happy medium

This is Grafton Bridge, which spans the valley (and motorway) which cuts through central Auckland between the University and the Domain Park. Due to it’s location, height and originally low barriers it’s known locally as the “suicide bridge”. Because of the high rate of jumpers the council installed a safety barrier from 1996 but took it down in 2002. Maybe they thought people were no longer commiting suicide anymore. Sadly this wasn’t true and the barriers went back up the same year. Rather ominously there’s a graveyard below the bridge at it’s west end.

Grafton Bridge in 1910:

Another example of how changable the weather is, one side of the bridge:

and the other:

I know the blog has been fairly quiet this past week. It’s been a case of sorting out a place to live, sorting out bills, opening a bank account (not that easy in NZ) and finding work, so the sights and sounds of New Zealand have been put on hold. My little nest egg is starting to eb away, so finding a design job is high on the list. Can’t wait to move into the flat on Monday. My birthday is coming up, so I’m thinking of doing a day trip somewhere along the coast.

There’s some very cool cars in New Zealand (lots of US 60s-70s muscle cars), and some really crap ones (bad boy-racer max-power jobs)

But this takes the top prize for me, a Citroën DS

Over 50 years old and still looks fresh, just like Dad!

James and I were all set to climb the harbor bridge this morning before the store opened at 10. What looked to be a beautiful blue day, soon changed the closer we got to the harbor, as a sea mist decided to roll in:

Wouldn’t even be able to see the bridge let alone any view up there, so we’ve postponed it till the weekend…