The Southward Car Museum
Looking for something to do with all these loooong, sunny days we’re having? Let me recommend a trip to the Southward Car Museum, just north of Paraparaumu.
Driving into the carpark you feel like you’ve spent back in time – to the 1960s. The building is fantastic, a large concrete bunker. The grounds are carefully manicured, with beds of marigolds. Take your old Tupperware picnic set and relive a simpler time.
Walking in, there is a 1960s Ferrari on a rotating plinthe, and a gorgeous Mercedes sports car. You can’t help but play “which car would you take home” – except by the time you leave it is “which dozen cars, planes, and bikes would you take home”.
Entry is $10 for adults, $3 for children (5-15), and pre-schoolers are free.
Wellington’s Christmas tree
We all know and love Wellington’s Pohutukawa trees. Especially at this time of year when they come into their own, their fiery blossom earning them the title of “New Zealand’s Christmas Tree”.
What’s less well known is that they can’t really be considered the “Christmas Tree” of any area of New Zealand outside the top half of the North Island, their native range.
Instead, we should consider the Rata, Northern and Southern, for this role. Between them, they grow over all of the North Island and most lowland areas of the South Island.
Once whole forests of Rata blossomed in Wellington at Christmas. But no longer: the settlers’ fires, and latterly, the Possum, have caused an almost total decline in their population. Still, here and there remnants are to be found within the bounds of Wellington itself.
A particularly fine specimen is at this moment flowering in the Otari-Wilton’s Bush. Usually it can’t be distinguished from any other tree at a distance, but right now its splendour decorates the bushy hillside, contrasting strongly with the quiet greens of the surrounding trees.
Planting any more Pohutukawa here is not a good idea, as the Wellington Botanical Society will tell you. (One must presume there were good reasons why the Council chose Pohutukawa over Rata for their Greening the Quays project.)
First Wii Fatality
Some nice viral internet action is going on over at Webweaver, with the ‘First Wii Fatality‘ video she was involved with making, getting close to 70,000 views at time of writing…
Here’s some background…
Last week Ross spent a few hours making a couple of paper Wiimotes, with all the features printed on the paper, which he cut and shaped to match the real thing. He packed the three-dimensional shapes with tissue paper to give them a bit of strength so they wouldn’t collapse when held, and put a coin in the end of the one he was going to use, to weight it. He attached the other one to the back of Brian’s shaven head, and decorated Brian’s skull with tomato sauce (which sadly didn’t end up in shot because it was on the wrong side!).
Bar None
Well, he’s done it. Wellingtonista Tom has completed his mission to visit every bar in the central city, with all these fine establishments hosting our roving martini expert at one time or another…
Arbitrageur, Arizona, Atlanta, B4, Backbencher, Ballroom, Basement, Beaujolais, Big Kumara, Bisque On Bolton, The Black Harp, Blend, Blondini’s, Blue Note, Bodega, Bohdans, Boogie Wonderland, Boulcott St Bistro, Boulot, Breakers, Brewery Bar, The Bristol, Brix, Bull & Bear, Cabaret, Calzone, Cambridge Hotel, Capitol, Caronia, Caucus, The Cavern Club, Chameleon, Chicago, Chow, Club K, Concrete, Confidential, Copita, Courtenay Arms, Coyote, Crazy Horse, Cue Room, Curve, Dockside, The Dog & Bone, Dojo, Downtown Local, The Dubliner, Eclipse, Electric Avenue, Endup, Ernesto, Establishment, The Feathers, Ferrymans, Floriditas, Flying Burrito Brothers, Gibbon’s Bar, GoGo, Good Luck, Green Room, The Grill at Duxton, Happy, Harem, Havana, Hawthorne Lounge, Hope Bros, Hotel Willis Lodge, Hugos, Hummingbird, Imbibe, Imerst, J’aime Bordeaux, Jet, The Jimmy, JJ Murphy’s, Juniper, Kazu Yakitori and Sake Bar, Kitty O’Shea’s, The Lab, The Lab Underground, The Last Supper Club, Latinos, Leuven, The Lido, Liquidate, The Loaded Hog, Logan Brown, Lone Star, Lone Star Lounge, Lovelocks, The Malthouse, Matterhorn, Maya, Medina, Mercure Terrace, Mercure Willis, Mercury Lounge, Mezzaluna, Mighty Mighty, Milk, Mini Bar, Ministry Of Food, Mixjah, Mojo Invincible, Molly Malones, Monsoon Poon, Motel, Museum Hotel, MVP, Occidental, The Old Bank Bar & Café, One Red Dog (Blair St), One Red Dog (Kumutoto), Orchid Lounge, Our Bar, Paradiso, Paramount, Parlour Bar, The Pit, Pod, Ponderosa, Portland Hotel, Pravda, Rain, Red Square, Sandwiches, San Francisco Bathhouse, Scopa, Seam, The Shack, Shed 5, Shooters, Sojourn, Southern Cross, Speight’s Ale House, Spice Island, Sports Cafe, Stadium Bar, Stellar, St Johns, Sweet Mother’s Kitchen, Syn, The Tasting Room, The Thistle Inn, Toast, Trax, Tupelo, Urbane, UU, Valve, Vespa Lounge, Vintage, Vivo, The Wellesley Cafe, Welsh Dragon Bar & Scorpio’s, Whitbys Piano Bar, Zibibbo, Zing
Tom needs a new challenged for 2007, so head over to WellUrban to make a suggestion.
