The Roxy: it’s a little bit foxy

On Thursday I took a step back in time to the early 1930s and entered the Roxy Cinema. Dan will, I’m sure, tell you more later about just what sort of cinema the Roxy is. For those who can’t wait it’s the first purpose-built 3D cinema in the country, with the best technology out there. […]

Notional Significance: Underground

[See all Notional Significance posts] As I approach the tunnel mouth, I can’t help but notice the looming cliff to my right. I try to imagine the promised/threatened second tunnel, and the impact that its eastern portal will have on the landscape. I envision a giant tunnel-boring mole bursting from the mountainside, like one of […]

Notional Significance: Isthmus

It’s a given: New Zealand is a young land. But this infant isthmus, earthquake-raised, has already suffered abuses and transformations that have left it far from tender. If psychogeography is, as Iain Sinclair says, “a way of psychoanalysing the psychosis of the place in which I happen to live”, then this place will be on […]

Notional Significance: Takeoff

National significance begins with a roundabout: from the air it looks like a navel, the axis of the world, the green Omphalos where one begins. But what is beginning here? There’s a distinct impression that more traffic comes from the eastern suburbs via Broadway than from the airport itself, which would make this a somewhat […]

TAWA5 Best Suburban Destination

The suburbs. Love them or loathe them, they surround every city. And loathing the suburbs out of some sort of twisted inner-city-centric impulse is pretty short-sighted – especially when you could be enjoying the following:

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. […]

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

3 things Miramar needs

  1. Mesh network
  2. The cinema open
  3. Statues of Pillars of Argonath either side of ‘the cutting’

Read why …

Summer in the City Suburbs

You’ve got to love the effect a sunny day has on people – I’ve seen more smiles on the streets of Newtown today than I have done the entire 6 months that I’ve lived here.
And speaking of Newtown, time to give props to a local icon,The Adelaide
Once the infamous Tramways Hotel, and sticking resolutely to the “smalltown pub” vibe and decor, the Adelaide has quietly reinvented itself as one of the best places in town to see bands play for around the $5 mark. Cheap beer, great mirrors in the ladies’, flashing lights behind glass bricks at the counter and under the stage, pool tables, pub meals … one day I’ll devote an entire post to how much I love unpretentious hospitality. But the point of this post is to announce the inaugural Saturday Matinee at the Adelaide – just in time for the return of the golden weather!
Details after the jump…

Zoo(m) time

Where's that bus?(sorry, that title is naff)

In a nutshell, if you go to Newtown on the bus (Go Wellington or Stagecoach) between now and June 30th you pay half price for entrance to the Zoo on that day.

Remember to ask the driver for the Zoo voucher.

Usual Zoo admission charges are:

  • children under 3 free,
  • children 3-16 years $6
  • and adults $15.

Buses to Newtown include #1 (Island Bay), #3 (Lyall Bay), #10 (Newtown), #11 (Seatoun) … spoilt for choice.
And then it’s a walk up from Newtown shops to the Zoo [map]