Back to work (January 2015)Famed NZ designed-and-man­u­fac­tured cloth­ing and out­doors equip­ment com­pa­ny Cac­tus are open­ing a new store at 241 Thorn­don Quay this week­end. It’s some­thing of a home­com­ing — the com­pa­ny start­ed in Welling­ton before relo­cat­ing south many years ago to be clos­er to larg­er moun­tains and more con­ve­nient snow.

But they’ve remained a favourite of Welling­to­ni­ans and so we get to host their sec­ond shop after their HQ in Christchurch. So on Sat­ur­day from 10am there’ll be free L’Af­fare cof­fee, and on both Sat­ur­day and Sun­day there will be “spe­cials on gear […] and a chance to win $1000 worth of Cac­tus kit”, they say.

What I like about Cac­tus, apart from the fact they make their gear in New Zealand, is the no-non­sense tough­ness and prac­ti­cal­i­ty of what they make. It has a style all of its own; one maybe not to every­one’s taste but at least you don’t have to buy a replace­ment in two years time. Which is some­thing I val­ue high­ly.

Oh yeah, and did I men­tion the life­time war­ran­ty on the things they make? Or their pret­ty good blog?

I can’t think of anoth­er local cloth­ing com­pa­ny whose prod­ucts are so loved equal­ly by rur­al folk, tradies, and out­doorsy types. For exam­ple, imag­ine the hap­py scenes at Christ­mas­time when you give:

  • your Dad the dad­dest of dad hats for those times when he’s fish­ing in the rain, all alone, because who likes that real­ly? And at least this way you’ll still be in his good books even if you stay at home instead
  • your sis­ter, who’s just start­ed her build­ing appren­tice­ship, a pair of the world’s tough­est work trousers — they’ll last for years even if the break­ing-in peri­od might take a while
  • your lycra-lout broth­er a moun­tain-bik­ing back-pack, iron­i­cal­ly of course (you can claim it back from him if he does­n’t take it very well — after all, the Velom­i­nati’s loss is your gain)
  • your Mum a nice thick meri­no shirt because she and her friends insist that spring is the best time for the Ton­gariro Cross­ing (“few­er tourists, dear”) — Cac­tus sell moun­tain-climb­ing stuff too — per­haps drop a hint about this
  • your cow-cock­ie cousin a super-rugged down jack­et that won’t rip when his prize bull toss­es him over a barbed wire fence (at least the jack­et should sur­vive OK)

And so on and so on.

Well maybe you would­n’t buy all that at once, because Cac­tus stuff ain’t cheap. But it’s good and it lasts. You won’t have to buy anoth­er replace­ment thing for a loooong time.

In fact, on sec­ond thought maybe you should just buy for your­self. You’ll appre­ci­ate it more.

As for me, I already have what some have said is a lit­tle too much stuff from Cac­tus, but even so, I real­ly like the look of this hat. And these trousers.

I may need an inter­ven­tion.

Where: 241 Thorn­ton Quay
When: 10am — 5pm Sat­ur­day / 10am — 2pm Sun­day