Sanctuary

“Sanc­tu­ary! Sanc­tu­ary!” was the cry from with­in Welling­ton­ist Tow­ers.

The young ‘uns were blast­ing out the lat­est local tunes as some old ‘uns moved their bod­ies in decid­ed­ly unfunky ways. The anti­quat­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions sys­tem was being updat­ed with new tubes result­ing in lots of bangs and crash­es. The rest of the staff were in the recep­tion prac­tic­ing for the Welling­ton­ist net­ball team.

AND it had been a hard day.

So I escaped for some sanc­tu­ary. Welling­ton is full of some won­der­ful­ly qui­et places invit­ing us to flee from the rigours of every­day.

Some of the Welling­ton­istas swear by the many dark­ened cor­ners of bars in town — back of Kit­ty O’Sheas, down­stairs of the Dog & Bone, Con­crete before the suits invade at 5pm and even the Malt­house bal­cony dur­ing the day. The ulti­mate is pos­si­bly Bode­ga.
Where’s yours?

Embassy Blon­dini’s Bar dur­ing the day glad­dens the soul. Cool, calm and very col­lect­ed as she sits in all her glo­ry. The wine bar and snack bar is always open with some extreme­ly pleas­ant staff. The sofas ease you in and whis­per in your ear, “You don’t ever have to leave. Let me look after you”.

And how could we not men­tion the cafe scene. Welling­ton is famous­ly run on cof­fee and despite the recent inva­sion of Star­bucks the major­i­ty of cof­fee places are excel­lent. Mid­night Espres­so, Fidels or even Mr Bun on Courte­nay Place come to mind. We’re sure you could pass on more.

Where exact­ly did your has­sled cor­re­spon­dent run to? Welling­ton City Library
As soon as the doors swoosh open the wor­ries of life slip away. No-one is going to remind me about any­thing I don’t want. I can pick up any book and lose myself on a desert island, in space or any oth­er place. I can be accom­pa­nied on my trav­els by char­ac­ters from the past, present or future.

Whilst you’re alone, you also not. Human­i­ty is all around as they sit and read — you can just feel the knowl­edge mov­ing around in the air.

And there’s the kids zone which is full of squeals, gig­gles and laugh­ter as the adults re-dis­cov­er the books from their child­hood.

Haven cho­sen three books (always three, two to read and one just in case) we pop upstairs to Clark’s Cafe to rest some more with cof­fee, Phoenix Cola and a sausage roll.

So we urge you all to take time out in your busy lives to re-dis­cov­er the rest­ful areas of our city, give your­self a lit­tle time to just be and let it hap­pen around you once in a while.

Enjoy your sanc­tu­ary.