AA Directions Autumn 2022

AUTUMN 2022

aadirections.co.nz

FUTURE VEHICLES What we’ll be driving next

INTO THE ICE Working in Antarctica

How to thrive in the new normal

These Kiwis found the How do we navigate the new good,Weand normal? revealit's some Kiwi solutions and talk transforming to families who have theirtolives. managed accentuate Turn to page 14 the positive. for their story

See page 20

They say it takes a village. We’ve been creating vibrant retirement villages embedded in the local community for over 35 years. And we have Joy’s seal of approval.

Having spent a quarter-century growing her local rugby league community, we feel she’s a qualified judge.

Visitors to Ryman villages often say they can’t quite put their finger on it. It just feels different.

Something to do with the energy of the people and the way they interact. Joy sums this up perfectly when she describes her fellow residents as another family.

There’s always a reason to stay connected and be socially active in a Ryman village. It’s another example of how we’re pioneering a new way of living for a new retirement generation.

“Ryman is like a family.

We’re there for each other.”

Joy Resident at Ryman’s Murray Halberg Village

When you choose a Ryman village, you’re free to do more of the things you love. Free to live life your way. Cindy and Del enjoy their independence and ‘lock and leave’ lifestyle, secure in the knowledge that help’s here if they need it.

At Ryman, you can embrace today.

Because we take care of the lawns, the rates, and things like window cleaning. It’s all covered in an affordable weekly fee – which is fixed* as one of our Peace of Mind Guarantees. *Conditions apply

“Security is a big plus for us. When we go away, we know our home is safe and secure.”

Del & Cindy Residents at Ryman’s Possum Bourne Village

WE ARE RYMAN PIONEERS We’re committed to pioneering retirement living for one simple reason. To better serve a generation of New Zealanders.

That's why Ryman villages are named after Kiwi trailblazers. Sir Edmund Hillary, Yvette Williams.

They lived with passion and purpose, they went beyond the ordinary. Which is exactly what we strive to do, every day at Ryman.

Our friendly, inclusive villages offer independent living with comprehensive care options. Simply dial up your care if you need it. From assisted living in a serviced apartment to resthome, hospital and, in most villages, specialist dementia care. We’ve put everything in one place so you can embrace life today without having to worry about the future.

We always have, and always will, challenge the status quo and adapt to better serve our residents.

For more information on our retirement villages, visit: rymanhealthcare.co.nz

Celebrating 10 years of looking out for you

Over that time, we’ve given over 1.19 million free eye tests to AA Members valued at $60, saving them over $71.63 million.

Book your free comprehensive eye test, including an advanced OCT 3D eye scan that can help detect serious eye conditions.

Just show your AA Membership card at your nearest Specsavers store today.

Applies to eye tests only, normally valued at $60.

Excludes contact lens consultation and visual fields test.

Results current up to 28 February 2022.

CONTENTS AUTUMN 2022

50

Southern charm We drive the wild Southern Scenic Route on a road trip that includes The Catlins Coast, Te Anau and Invercargill.

58

Mountain high

20

FEATURE

While we’re living in challenging times, there are good things to have come out of the uncertainty – such as the chance to learn new skills, simplify our lifestyles and focus on what’s important. We meet some positive New Zealanders who are not just surviving but thriving in this ‘new normal’.

IN EVERY ISSUE

Executive Officer.

10

Compass We chat with a chef from Scott Base in Antarctica, reveal the results of the 2021 Car of the Year, visit the brand new Hundertwasser Art Centre in Whangārei, and share tips for driving safely around schools.

33 MOTORING

34

Steering the waka An interview with Nicole Rosie, the Chief Executive of Waka Kotahi, the New Zealand Transport Agency.

HOME & LIVING

63

The royal treatment Take a look inside a bespoke castle in Ōamaru, filled with colour and character.

Standing the test of time

Letters Meet Nadine Tereora, the AA’s new Chief

63

67

6 8

A bucket list dream comes true on a trip to the foot of Aoraki Mount Cook, New Zealand’s highest and mightiest mountain.