But, the gutters are part of Aotearoa!
Ben Hana, aka Blanket Man, and the inaugural Wellingtonista Wellingtonian of the Year, has been ordered to stay out of bus lanes, after complaints that he was sitting in the middle of Dixon St, forcing buses to steer around him.
Blanket Man remains adamant he will not obey the court order, claiming that the bus lanes and adjoining gutters (where he also spends a fair amount of time) are part of Aotearoa, and that, to quote him: “I represent the whanau of Aotearoa”.
This case follows another brush with the law in September, when Ben was cited for drink-driving. His defense that time was equally inventive, this time claiming that the vehicle he was driving was not a car but a “waka”, and thus he was not bound by normal road rules. Not surprisingly he lost the case, but not the war, as his punishment of community service was unable to be enforced, as he had no suitable footwear to complete the work in.
[hat-tip: somewhere along the way…]
The light at the end of the tunnel
Although we would hate you to think that we had an unnatural love for tunnels, we think it’s only fair to warn you that new lights have been installed at either end of the Hataitai/Mt Vic tunnel that are so bright that you’ll think you are outside in the sunshine already, even at night. It doesn’t make people honk any less though.
The Observatory is under threat?
Did I miss it, the news, the fact? Did you miss it? Someone forgot to post it on the office notice board at Wellingtonista Towers (off-line and very cork-y) … or did I miss it by being elsewhere?
Anywho … it’s not gonna shut because “they” have decided it’s worth keeping open … but it’s not forever:
The government will give it $2.2 million, but says that will be the last payment it will receive.
The council will contribute $300,000 a year for 10 years, after which the observatory is expected to operate on its own.
Source: Radio NZ: Carter Observatory to stay open
And that’s fine. Now we know.
And what do we (the intelligent people of Wellington) need to do? What do we need to do to move beyond this 10 year boundary.
VISIT!
Ensure the kiddlie-winklies of today and next Tuesday have the same opportunity to step out of “Tuesday” and go, “Wholly fuck!” (or the kiddlie-winkle equivalent)
VISIT!
Waterfront Update
I must be a sucker for punishment, since on Monday night I attended the latest Waterfront Development Subcommittee meeting. Some people would consider that the study of local government consultation belongs under governance or public policy studies, but I’ve come to realise that it’s a branch of psychopathology. The range of social dysfunction, paranoia and anger-management issues on display would fill several chapters of DSM-IV-TR: and that’s just among the councillors. Those in the public gallery are worse, and I include myself as an obvious textbook example of chronic masochism.
Nevertheless, it’s the only way to get the latest updates and gossip, which I’ve combined here with my usual other sources (public notices, real estate advertisements, unsubstantiated rumours, peering through windows) to update my previous post on current and upcoming waterfront developments.
Ghosts at Futuna Chapel
Andrew Brettell, theatre visuals designer extraordinaire, turns his hand to something a little more ethereal this weekend, when he’s planning to ‘haunt’ the renowned Futuna Chapel up in Karori. Just what this entails we’re not sure, but there’ll almost certainly be a few ghosts floating around the place, and there’s also a talk at 8:30pm each night from Nick Blake about the chapel’s architecture.
When: Fri Dec 15th – Sun Dec 17th, 10am – 10pm
Where: Futuna Chapel, 62 Friend Street, Karori
How much: Free!
[Hat-tip: No Right Turn]
Malthouse closes on 23rd December
Only to re-open next to the Sports Bar on Courtenay Place around mid-February.
It’ll be interesting to see if the middle management-types and general office dwellers that frequent the current Malthouse will make the Friday night trek down to Courtenay Place.
Having said that it’ll be mighty to have a place that serves good beer (and not the standard sugary s!@t available) in the heart of Wellington’s entertainment ‘quarter’.
And so, for all those that are, like myself, middle management-types – see you for one last drink on the balcony!