TAWA5 Best Regular Entertainment

As we know, Wellington is full of fun things to do, and on a regular basis. Whether giving us something to eat, something to groove to, or something to yell about, these are the events that kept us coming back for seconds.

Zealandia is freelandia

This weekend – 16 and 17 October, admission to Zealandia is free! Admission to Wellington’s world-first wildlife sanctuary, ZEALANDIA, is free for all locals this Saturday and Sunday! We are now 15 years into an incredible journey to restore a corner of NZ as closely as possible to the way it was before humans arrived. […]

Lunchtime Refuge

Lunchtime Refuge, originally uploaded by dubh. Sometimes, and especially when the weather is outstanding, you just have to get outside and away. Now it turns out there are one or two places in the inner city where refuge may be had. These may well be places we’d rather not share, but that would be rude, […]

And you thought we were joking about the Octopus threat?

Shelmac's photo of some notable Octopus grafitti

Earlier this month we read about an octopus off the South Coast that mugged an innocent diver and took his valuable new camera. The news flashed around the world and everyone had a bit of a chuckle at the diver’s expense.

Not so fast, laughing boys (and girls).

It turns out that this is but the latest episode in a long history of criminal behaviour by the city’s cephalopod citizenry.

We need only look at another, earlier encounter between a Wellingtonian and a rogue octopus to prove the point. An encounter that, just like our earlier story made world headlines… but back in 1888.

Read on, after the jump.

When are you people going to realise that the octopus threat is real?

 We’ve all heard the stories about how there was a tank at Wellington Airport with an octopus in it and another tank with fishes in it, and the fish started disappearing and no one knew why until one night security cameras filmed the octopus climbing out of its tank and into the fish tank and eating the fish. Now we have yet more evidence shot off the South Coast that OCTOPUSES ARE EVIL AND THEY ARE GOING TO KILL US ALL IN OUR BEDS WHILE WE SLEEP. Consider yourself warned. 

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5DyBkYKqnM]

Evans Bay Timelapse

Great 50 second time lapse video of Evans Bay towards Miramar and the airport as shot from Hataitai by John Lewis* as discovered by Rowan Simpson – enjoy:

* the person, not the department store

Hmmmmm…

So, anyone else not trusting this weather?

This Wellington, she is a fickle mistress.

Le Parkour Wellington

Ever been wandering around town and seen a group of youngsters behaving like a bunch of naughty monkeys? Whaddya know.. they’re probably doing parkour.

Parkour (sometimes abbreviated to PK) or or “free-running” or l’art du déplacement (“the art of displacement”) is an activity with the aim of moving from one point to another as efficiently and quickly as possible, using principally the abilities of the human body.

Founded by David Belle in France, parkour focuses on practicing efficient movements to develop your body and mind to be able to overcome obstacles in an emergency. It is also practiced by many as a form of entertainment or as a pastime.

As I hinted above, there’s a thriving parkour scene in Wellington; especially in and around the urban/recreational areas of the waterfront and Civic Square.

Interested? There’s more after the jump..

Ask Wellington: spring gardening?

fresh spray


fresh spray
Originally uploaded by Philip Fierlinger
of turntable.com

Sometimes we at the Wellingtonista must admit that even we, strange though it may seem, do not know everything about our fine city (and in this case, its climatic peculiarities). So periodically we must call upon the mighty and erudite collective wisdom of our readers to fill in the gaps.

Many of you may have noticed the arrival of springtime, if only to observe the marginally warmer temperatures, a sustained breeziness, and an increased rate of sneezing experienced between your front doors and that of your air-conditioned workplaces. But not all of you fall into this category, and it is of you in particular we are enquiring today.

You see, some in the Wellingtonista (and again, this may be a little shocking) live in the suburbs. And some of us actually have areas of flat ground reserved for the growing of things that can be eaten (it is true that some apartment-dwellers have a couple of terracotta pots on their balconies for the same purpose – the following may apply to them too), called “vegetable gardens”.

And so the question we have for you today is: What should we be planting in our “vegetable gardens” right now?

We suspect that potatoes are good at the moment. But we wonder: what else is good, assuming that it’s both legal and tasty? If we were to get planting this coming week, what’s best?

Answers, please, dear readers.

So that’s what they mean by ‘isolated showers’

Looking south from Waitangi Park as yesterday evening’s southerly change was coming in.
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Any poor sod who was stuck under this could feel justified in feeling picked on by the elements, but most of the Wellingtonista Great Blend team was already safely ensconced in Port Café scoffing fish ‘n’ chips with BYO wine. A Great Blend round-up will no doubt follow from one of my diligent colleagues.