LANDMARKS

 

We went for a pleasant walk along the waterfront and Oriental Bay this morning, enjoying a beautiful Wellington day.

At Oriental Bay beach, by the band rotunda we sat and watched the Carter fountain. The wind had dropped so the water was shooting up vertically. Very nice.

My dad helped build this, not as a designer but as the building contractor responsible for the concrete and plasterwork. This was in the early 1970s. The fountain was commissioned in 1973. See below from the internet.

The Carter Fountain is a distinctive feature 150 metres (490 ft) out in Wellington Harbour from Oriental Bay. Installed in 1973, it was named after its benefactor, Hugh Carter, who drowned only days after the fountain's inauguration. It was first switched on in March of that year. At a cost of $75,000, the fountain was a gift to the city  and was inspired by the Jet d'Eau fountain  that Carter had seen in  Geneva in the early 1960s. 

Tragedy struck just days after the fountain was officially opened. Carter was about to sail to  Nelson on his launch Kualani when he slipped and drowned in Wellington Harbour aged 55.  Originally to be named The Oriental Bay fountain it was renamed the Carter Fountain as a mark of respect.

The Band Rotunda houses the land based electrical equipment and a wind sensor

The fountain spouts water 16 metres (52 ft) into the air. Following complaints from local residents about salt spray, a wind sensor was installed on the nearby band rotunda that prevents the fountain from operating above a given wind speed; sources vary whether this is 8 or 10 knots (15 or 19 km/h; 9.2 or 11.5 mph). The band rotunda also holds the land-based electrical components for the fountain.

My dad worked in Wellington from just after the Second World War until he retired in 1983. It's a treat to travel around Wellington seeing some of the interesting buildings and structures that he had involvement in like The Carillon, the NZ Post Office building in Aotea Quay that was a marvel of engineering in its time, various Ian Athfield houses with their bizarre features, the old Patent Slip at Evan's Bay where ships would be hauled out of the water for repairs, and many others that are still standing.