Oriental Bay is a suburb of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. Located close to the CBD on Wellington Harbour, it has the closest beaches to the central city and is thus a popular spot both for living and for visiting.
Oriental Bay is situated against the northern slope of Mount Victoria, 1.5 kilometres southeast of the city centre, at the start of a coastal route which continues past Hataitai around Evans Bay. The suburb was named after one of the first ships to bring settlers to Wellington.
In the summer months, Oriental Bay becomes a hive of activity. The beach is consumed with swimmers, party goers and families. The Carter Fountain is a distinctive feature in the Bay, as is the wooden barge which is often covered in swimmers.
According to the 2006 census, Oriental Bay has a population of 1,116.
Read more about Oriental Bay: Notable Residents
Famous quotes containing the words oriental and/or bay:
“Since the Greeks, Western man has believed that Being, all Being, is intelligible, that there is a reason for everything ... and that the cosmos is, finally, intelligible. The Oriental, on the other hand, has accepted his existence within a universe that would appear to be meaningless, to the rational Western mind, and has lived with this meaninglessness. Hence the artistic form that seems natural to the Oriental is one that is just as formless or formal, as irrational, as life itself.”
—William Barrett (b. 1913)
“Three miles long and two streets wide, the town curls around the bay ... a gaudy run with Mediterranean splashes of color, crowded steep-pitched roofs, fishing piers and fishing boats whose stench of mackerel and gasoline is as aphrodisiac to the sensuous nose as the clean bar-whisky smell of a nightclub where call girls congregate.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)