Welly won’t they leave the bush alone?!

The voting is on! Will the Miramar hill display the ‘WELLYWOOD’ sign – or perhaps the eye of the Taniwha – or a ‘Wellington’ blown-away sign? Friday 18 November is the deadline. What do you think of the choices? Neither stands out as a sure fire ‘yes’ with me, but I don’t have a clever alternative either.

Though this cracked me up…!

Personally I’d rather see the bush left as it is, but change it will – as there doesn’t seem to be a ‘Leave the bush alone’ option – or ‘Plant 200 native trees on the site and be done with it’ that one Wellingtonian suggested on Twitter.

The eye of the Taniwha would have most children on an inbound flight, in a southerly, bawling their eyes out. I like the design, just not the scale of it on a hillside to welcome visitors to Wellington. Older children, of the ‘never stop asking questions’ variety, will have their parents googling for answers as to what the giant eye is and what it means. I find flying, driving, or attempting to walk, in a howling southerly a terrifying enough experience without a giant, moving, eye looking at me.

The ‘Wellington’ blown-away sign is the option I’d go with if I had to make a choice – though I’d rather see ‘Wellington’ in the bold, font type of the ‘Wellywood’ sign. The ‘blown-away sign’, though a clever play on the main element Wellington is famous for, just looks to me like a half broken sign that the wind has got the better of and no one has been brave enough to fix. Then again, it could grow on me. After all, some of the battered houses around the south coast of Wellington have now taken a special place in my heart – where once I thought they looked run down, sad and unloved, I now see them as rustic, true ‘Kiwi’ homes, belonging to the salt of the earth, surf loving, coffee drinking, open and friendly folk of Wellington (who’d rather be out catching fish for the BBQ, or surfing the waves, than water-blasting their houses).