Ten Years in Pōneke – Part 2 (a very long walk)

In 2015 I was living at Weir House. It was my first year of study and the first time I’d spent any longer than two weeks away from my parents. I was mooning over a girl who didn’t like me back, bad at being a person and making connections and pretty sure I wasn’t into what I was studying – so yeah. Mixed emotions.

Weir House was great. Sure, the food had its ups and downs, but the people were wonderful. It was a homey kind of place, despite having over 150 people living there, and I soon grew close to most of the folk living on my floor, thanks in no small part to our wonderful RA, who was kind and a box of birds and super good to talk to.

But I was still restless.

My first ever long hike in Pōneke was on one of those days where I couldn’t get the static to stop under my skin. It was foggy and a lil rainy, and I don’t think I had much of a plan, just a desire to go to Wētā and a fear that was very huge around buying a bus card.

(My mum had to talk me through getting on a bus for the first time, ’cause I was very scared. There’s no real public transport in my hometown and I’m bad with new things. These days – bloody love buses. Wish there were more of ’em. Wish they were cheaper.)

So on the 14th of March 2015 I walked to Wētā and walked most of the way back home. On the 1st of February I relived the experience.

Most of it.

In 2025, I’m doing ten things to celebrate living in Pōneke for ten years. There’ll be stories. Pics. Nonsense. Check out article #1 here.

Why did I choose for this section of road walking to be part of my ten things? We’ll get there.

#2 – Walk from Weir House to Wētā Workshop (and back??)

My memory is awful. It’s always been awful. Most of my past is strained through chunks of greying fuzz, so piecing together the route I took for this endeavor took a lot of time and a lot of scrolling through my Google Timeline (basically useless). Minimal memory, no map, so…

What I did have was 20 photos from a Facebook album called ‘that time i walked halfway across the city’, which is a collection of stormy shots of Wellington, taken at various points along the route. Most are unremarkable, but they did at least give me a vague idea of where I wanted to go. I would aim to recreate some of them along my walk.

I planned a route around those using logic and the knowledge that I tend to gravitate towards the familiar. I knew that I hadn’t walked the entire way back, as an 18+ km day is something I absolutely would have remembered, so I noted a logical bus stop and was ready to head off.

You’ll see there’s some differences between them. Lest we not get caught up in the details, I’ll explain as I go.

It’s 10.05am and I’m standing in the playground outside Weir House. The wing I used to live in has been torn down; it was the second newest, but the most earthquake prone, so it’s gone.

There’s a gap in the trees that twinges somewhere in my chest – when I was lonely in my single room in that hall I used to stare up at the bookshelf above my bed. We weren’t supposed to mark up our rooms but every single past resident of the room had written their name on the underside of the bookshelf, one tiny reminder that we’d all been through it and made it out.

I had scrawled my name there too, just before I left; a tiny transgression (I feel insane guilt if I do something wrong, no matter how small) and figured it would be there forever.

Not the case. I head off on my walk.

Passing the Kelburn Fountain I’m thrown back to the times of being drunk in Kelburn Park with the rest of my hall mates (we got kicked out into the park after 10pm cause no alcohol in the hall after quiet hours – still not sure of the efficacy of that), and how I’d pulled a concussed hallmate out of the fountain after she’d nearly drowned one night.

Some people are playing cricket in the park. I turn left and head down the hill, snapping pics one and two just above Talavera Station. The route reeks – I realise it’s just an uncollected rubbish bag as I pass it. I snap pic 3 on top of the Everton Terrace, taking a while to find the right angle, and then head down towards Parliament.

Why past me took the longest, most convoluted route to Wētā, I have no idea, but still, I follow. Contorting my body over a parked e-scooter (not a problem ten years ago), I manage to snap Pic 4 heading down Woodward St.

Fuck it. I don’t want to push past cruise ship passengers as I walk down the Golden Mile. I cut down to the waterfront, via Te Awe Library instead. It’s greying on the waterfront too, but even then, it’s never a hardship to be out by the sea.

I stop to answer an email by Frank Kitts and look back up to see this guy staring at me. Nice.