36

Under the influence The statistics around drunk and drugged driving are alarming.

What can be done to win the fight?

43

Old vs. New We compare a 2012 Toyota RAV4 Limited with the latest model.

47

In an increasingly disposable world, a Kiwi company is making cookware to last for generations. Go in the draw to win Ironclad Legacy Pans.

71

Money matters Broadcaster and journalist Duncan Garner shares his thoughts on saving versus spending.

73

TRAVELLER

MY AA

48

Retiring General Manager of AA Motoring Affairs, Mike Noon reflects on his career, new travel partners provide extra discounts for AA Members, tasty new extras are available with Tableside Assistance and the 2020-2021 financial year is summarised in our Annual Report.

Magical Mangōnui A relaxed escape to this small Northland town finds heritage, vineyards, kayaking and an all-round slower pace of life.

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LETTERS

Kia ora

EDITORIAL TEAM Kathryn Webster Jo Percival

Just before this issue went to the press, I drove north to visit the new Hundertwasser Art Centre in Whangārei. Wow, I was impressed! It’s an incredible building, celebrating a truly original man. Anyone who appreciates joyful, delightful art should add this to their bucket list. There are plenty of other bucket list ideas to read about in this issue, too, including a mountain retreat and an intriguing South Island castle.

Also in this issue are several interviews, including – on p.8 – a conversation with the AA’s new Chief Executive. Read on!

DESIGN AND ART DIRECTION Julian Pettitt, Senior Designer at SCG

HOW TO REACH US EDITORIAL AA Directions, Level 16, AA Centre, 99 Albert St, Auckland Central PO Box 5, Auckland, 1140 Ph: 09 966 8800 Email: editor@aa.co.nz ADVERTISING Moira Penman Mobile: 027 563 0421 Email: moira@gsjadvisory.com.au SUBSCRIPTIONS AND MEMBERSHIP ENQUIRIES: Ph: 0800 500 444 ISSN 1171-0179 Published three times a year Circulation 665,731 Readership AC Nielsen 956,000 PRODUCTION BY: SCG, Auckland PRINTED BY: Webstar, Auckland

Kathryn Webster

EDITOR

YOUR SAY In the Spring 2021 issue we asked readers:

Does the Government's rebate offer entice you to buy a cleaner car?

ON THE COVER Photograph by Nicola Edmonds Design by Julian Pettitt

YES:

28%

NO:

72%

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Blind spots I read with interest the article ‘Sharing the road with motorbikes’ in the Spring 2021 edition of AA Directions. The article failed to mention one vital part of road craft – checking the relevant blind spot before changing direction or lane. Checking the blind spot is the last line of defence. The order should be as follows: mirror, signal, check blind spot, manoeuvre.

Peter Henson AUCKLAND

Good work The article ‘Money matters’ in the last issue (AA Directions, Spring 2021) was brilliant, highlighting that financial information should not be treated as something to be feared. Irihapeti Edwards is clearly a special person who shows what can be achieved with a good work ethic.

Malcolm Chamberlin

FUTURE VEHICLES What we’ll be driving next

AUCKLAND

INTO THE ICE Working in Antarctica

Rough ride How to thrive in the new normal

NOTE: The views of contributing writers are not necessarily those of AA Directions or the AA. While AA Directions makes every effort to ensure that no misleading claims are made by advertisers, responsibility cannot be accepted by AA Directions or the AA for the failure of any product or service to give satisfaction. Inclusion of a product or service should not be construed as endorsement of it by AA Directions or by the Automobile Association.

Have you discovered more of New Zealand since the borders have been shut?

Go to aadirections.co.nz to have your say.

I am one of the professional truck drivers recently written about in your magazine, but I assure you I am not one of the tailgaters. I consistently drive 8,000km per month on a wide variety of New Zealand roads, from state highways to country lanes and tanker tracks. In the last 10 years I have been disgusted with the quality of road surfaces, with patches, uneven surfaces and potholes. I am being shaken to pieces and the wear and tear on my vehicle is happening significantly faster.

What can the AA do to lobby the Government to improve the standards of our roads?

