Beer Belly Jellies

Anoth­er guest post from Heather at Food­ie Gems of Welling­ton. We love guest posts.  For all you crafty beer fans out there, an inno­v­a­tive new prod­uct – Beer Bel­ly Jel­lies. Inspired by a sim­i­lar prod­uct in Cana­da some years ago, Lindy McLen­nan has part­nered with the Par­rot­Dog boys to hand craft these delights. So as […]

Sky Dancer in the Capital E National Arts Festival

We’re grownups at the Welling­ton­ista, well, unless there’s a fart joke to be made, so when there’s a Nation­al Arts Fes­ti­val for Chil­dren, we thought it would be good to get some chil­dren involved, so here are three reviews of Sky Dancer. Hen­ry, age 11:  “Sky Dancer was not like any­thing I have seen before. […]

Guest Post: Bike Everywhere helps you to bike everywhere

Dur­ing the last week, I’ve been out on my very first mul­ti-day cycling tour, and it was an awe­some adven­ture, see­ing all kinds of beau­ti­ful parts around the Wairara­pa and the South­ern Coasts of the North Island. Since I’ve been back a friend men­tioned this great web­site, BikeEv­ery­where, whose Face­book page can be found here […]

New Year’s High Tea

Anoth­er guest post from Heather at Food­ie Gems of Wellie, huz­zah! I saw the James Cook adver­tis­ing Jan­u­ary high tea deals recent­ly which remind­ed me of the myr­i­ad of high tea options in the city. And think­ing what a good time of year Jan­u­ary is for a leisure­ly after­noon tea with good friends to con­tem­plate […]

Middle of Middle Earth Market and Movies

There’s a hob­bit-abrew­ing in this wee city of ours. Today we’ve got anoth­er guest post from HeatherC from Food­ie Gems of Welling­ton all about the mar­kets going on. Get in quick!  If you’re a LOTR fan, you could do worse than get your­self down to Wai­t­an­gi Park for 6pm each of the next three nights […]

Stuff our readers like

We have a guest post for you by the vol­u­ble Anna Jane Wil­son who also likes hats, boots, coats and scarves.

My good­ness, it’s already July — I can’t quite believe we’re halfway through our Roman cal­en­dars, but all evi­dence says — 10 July 2009. July, albeit cold and windy in this won­der­ful city, is going to be a large one.

The four main things that keep me warm in win­ter are jazz, walk­ing, films, and dance. I’m new to Welling­ton, but appar­ent­ly this city has a lot of jazz, thus, my soul will be kept very warm.

con­tin­ues after the jump…

WellingtonOnScreen

nz on screenIn a lit­tle office on Tarana­ki St, a small group of ded­i­cat­ed pro­fes­sion­als (known as the NZ On Screen team) have been cre­at­ing a web­site which cel­e­brates and show­cas­es tele­vi­sion and film pro­duced in New Zealand. A year in the mak­ing, NZ On Screen launched at the end of Octo­ber and has over 300 titles avail­able to view — many in full length, some with just excerpts.

For each title there’s also pro­files of key cast and crew, as well as back­ground sto­ries, com­ments, pho­tos and links to oth­er relat­ed mate­r­i­al. Hours can dis­ap­pear when you start look­ing through the site — and it pays to have your broad­band speed high and your cap fresh!

So take a look: www.nzonscreen.com   … let us know what you think, sug­gest titles we should add, tell all your friends and loved ones, and enjoy NZ On Screen!

But what does that have to do with Welling­ton you might ask?

Aside from the fact that the NZ On Screen team is based here … Welling­ton is well known as a bit of a hub for the film indus­try. Most peo­ple would say that’s all down to Peter Jack­son and Lord of the Rings. To be fair, he’s had a rea­son­ably large influ­ence.

But the Welling­ton has been the scene for film and tele­vi­sion for a long time.  On the NZ On Screen site you will find some gems of Welling­ton-ness…

One year on…

This post­ing brought to you by Sandy Mamoli (deeply hon­oured inau­gur­al guest blog­ger).

Have you got some­thing to say about Welling­ton? Would you like to guest on the Welling­ton­ista? Drop us a line and we’ll add you to the door list.


I dis­cov­ered the Welling­ton­ista on day two after my arrival. It took them almost year to dis­cov­er me …

In fact, it took them exact­ly a year. I cel­e­brat­ed my one year New Zealand anniver­sary last Fri­day with the con­tra­dic­to­ry emo­tions of some­one who simul­ta­ne­ous­ly feels like a true long-term Welling­ton­ian and a rook­ie who has just stepped off the boat.

I am still strug­gling with a wee bit of cul­ture shock — com­plain­ing about Welling­ton’s provin­cial­i­ty and sec­ond-world infra­struc­ture while mar­veling at the vibe, friend­li­ness and gen­uine feel­ing of com­mu­ni­ty one can only find in Welling­ton (I think).

Apart from being with a Kiwi part­ner who has been too long out of the coun­try to remem­ber any­thing use­ful and hav­ing read halfway through a trav­el guide I did­n’t know much about New Zealand a year ago. And my for­mer life in Vien­na, Copen­hagen and Ams­ter­dam proved to be way too lim­it­ed an expe­ri­ence of the world to shel­ter me from the sur­pris­es I was in for.