It’s 11.05am, ’cause I’ve been ambling, so I duck into the Exchange Atrium to do a radio interview. They ask great questions. I’m less than a km from the studio. Ten years ago I wasn’t doing four radio interviews in one week.

With the knowledge that this quest is for my own benefit and isn’t as fueled by my own anxiety as the last time I did it, I snap Pic 5 by the Tripod and scooter through the Mt Vic tunnel. It’s a deeply unpleasant pedestrian experience, and the faster I’m outta there the better.

Ditching my scooter in Haitaitai, I head off down towards Kilbirnie, passing the entrance to the netball grounds. Way back when in 2020 and 2021 when I was barely employed, I used to support my income making coffees on the dodgiest coffee machine in the world at the netball each Saturday. That building isn’t there anymore either.

Times change.

There’s a lot of people on the waterfront. It’s not that nice a day, currently, but the walkway is packed. Y’know, looking back on Google Maps, this area’s changed a lot since I was last here.

It’s gotten much better. A certain selection of the Old City grouses about any change to the structure of the city, but one hopes they soon have as positive an attitude about cycleways as they do about this walkway.

Especially considering how awful this walkway was when I was last here.

I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to emulate Pics 6 and 7 around the bend in the road towards Miramar. The Wellington logo on the hill has a soccer ball in it at the moment. Is that for the Phoenix? I don’t follow sport.

Last time I did this trip, I wore through my pants while doing it. These days, I hike in sports leggings, and they’re still holding on strong, but I stop at the same op-shop in Miramar and buy myself a shirt with parrots on it. Not sure what this means for me, but it’s a cute shirt.

Then, my stroll through Miramar continues.

It’s funny. When I first made this trip, ten long years ago, I was in this optimistic haze around the film industry. I really was excited by the concept of being in Wellington and being so close to an industry I loved and wanted to be part of.

These days, with the experience I have across the theatre and film industry… I am… less lighthearted about my wander through Miramar.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s wonderful people in the industry. I’ve met lifelong friends and collaborators through my work in it. There’s just a lot of bad.

Sex pests we’re not allowed to talk about, unbearable amounts of nepotism, and international directors actively trying to swing our politics to the right. The arts industry, like the country on a whole, is not as clean and green as it appears to be.

Cynicism firmly established, I stop in front of Wellington’s most important heritage landmark, the derelict gas tank on Park Road. Wow, does it suck! Sure wish there were better heritage rules in place so the thing could be knocked down, but there’s nothing more Wellington than a handful of people with influence actively stonewalling progress.

More pics. Park Road Post Production, a mural that’s not there anymore, and then finally, I’m at Wētā. Feels a bit less like a milestone than it did in 2015. Y’know, I’ve never actually done a tour here? They’ve moved a bunch of the statues around so I can’t quite emulate the pics I took last time, but I get close enough.

Still don’t take a tour. Maybe I’ll do one for my 20th long walk anniversary.

Goal firmly accomplished, I start heading back towards home, wandering through Miramar Park, which has a very cool geocache hiding in it, picking up a bottle of Lewis Road Creamery chocolate milk (cause I bought one last time), and then hopping on an e-scooter to head back towards the CBD. I complete my day of nonsense travel by getting KCB, which is another one of those many changes to the city that actively benefits it.

(Last time I did this trek I got Chinese food from the buffet in Courtenay Central and drowned myself in salty noodles. Fly high, Readings Courtenay, maybe one day you’ll be open again.)

I did this walk ’cause I thought I would learn something about myself, but instead I’m just… tired. My feet hurt. Fringe looms on the horizon. I’ve changed a lot myself in ten years. More friends, worse health, more money, fewer fucks to give.

2015 Emma was scared of the future and scared of university. Scared of a lot of things; of getting on a bus, spending money, speaking up in lectures. Scared ’cause my high school friendships were unraveling in front of my eyes, and I was losing friends as they found the lives they wanted to lead.

These days I’m a bit less scared. It’s not easy, I’m still anxious and lost in stormy seas sometimes, but I know I’m good at things, and I’m not afraid to speak out for what I care about. I’ve grown, and I’ve changed. The city has too.

I think that might be progress.