Michael Harding TAUPŌ

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LETTERS

Battery hazard I noted with interest the articles on recycling tyres and lead acid batteries in AA Directions' Spring 2021 issue. This made me consider the power source in EVs, which seem to be the way of the future. Given that an EV is really only a battery on wheels with a few bits attached, what is being done about the end of life for these vehicles? EVs must have a finite working life and they contain a number of ‘nasties’ which should be recovered rather than buried or ignored.

R.G. Newlands WELLINGTON

Mirror image Excellent idea of Andrew Kerr’s to attend a defensive driving refresher course (‘Relearning to drive,’ AA Directions Spring 2021). I attended one of New Zealand’s first defensive driving courses and the instructor said the most forgotten item in the car was the rear vision mirror. In fact, rear view mirrors are so important today that new model cars have

embedded warning lights and prompts to alert the driver. I’m still amazed at seeing some drivers oblivious to a Police car or ambulance coming up behind them with warning lights and sirens blaring and still failing to get out of the way. They obviously never look in their rear vision mirrors!

Contributors

Richard Buddle

AUCKLAND

Back off !

I have found that if any vehicle is tailgating me, my response is to put my hazard lights on for a brief time, turn them off and repeat if there is no response. The response I am looking for is the driver of the other vehicle to react.

Sometimes I think people go into a dream when driving; hazard lights can wake them up. I wish, as a truck driver, that the gap I leave between the car in front and myself was not considered there to be filled by another vehicle.

Fiona O’Brien

ROB PROCTOR

Rob is on the AA Driving School team as a Technical Instructor and provides this issue’s Road Rules update (see p.15). Rob has a background in adult education and enjoys delivering in-class and in-vehicle training to the AA’s fleet and business customers, as well as training and upskilling the AA Driver Training instructor network.

Outside of work, you’ll find him spending time with his family in West Auckland.

ŌTOROHANGA

JODIE JAMES

Wānaka-based Jodie James has been working professionally as a photographer for six years, although she began taking photos back in secondary school. Outside of photography, Jodie makes the most of her scenic surroundings by getting into the outdoors and is also the current Station Officer in the Wānaka Volunteer Fire Brigade. See Jodie’s images in this issue on p.16 and p.33.

Join the conversation online.

Follow AA Directions on Facebook or Instagram @aadirections We welcome feedback and views on articles in AA Directions and on any issues affecting motorists.

Because of the volume of mail we receive, letters cannot be personally acknowledged.

Only a selection can be published and they may be edited or abbreviated for print.

WRITE TO: The Editor, AA Directions, PO Box 5, Auckland, 1140 or email editor@aa.co.nz.

YOUR PRIVACY: This magazine may contain advertisements for products or services that are available through the AA. The provider may be the Association itself, a subsidiary of the Association, or a third party either under contract or a joint venture partner of the Association. Understand that any information provided by you may be used by the AA for administrative purposes and for the purpose of providing you with information relating to products and services from time to time. Where any Membership is an associate of another Membership, then products and services may be offered to both Members jointly or singly. We are always alert to opportunities for products or services to be made available as a benefit to Members, but if you prefer not to receive such personally addressed information, please write and tell us. The Association keeps a database of Members under its control and you have the right to see or correct any personal information that is held about you. If you wish to make an enquiry concerning a privacy issue, communicate with the Association Secretary, AA, PO Box 5, Auckland, 1140.

ROBYN YOUSEF

The Auckland-based writer started as a cadet reporter on a Dunedin daily newspaper back in 1971 and has been involved in many different aspects of journalism since.

Over the last five years Robyn has fallen for Northland where she is spending more and more time helping her husband with the arguably slowest-ever reno job on an old house.

Read her piece on their Airbnb experience there on p.66.

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FROM THE TOP

Nadine Tereora has joined the AA as Chief Executive Officer, taking over from Brian Gibbons, who retired recently after 30 years in the role.

She comes with a wealth of senior experience and is recognised as a people-oriented leader who is extremely passionate about all things New Zealand.

