Queensgate to doctor

Decided on waking up to make a trek to the suburbs to see my friendly Doctor Donald, but it is really   because I have run out of my essential standby for travelling, a supply of the very useful slow-down effect of Valium. Yesterday at my 'Other Doctor' visit, where my health was in the 'extremley good' variety, I asked the doctor for a prescription, to no avail. The very helpful, otherwise, young Brendan told me he was reluctant as he didn't know the exact type of valium I had been earlier prescribed and he thought it better to go to my own doctor. OK, I didn't press the point but now a trip to Lower Hutt finds me in the cafe of Zampelles, having a two egg breakfast to compensate for my early start!

The suburbs in Wellington certainly have a different feel and they are cheaper on the whole, with possibly a larger percentage of  Maori/islander population due probably to the cheaper real estate prices suiting the lower socio-economic demographic. However this shopping mall in Lower Hutt is the largest in the Greater Wellington area and reminds me very much of what I will be experiencing when I return to Gosford, that city of malls and shopping cathedra. It is quite up-market and has everything one could wish for, including cinemas.

The service is excellent and the coffee ordinary, but I didn't expect more, although it would have been a nice surprise. The coffee-barista scene obviously doesn't extend beyond the city limits.

Lower Hutt barista..

Amazing doco movie!

Forgot to mention I saw this amazing doco movie by Brazilian photo-journalist Sebastiao Salgado. Directed by another supremo Wim Wenders, it has to be seen as it covers the last forty years of Salgado's travels to all the war-torn or disaster zones in the world. Mind you, it is heavy going and not for the squeamish, as his photos show everything, the utter desolation of war and the unbelieveable suffering and starvation of millions of people. The countries are in  Africa and  Europe and he does eventually suffer burnout from all the anguish he sees. So much that he considers retiring from the game until he decides to film one last book, with the intent to make it a positive version, reacting to all the negatives he has been seeing. With his money and initiative he then transforms some hundreds of acres at his home in Brazil,  making a wasteland into a verdant forest paradise by planting millions of trees. He thus makes a blueprint, or a template, for others to follow in trying to save the planet.

 It is a salutary lesson in doing something positive on this planet before it is totally ruined and made uninhabitable by its occupants. 'Humankind is a cruel species', comments Salgado, after he has witnessed the worst of human atrocities and disasters, all made by man himself. But Salgado has done something and it deserves to be seen by everyone.