the Stone Store, St James’s Church and the Mission House.
Cemetery flowers, 13 April 2004, In cemeteries here, I notice many of the graves have fresh flowers and other marks of connection with the living.
Shot by a comrade, 13 April 2004, This wooden grave marker now lives in the shelter of the lychgate of St John’s Church, Waimate North.
Wall tiles, 13 April 2004, The top of a tiled dado in the men’s toilet.
Self portrait in public toilet, 13 April 2004,
Tiled floor, 13 April 2004,
Suits all sizes, 13 April 2004, ...designed by artist and architect Freidensreich Hundertwasser
Men, 13 April 2004, Entrance to the men’s toilet.
Women, 13 April 2004,
Treaty House: the back garden, 13 April 2004, Every good house museum needs a vegetable garden.
Treaty House, 13 April 2004,
Shutter latches, 13 April 2004, Elegant timber latches to hold shutters open, on the Treaty House at Waitangi.
Lath and plaster, 13 April 2004,
Doorstop, 13 April 2004, This door stop, made by sewing a covering of heavy cloth over a house brick, reminds me of similar ones I have seen in convents. The number of nuns has decreased, and the practice of brick wrapping might have died out altogether, if it were not for the growth of house museums.
Oilcloth, 13 April 2004, A floor in the oldest part of the Treaty House, with a reproduction oilcloth and a (flax?) mat.
Waka carving, 13 April 2004, Carved prow decoration.
Canoe hull scarf (outboard), 13 April 2004,
Canoe hull scarf (inside), 13 April 2004, Ngatokimatawhaorua, the ceremonial waka (canoe), launched at Waitangi in 1940 to mark the centenary of the Treaty of Waitangi, is 30m long -- longer than the largest Kauri log. The dugout hull is made from two pieces of timber scarfed and lashed together with rope.
Deer, 11 April 2004, From our window, deer grazing in the early morning.
Water pond, 10 April 2004, A reassuring sign, in a region where ponds may contain boiling mud or sulphurous concoctions.
Arch of welcome, 10 April 2004, In 1901 the Duke and Duchess of York visited their dominions in Australasia. They paraded through the decorated streets of Rotorua, under this timber trussed arch which spanned a major intersection in the city. The arch has survived, been shifted to become the gateway to the Government Gardens, and lately been restored.
The Yorks were given a good dose of arches in Australia too.
Drystone wall, 10 April 2004, On the farm where we stayed near Rotorua, a handsome drystone wall.
Chinese gooseberries, 10 April 2004, Full credit goes to the New Zealanders for renaming this delicious food and marketing it as the kiwi fruit. Here is a kiwi fruit grower pruning his vines.
Buried houses, 9 April 2004, Signs at the site of the village buried by a volcanic eruption.
Changing room at the Blue Baths, 9 April 2004,
Men, 9 April 2004, At the Blue Baths, a changing room sign.
Green pool, 9 April 2004, At the Blue Baths in Rotorua, this bath is grass-green.
The poster below, designed by Leonard Mitchell in the 1930s, shows the pool with people (and water). [from Paste up: a century of New Zealand poster art].
Hell's Gate spa pools, 8 April 2004,
Lucy in the red anorak, 8 April 2004, Lucy is wearing the red quilted parka that my sister wore in England when she was Lucy's age.
Autumn colours, 8 April 2004, Lucy with an autumn leaf.
Chocolate éclairs, 7 April 2004, The girls tackle the famous Ohakune éclairs.
Toi Toi, 7 April 2004, This native grass is a characteristic element in the New Zealand landscape, catching the light and twisting like a wind sock. Toi Toi is the common name, though botanists prefer to call it Toetoe. There are four similar species (Cortaderia toetoe, Cortaderia fulvida, Cortaderia splendens and Cortaderia richardii), closely related to the introduced Pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana or Cortaderia jubata).
Visiting the school library, 6 April 2004, Sally and Lucy, during their first visit to Kelson School, are shown the library.
Melling station, 5 April 2004, Lucy and Sally checking out Melling Station.
Flying fox, 4 April 2004, Sally on the flying fox at Avalon Park — her first playground experience in New Zealand.
Mess on my desk, 3 April 2004, Checking page proofs, editing illustrations, writing backup tapes, packing parcels, drinking mugs of tea, for days on end.
Indexing marathon, 1 April 2004, Making the index for the Illustrated Burra Charter.
Photoshop marathon, 1 April 2004, I had to prepare about 300 image files for the Illustrated Burra Charter book. I scanned most of them (from positives, negatives or paper copies). I edited, colour corrected, cropped, sized, sharpened and converted to CMYK every damn one of them.
<irony>I'm glad I don't do it for a living</irony>.
Propeller damage, 1 April 2004, In our last week at home, someone backed a trailer (with boat on board) into our car.
Cold weather clothes, 25 March 2004, A snug quilted vest, and a hooded jacket — thanks Fiona!
Contents of the suitcase, 25 March 2004, Fiona's suitcase, loaded with brown paper bags of clothes.
Auntie Fi's suitcase, 25 March 2004, Fiona sent us a spare suitcase, filled with useful cold-weather clothes for Lucy and Sally.
Midnight, 24 March 2004, This is Midnight, who we’ll miss. He shouldn’t be up on the dining table!