W

hat attracted you to the job of CEO at the AA? The AA brand is iconic in New Zealand and has played a critical role in everyday New Zealanders’ lives for many years. A key attraction for me was that the AA is a Member-centric organisation, demonstrated over many years. In addition, the values the AA stands for resonate with my own values, in particular integrity. The opportunity to lead the Association is extremely exciting, especially given the focus on building a sustainable future here – all the while ensuring Member feedback continues to drive innovation.

Do you have a particular interest in motoring or road safety?

Road safety is important to me; of particular concern is the state of our roads.

Their poor condition, lack of signage and the general need for upgrades have contributed to the number of accidents recorded every year. I’ve seen evidence of this in my insurance industry experience.

I also believe supporting and educating our young drivers is very important, to ensure they have the best possible chance to be safe on their motoring journeys.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY JESSIE CASSON

TAKING THE REINS

CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Can you tell us about your professional background?

When I was at university I started my first customer-facing role in travel insurance, which gave me a passion for serving customers and showed me the difference you can make when someone needs you most.

From there, I grew up – if you like – in the financial services sector. Quite early on in my career I stepped into leadership roles and discovered the importance an organisation's culture has in delivering great outcomes for customers. Customers know if an organisation has a strong culture by virtue of who they deal with and how they behave.

Sovereign was a big part of my career.

I was there for 14 years and held various leadership roles. Also during that time I worked on a start-up in Australia, which gave me really valuable experience and fuelled my enthusiasm for innovation.

I returned to New Zealand and left Sovereign to join an international-based life insurer, where I worked throughout Asia. This helped me understand different aspects of the market and various models in different parts of the world.

Working for a global organisation reinforced my desire to work for a New Zealand-based insurer, which led to my first Chief Executive role, with Asteron Life, which was part of the Suncorp group. When I was at Asteron, I sat on the board of AA Life, met Brian Gibbons and started to understand the AA. Following my role at Asteron, I was approached to lead Fidelity Life as Chief Executive. Fidelity Life was founded by a New Zealander, was family-owned and demonstrated a truly Kiwi set of values, and that was something I was really interested in contributing to.

During my time at Fidelity, the team and I led a significant transformation, not only recapitalising the business with New Zealand-based investors but, more importantly, ensuring the primary focus for the organisation was the customer.

My career has been influenced by my belief that culture drives strategy.

Over the years, I have ensured that any organisation I've contributed to has, at its core, a strong culture of thriving, engaged people.

to ladder climb. Whatever challenge is set out for me, I’ll work really hard to achieve it. My mantra is: work hard in silence and let success be your noise. It’s important to love what you do and I am fortunate to have had the opportunities to truly celebrate what I love to do.

Have you had a clear career plan to get to this point?

I have always been goal-oriented but I am not one of those people who sets out

What was your first car?

A gold Ford Laser; I called it the ‘gold bullet.’ I absolutely loved that car and had it for a number of years.

Did you have mentors in your work life, especially when you were starting out?

Yes. One person in particular, early in my CEO experience, epitomised for me what a strong leader is, reinforcing that leadership is a privilege not a right.

That really resonated with me. I’ve also had great coaches along the way, and various sounding boards, and I’ve realised the importance of that network, particularly as a woman in a typically male-dominated industry.

Whatever challenge is set out for me, I’ll work really hard to achieve it.

Who inspires you?

New Zealanders are achieving extraordinary things! It never ceases to amaze me how many success stories our little country produces. This really inspires me to step up and challenge myself and others to do the same.

It's difficult to single out two or three people who have inspired me, however one of the standout individuals would have to be (Zimbabwean-American) Dr Tererai Trent. She has an extraordinary story that demonstrates anything is possible. She is a most incredible woman, who has influenced so much positive change despite the odds against her.

Ritchie McCaw is another; his relentless pursuit to achieve his goal of being the greatest All Black of all time is incredibly inspiring. Successful teams are not down to one individual's performance; it's about everyone playing their respective roles to achieve a common goal.

How did you learn to drive?

My mother taught me to drive. I had to save for my own car and it was up to me to pay for everything, apart from my AA Membership and insurance!

