Monuments to things that are decidedly unmonumental or rather unexpected

What is this human urge to make everything into a ritual, a plaque, a keepsake?

A time capsule, dated 22 September 2017 lies beneath this plaque.

It marks the rebuild of the Leitchfield carpark, after the original was damaged in the 6.3 magnitude earthquake of 22nd February 2011 .

It is envisaged that the time capsule be uncovered in the year 2164 to mark the bicentenary of the first parking building to have stood on this site.

Excuse me while I snort-laugh as "envisaged" being in such close proximity to parking.  This must be a bloody important car park if it has a planned anniversary celebration 200 years down the line.  The definition of bicentenary is "the two-hundredth anniversary of a significant event."  Are we counting building a car park as such?    

This stone:

The Hahei Tractor Bash Rock

No, look closer, we must know more!

This feels like there are more questions and not any more answers.  Has no one tried to win the Tractor Bash Rock Battle in 10 years?!  

This rusty obelisk overlooking a carpark and Lyttleton harbor beyond it had no plaque, so I'm not even sure what it commemorates.  Good views on summer days?

In this bay was anchored 5-15 November 1709 H.M.S. Endeavor Lieutenant James Cook R.N. Commander.  He observed the transit of Mercury & named the bay.

The observation site of the transit of Mercury across the face oft he sun is located by a cairn on the Eastern (Purangi) end of Cooks Beach.

Apparently this monument is in entirely the wrong place, this is not where Cook and his crew watched the transit of Mercury, that was a different, neighboring bay.  But the stone ended up here.

A little on the nose, don't you think, Mr. Skelton?

This marker is the only known burial to have taken place on Quail Island, during its time as a leper colony.  It was thought that additional graves were nearby, but a recent excavation and survey showed that Ivon is all alone here.  

Only one man died.  And one man escaped. Everybody else moved to Fiji.

Attempting to combine surveying with geometry is a kind of wizardy.  As in, highly suspect whatever answer is derived.  They say the center of New Zealand lies in Nelson, though how you find the center of a country made of at least three islands, with a highly crenulated coastland and actual fjords is beyond my ken.  It would be like pinpointing the center of an egg yolk.  What would it matter?

Te Anau's big Takahe.  Is it stucco, or is it concrete?  I stayed out of the garden as the sign pleaded, so I did not pet the beak and we will never know.

I read a headline on one of the Dept of Conservation websites "Takahe, just Fat Pukeko?" ages ago and I still think about it.

William Rees.  Founder of Queenstown.  He lived there for 1 year before gold was discovered and he sold his claim and moved away.  I think of all the places I've lived for a year and I wonder which one will build the first statue of me...

This bra fence is a monument to breast cancer survivors, or something?  It seemed to not quite know, and wanted to embrace some sophomoric humor while also standing for something serious.  Hard to do that earnest and yet joking thing at the same time, y'know.