Last weekend I was involved in a quick return trip to Wellington for family reasons – a very pleasant one to enjoy Grandparents Day at the college of my two remaining school age grandchildren. I elected not to drive – nor to line the pockets of our national airline with gold. I boarded the lunchtime departing bus outside the Town Hall and it landed right on time almost nine hours later in the capital city. The return two days later was a repeat of the travel.
The Intercity bus opposite the Town Hall. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
Travel by this mode is pleasant providing one has the time. Time is not a prerequisite for the main purposes of life at my age and Wi-Fi on the two buses permitted me to keep my home base updated. Splashing out on a more comfortable reclining seat made for a generally pleasing drive with the contents of my current library novel.
Peter Carr
I used the journey to mainly visually drink in the passing countryside where the never-ending verdant vegetation was occasionally disturbed by necessary ugliness of mixed and often straggling buildings in small towns, I started to compare how these relatively small collections of population looked alongside our home of Cambridge. Apart from the four or five centres of population that are classed as cities New Zealand is very much a being of strip towns. Not, I hasten to add, being related to the public removal of clothes but in the fact that they are generally collections of houses around a long, single street, possibly overladen with older buildings that embrace the local, visually uncoordinated, retail ventures.
In a way they look boring. It happens in both main islands. They do not have the quaintness that one can find in Europe but that is an unfair comparison considering the lengthy period of history that permitted Europe to evolve.
But my mind kept coming back to Cambridge which, since the Waikato Expressway took away most of the mainstream vehicular traffic, has emerged more vital – both socially and visually. The old National Hotel, the exciting new façade of the (ex) Masonic Hotel, the excellent flowerbeds work by the council gardening team, the (current) wool adornments on the trees in Victoria Street, the cricket ground and its weekly occupant the farmers market.
The (current) wool adornments on the trees in Victoria Street. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
All come together to make this lovely town provide pleasing eye appeal. Then couple all of this with the pristine white exterior of the high sides and spire of our lovely St Andrew’s church standing proud at the northern entrance. And there is a wee oasis of colour provided by gardener Mike at the lower end of Shakespeare Street where he displays, daily, the ever-changing multi-coloured flags of two nations. Add to all these the ‘pink’ church, the emerging renovated Town Hall and the ever-changing colour medley of our beautiful trees. All layered over with the colourful vibrancy of the Autumn Festival. A true potpourri of agreeable loveliness.
Colour is everything. Colour attracts spontaneity. Life responds to colour. Colour – visual and perceived – encourages living, health, music, fun and wellbeing. Keep it up Cambridge.
Cambridge’s historic St Andrew’s Church. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
