Every time I drive past I am fascinated by this sign. Not only is it textbook irony - the sign site is an incredibly popular informal dump - I’m always trying to puzzle out what on earth is going on with the slogan. You might - with effort - make the case that Hamilton is New Zealand’s most beautiful large town, but large city? No. Not even close. Auckland is spectacular even by world standards. Wellington has that astonishing windswept harbour. Even post-earthquake Christchurch has its gardens and a kind of broken grandeur. Tauranga is framed by mountains, the beach, and the Mount. And Dunedin looks like someone transported Edinburgh to the utter ends of the earth. Anyway, today I finally took the photo I’ve been threatening to take for years and I couldn’t be happier with it. I hope they never get rid of this absurd sign and that people keep using the site for overt drug deals and illegal dumping.
