The Karori Nature Reserve BLOODY CAR PARK

Heh. Apologies for the SHOUTING CAPS in the post title, but I'm a wee bit miffed right now.

A couple of months ago they started dumping piles of earth and gravel at the far end of Appleton Park. There was a digger there and a couple of lorries, but nothing much seemed to be happening, and I wondered if it was being used as a temporary storage area for building materials or something.

Then about a month ago the temporary fence around the dumping area suddenly expanded quite dramatically, and they pulled out a couple of the baby pohutukawas that they only planted there a couple of years ago. "Not good" I thought.

Hmmm. What's going on?

I noticed a big sign had gone up on the fence which said "Any enquiries, please contact the Karori Nature Reserve", which reassured me somewhat. "Oh phew" I thought. "If it's the Nature Reserve it can't be anything bad - they're Good People."

I was wrong, sadly.

I called them up and asked them what was going on and was told that they are building a BLOODY GREAT CAR PARK there! It's going to be overflow parking for the Nature Reserve, plus a Park & Ride facility, also for the Nature Reserve.

In an attempt to divert my pissed-off-ness (I was not a happy bunny when I found out) they breezily informed me that it's Road Reserve (this almost one-third of Appleton Park that they are going to cover in bloody tarmac) - as if that would make me feel better!

I don't care whether it's 'officially' a Road Reserve (What's that anyway? Space reserved to build a road, should they want to?) or a park or a Conservation Area or anything else they want to 'officially' call it - to me it's a lovely green expanse of grass and trees that I can see from my house and which I enjoy enormously - and now it's going to to be turned into a bloody great car park. With attendant noise, fumes, cars, buses, people coming and going, rubbish, screaming kids... Great.

Moan moan.

It just seems so ironic that the wonderfulness that is Karori Nature Reserve is now ruining my view (and not theirs, as it happens) by concreting over a perfectly nice piece of open grassy space, just so that more bloody lazy people can drive there and park (and it isn't even very nearby - hence the Park & Ride I suppose).

Why don't they encourage more people to catch the local bus (which plenty of people do already) and then stroll down to the Reserve (which plenty of people also do already) - rather than having this wussy Park & Ride facility - or walk all the way there, or cycle? All much greener, much healthier, much more in keeping with the aims of the Reserve in the first place - and much less of a blight on MY VIEW.

Grumble grumble grumble bloody car parks. Bloody Telecom tower nearby as well.... grump grump.

I bloody hatesssss "progress".

Technorati tags: Karori Nature Reserve, car park, Appleton Park, Wellington, Park & Ride, buses, cars, overflow parking, environment, WebWeaver's World, webweaver