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.