This indicates you were taught well about money…

I learnt how to budget very early on; my mother was a master in budgeting. I still have no idea how she managed to raise three kids, own her own home, and keep up with all our sporting interests on a hairdresser’s wage.

Did you grow up in Auckland?

I grew up on the north shore of Auckland, in the East Coast Bays.

How about holidaying?

While heading overseas is great, I love camping! I was fortunate to go camping every year to Ōakura Bay, north of Whangārei, from the age of six months to well into my teenage years. The long-drop toilet wasn't a highlight… but the holidays were always fantastic! As a result, it’s not surprising we go camping every year, and any chance we get we head away to experience a different part of our wonderful country.

And your family?

I'm married to Sei – he is a teacher and we’ve been married for 20 years. We have three wonderful girls aged 21, 16 and 14. They keep us busy with all the sports they play.

What do you do to relax? Do you have any hobbies or sports?

I’m an active relaxer! I generally have a project on the go that involves some form of creative design. I play touch rugby in a social team once a week and I also ride horses as much as I can. When you have a busy job and family you need something that is going to completely change your mindset. Horse riding does that for me. I often get my best ideas when I’m out for a ride. I find a clear mind allows creative thoughts to flow.

Is there anything you’d like to add?

The AA has a wonderful history and an extremely exciting future – despite the ‘new normal’ we are all learning to adapt to. We have an excellent team dedicated to delivering the best possible products and service to our Members.

I am hugely grateful and excited to lead such an iconic Association.

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COMPASS

Dan Wheway is a trained chef and former lecturer of professional cookery at Auckland’s MIT who recently returned from a stint as summer chef at New Zealand's Scott Base in Antarctica. He talks to Jo Percival about this unique experience.

H

ow did you end up working at Scott Base?

Early last year I was watching Seven Sharp and saw a segment about working in Antarctica, which sounded amazing.

I turned to my wife and she said, “go on, just apply for it.” It was as simple as that. I put my CV together and applied. The interviews happened over Zoom because of Covid, but I went through the process and did all the psychometric tests, and I got the job!

PHOTOGRAPHS SUPPLIED

How long were you in Antarctica for?

I did a summer season. There are two options for working in Antarctica – you either do a summer, which is from September through to March, or 13 months from September through to the following October. Lots of people have been down here multiple times. It’s a bit like working on cruise ships. Once you get your sea legs – or your ice legs – people love it. They have no problems filling the roles.

How many people are at Scott Base?

When we arrived at the end of September there were around 55 people including the winter overs, which was the smallest number we had.

We got up to about 85. About half of the people are staff and the other half are scientists and researchers. We also had people who arrived at base but headed straight out to various camps around the continent. So, while there may be an average of 60 people staying at base, there could be another 30 or 40 out on the ice.

Was your experience impacted by Covid?

We had to do online rather than in-person training and we were the first group to do Covid isolation. We were meant to be in Methven for two weeks for isolation, but that ended up being two weeks and four days because we got boomeranged back from Antarctica when our flight couldn’t land due to a storm.

In Antarctica, the US base, McMurdo, is only about 3km away from Scott Base but both bases were mostly in amber level because of Covid, which meant there was no mixing. In the first 13 weeks there was only one week of green, when we were cleared to interact with the Americans.

Normally there’d be a lot of socialisation between the two bases, but we had to stay within our own group. Maybe because of that we’ve been told that our team bonded the best out of all the groups who have been to Antarctica.

How many people work in the kitchen?

There are three chefs on base. One is always from the Defence Force of a certain rank, and two civilians. Having someone from the Defence Force means that if the other two chefs don’t have the required organisational skills, they can take charge, even though there is no actual head chef.

But as a former executive chef, I was nicknamed ‘Dad’ in the kitchen. Between the three of us there was a really good balance of talent.

How do you get food to Antarctica?

Container loads of frozen and pantry items arrive on a ship in February. That lasts for AUTUMN 2022

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COMPASS

about 12 months. Then we did an order every two to three weeks for supplies via plane. This included fresh ingredients and top-up pantry items. We only missed out on one delivery because of weather.

