Ten Years in Pōneke: Part Three – (AN EGG HUNT RETROSPECTIVE)

One of the first things that happened when I moved to Pōneke in 2015 was the Big Egg Hunt. From March to April 2015 100 giant eggs were hid­den around Wel­ling­ton, Auck­land and Christ­ch­urch, with the eggs being auc­tioned off to fun­draise for Star­ship at the end of the quest. I love a little quest, […]

a group of people sitting around an outdoor fire

Best of the last little while – June 2024

Hey, guess who’s been too busy with oth­er brain things to update this for a while? That’d be me. But let’s not waste time on it. Here’s the best things for a while.  Best behaved weath­er of the week Nice weath­er on a pub­lic hol­i­day allow­ing us to sit out­side around a fire and set […]

Family-owned Naumi Hotels open Naumi Studio Hotel on Cuba Street

There’s been a hotel on Cuba Street for as long as I can remem­ber.  In sixth form my very dar­ing sex-hav­ing friend booked her­self and her boy­friend a room at Trek­kers Hotel for after our ball at Cuba Cuba (but she ended up get­ting too drunk to leave the room).  In the mid naugh­ties, we […]

Don’t feed dogs chocolate – put it in beer instead

Guest post by Krystle, thanks Krystle! Cof­fee, chocol­ate, and beer…these are a few of Wel­ling­to­ni­ans’ favor­ite things – and thanks to a col­lab, you can now drink a fusion of all three. Loc­al legends Black Dog Brew­ery and Wel­ling­ton Chocol­ate Fact­ory have teamed up to pro­duce the Bean Me Up Mocha Stout. You may be […]

Chasing the Black Dog with beer

Last night we went to the open­ing of the new Black Dog brew­ery on Cuba Street, and, spoil­er alert, it was bloody delight­ful. All pics were sup­plied by the pub­li­cist because if you fol­low us on Twit­ter, you’ll know I can­’t pho­to­graph for shit. A con­fes­sion: I had nev­er been to the old Black Dog […]

Some food-related things that are good right now

We went to Char­lotte, the new steak­house at 201 Cuba Street that is in the house with the checkered past. The ser­vice was very friendly, and the steaks were cooked beau­ti­fully. They are busy because they had a stu­pidly cheap Groupon deal, but it is worth mak­ing a reser­va­tion for, if you are of a […]

Three dates for your diary

This is a some­what ran­dom roundup of press releases that caught my eye. Octo­ber 25 (that’s tomor­row) sees Power­tool Records present Bul­leth­oles 4: Explor­ing the Unknown – the New Zea­l­and road­show at Bar Medusa. I don’t actu­ally know any of the bands fea­tur­ing, nor can I testi­fy to how the album sounds, but nine years ago […]

Need more umlauting in your October?

In 2010, hairy clas­sic rock/metal fan Dave Keyes star­ted throw­ing non-profit DressUp-Rock­­Out events and the Gods of Rock Awards at his work­place. In 2010 Wel­ling­ton Rocks’ Rock­to­ber event raised $1300 for the Can­cer Soci­ety and then in 2011 the Gods of Rock event raised $2600 to split evenly between the Can­cer Soci­ety and the Red Cross Earth­quake Appeal for Christ­ch­urch. They’re doing […]

Let us tell your kids where to go these holidays

The ‘ista may occa­sion­ally come across as a bunch of child-hat­ing yup­pies, but the truth is about 50% of us have kids, and we need to keep them enter­tained these hol­i­days. So we’re gonna take them to Cap­it­al E. Why? Because we want to play the old school arcade games ourselves. From build­ing mech­an­ic­al mar­vels […]

You should have lunch at Duke Carvell’s this July

July would be a really good time to have a week­day lunch at Duke Carvell’s on Swan Lane. Why? Because a) it’s deli­cious and warm­ing and b) they’ll donate 20% of your bill to one of a range of char­it­ies. Bloody good work! Our Tom B is the May­or of Duke Carvell’s (well, on Foursquare […]