Tag: best of

When you come back home

Some­times there comes a time when you must leave this town, your town for a break – it could be a hol­i­day; it could be your OE; it could be that career move; it could be to do a geo­graph­ic­al and just get away.

What’s that? Your favour­ite barista moved to West­port, and you had to fol­low? (Yeah, OK. There’s always an excuse.) But soon­er or later, you must come back. And when you do there is always a moment when you know you are home.

Here’s one such:

Com­ing down the Ngaur­anga Gorge there’s that long sweep­ing curve where the Hutt and Pori­rua motor­ways meet. Look up from the road and you’ll see Wel­ling­ton arrayed in full panoply before you. There are our small cluster of tall build­ings stand­ing proud, feet in the sea and backs to the hills. There are the hills them­selves, steeply car­peted with houses in defi­ance of tec­ton­ics and plain good sense, look­ing on to and out to the sea. There is the bowl of the har­bour, rimmed with bush and filled with reflec­ted sky. There is the sky, mostly blue, some­times grey, often set with clouds scud­ding.

There it is. Our town. Where you live. Where I live.

Where is this moment for you?

Is it, as the Front Lawn once had it, fly­ing over­head?

over Wel­ling­ton Har­bour
Ori­ent­al Bay is stand­ing there in the sun­light

Is it that first sip of Mojo or Fuel?

Is it Cour­tenay Place at the week­end?

Where? What? With whom? Com­ment, zoom­in, or blog away!