whanganui.org

There’s art and there’s street sculpture …

The chainsaw carvings in Victoria Avenue were an eyesore. Good riddance to them. I’m sure that sculptor Merv is a very nice bloke and I’m sorry that his feelings were hurt, but his masterpiece was my blot on the landscape.

There’s a place for chainsaw sculpture but that place isn’t a permanent spot in a tree-lined avenue. An avenue is, by definition, a street lined with trees.

Living trees.

… and then there are trees

And while we’re on the subject of trees, what about replacements for the missing trees in Victoria Avenue and myriad streets all around Wanganui? Trees help to absorb the noxious emissions that we fill our city air with. As well as being easy on the eye they help to reduce city temperature extremes by absorbing heat and by shading asphalt.

Have you wondered why the temperatures shown on the evening news are a lot lower than what you suffered under during the summer days? It’s because of the vast areas of asphalt on our roads and ever-expanding heat retaining tar-sealed car parks.

Cities are invariably significantly hotter than the carefully selected places where the weather data are recorded. How many times do we look at the TV weather figure for Wanganui and say “Yeah, right”?

In my own little street I’m confronted by patches of flourishing weeds surrounded by concrete edging. These patches of ugliness were intended as tree sites. How difficult is it to sort that out?

Won’t put much strain on the rates.

And to stir a little controversy

It would be nice if the Victoria Avenue trees could be progressively replaced with natives. Won’t hold my breath on that one. I suspect that would be a minority view and I’ll bow to public opinion if that’s the case.

But we need lots of natives to replace lost trees in many other streets of our city. Beautiful Victoria Avenue is one of the reasons that so many visitors are surprised at what a pleasant city we have. Let’s add to that pool of beauty.

I indulged my usual Sunday morning routine today – reading the Sunday Star Times over a cup of coffee or two at Legends.

Their café prices are very competitive (unlike Vincent’s, just up the road, they don’t charge me an extra dollar for decaf) and the outlook is superb.

The view from next door at
Tamara Backpackers’ Lodge

Legends doesn’t get much patronage during the day. It’s a shame, because it’s a first rate establishment with pleasant staff, good coffee and great cooking.

My theory on this:

• although they do great à la carte and blackboard fare, they don’t have a sufficient selection of café food – slices, muffins, wraps and so on.
• unless they’re busy at the time, they close at 2pm, reopening later for dinner. I know that this costs them a lot of my custom, perhaps I’m not alone.

Nevertheless, it’s a nice place. Give it a try.