But logistically, it was quite challenging. If I placed an order on a Wednesday, it was processed in Christchurch by Friday and then delivered the next Friday to the airport where it was checked for any bugs or infestations. Then it was wrapped up to go on the plane. Often by the time it got to Antarctica it was two weeks old. I’ve been cooking for 32 years; that kind of planning was a very good learning journey!

What is cooking in Antarctica like?

In Antarctica it is very dry. The snow is like dust. The ground is like what you imagine it would be like on Mars. So ingredients like flour are also incredibly dry. When I was making bread, I had to put in a sixth more water to make it resemble normal bread dough. A sixth is a massive amount!

White sugar arrives on the boat and goes into the storeroom where it freezes in winter and defrosts in summer.

Because sugar is a naturally damp crystal, it freezes as a brick and it stays

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as a brick. We had a mallet in the sugar bin to break it into chunks and then we had to put those pieces into a blender to get them to a useable size. So, even getting sugar for baking was a mission!

Food will deteriorate quickly from dehydration. However, if you need something like dry breadcrumbs, you can leave it out and it’s not going to go off. There are also no pests like cockroaches or flies. The only thing we were combatting was dust, and there’s not really much of that either.

Did you have a fridge?

In the kitchen there’s a little walk-in fridge and freezer. The extra freezers are outside, about two metres away, between the kitchen building and the sea. There are also three shipping containers outside for storing frozen food. During winter the freezers are turned off because it’s colder outside than the freezer is. By law, freezers need to be -18ºC, but outside it gets down to -50ºC to -70ºC. During winter, the fridge has to have heaters in it!

What were some of the unexpected challenges?

Drinking enough water. Even when I was indoors working, I needed to drink at least five litres of water a day at an absolute minimum. Otherwise, you feel dehydrated.

Your throat is dry, your lips are dry and the next day you definitely know it. That was the hardest thing. You really have to force yourself to drink. And I had never moisturised my hands so much in my life!

The other thing I struggled with was the 24-hour sunlight. Even though we had blackout shutters on the bedrooms, which take out about 95% of the light, your body still knows there is sunlight and it messes with your sleep patterns. If you’re in the dining hall or the bar after 9pm, it’s bright sunshine – you could stay there all night and not realise.

What experiences did you have outside of work?

The management team makes sure that everyone whose role keeps them inside gets the chance to go out and see some of the continent. I went by helicopter to the penguin colony at Cape Royds. And having the chance to visit Shackleton’s historic hut was incredible. Just before Christmas the ski field opened, so for about a month we could go skiing, and there were fat bikes to take out on the ice.

In peak summer the sea ice starts to break up and the outdoor activities reduce, but at the back of the base there are hills and glaciers where we could walk. When the McMurdo base is open they have sports activities, crafting classes and things like that. There’s plenty to do!

COMPASS

Small Town

Thanks for caring

TREASURES

AA Directions is part of the Soft Plastics Recycling Scheme, a nationwide project to collect soft plastics and direct them to a productive end. The number of soft plastic recycling points is increasing all the time – several supermarkets and other stores now have them. See recycling.kiwi.nz/ store-locator and look for the symbol.

AA Members can also take the wrap from AA Directions magazines into any AA Centre. The team will ensure all wrap collected will be delivered to the Soft Plastics Recycling Scheme.

WIN!

Cast iron skillets and beautiful books are up for grabs in this issue of AA Directions.

Read the story of the inventive New Zealanders designing highly desirable, long-lasting Ironclad cookware and find out how to enter the prize draw to win a set of skillets on p.67.

We feature an interview with the writer of Who Lived There?, a stunning book about special New Zealand heritage buildings. Read more on p.69 and enter to be in to win one of five copies.

PHOTOGRAPH FROM SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Thank you for opening AA Directions! What did you do with the plastic it was wrapped in?

MĀPUA

Māpua, one of Tasman Bay’s coastal gems, was once the area’s fruit shipping port. Now it’s a bustling destination worth so much more than just a brief stop, as Fiona Terry discovers.

