Rock’n’Hole
Wellington’s Happy Valley Road leads to the ocean, a narrow channel bordered by green hills, whipped, like most of the city, by chill winds. Heading south, toward the sea, there is a turnoff for the city landfill, but first there is Carlucci Land. The latter has now been a part of the city for more than a decade, a mini-golf park and a showcase for the rock sculptures of former stonemason and one-time mayoral candidate Carl Gifford.
On a grey Sunday, smoke wafts from the entrance as a young man feeds a wooden chair into a steel brazier. People carry their putters and scorecards past cast-iron shapes, parts of old-style tripod, and there are also a lot of rocks. The rocks form the borders of each course, and they are all piled up, and sometimes joined together with rods of that same rusty steel.