A BYPASS WHICH OPENED in 2010 may have made the diversion to this appealing little seaside township slightly longer, but visitors are drawn there for its surprisingly large selection of cafés, restaurants, bars and galleries. It’s also a popular stop on the cycleway – Tasman’s Great Taste Trail; a small ferry links to the golden sands and forest tracks of Rabbit Island across the estuary inlet.

Those travelling by road arrive in the centre with a bakery, shops, sports fields and tennis courts.

Further along is the pedestrianised waterfront precinct, at the edge of which is a wharf where the adventurous leap into the swift tidal waters. A small museum marks the rich history of this settlement, the reputation of which was temporarily tarnished before the clean up of the former fruit chemical factory site, a process that was completed in 2008.

The Golden Bear Brewing Company’s pub and music venue has a window looking onto giant fermentation tanks making innovative tipples such as the Smokin' Otter IPA. Nearby, Hamish’s has long been a drawcard for its ice creams and, for many years, The Smokehouse has served up hot-smoked seafood and fish and chips in generous portions.

By the early 1930s Māpua was handling nearly half of Nelson’s apple crop. The cool stores added in the 1950s now house upmarket shops and galleries.

A waterfront park gives oodles of picnic site options and a boardwalk offers spectacular views towards the Richmond Range. For those wishing to stay longer, there’s a nearby leisure park with direct access to a beautiful golden sand beach.

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TABLESIDE

ASSISTANCE

Show your card instore for delicious extras

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COMPASS

Three cheers for the Car of the Year!

A COMPACT CAR described as fun, fast and frugal took top honours at the 2021 AA DRIVEN New Zealand Car of the Year. The Toyota GR Yaris claimed the top prize in a class field of 30 finalists across ten categories – three-quarters of which were alternatively powered cars.

With the increasing relevance and profile of electric vehicles, a new Clean & Green category was introduced for 2021, with three sub-classes catering for battery electric (BEVs), plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and hybrid models.

But while 24 of the 30 Car of the Year finalists were electric or electrified, the GR Yaris made the biggest impact with the judging panel.

“The GR Yaris made a big impact from the time it was announced,” says DRIVEN editor, Dean Evans. “It’s a throwback to the traditional World Rally Cars from the 1990s, but with 2021 safety and technology.”

Kia’s new Sorento (with PHEV option) took out Large SUV, Tesla’s Model 3 (BEV) won the Passenger class, Ford’s Escape was chosen as best PHEV,

Peugeot’s e-208 GT was picked as the best battery electric vehicle/BEV, and Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 (BEV) took out the Luxury class. The Subaru Outback also scored highest in ANCAP crash testing to take home the AA Safety Award for 2021.

The People’s Choice, voted on by almost 50,000 New Zealanders, awarded the Tesla Model 3 as the most popular

car for 2021, a fitting tribute to a model that, while not new, still resonates with current and future buyers.

For more on the 2021 AA DRIVEN NZ Car of the Year, see aa.co.nz/cars

ROAD RULES

SCHOOL ZONES

With transport authorities aiming to get more kids walking and biking to school, Rob Proctor explains that drivers need to take extra care around school zones and be ready for the unexpected.

• Many school zones already have lower speed limits signposted at the start and end of the school day, and in the years ahead all schools will have reduced speed limits around them.

• Look out for any school speed zone signs and slow down as needed. School zones may have standard road signs, electronic signs or road markings on their borders, but you can also look for the flow of children cycling and walking to or from school and reduce your speed accordingly.

the flow of pedestrians and vehicles. Parked cars near the crossing can block a driver’s view of children waiting to cross, so look for children’s shadows and move your car toward the centre of the lane if practical. Also keep an eye out for signs of activity within parked cars, as a door may open without warning.

• When passing a school bus with children present, the speed limit is 20kph in both directions of where the bus is stopped.

Check your speed when entering a school zone and check again while passing parked school buses.

• If you’re dropping your own children off, ideally have them exit the car via the kerbside. If they do need to exit via the road side, show them how to do this safely using the 'Dutch Reach' of looking over their shoulder for bikes and vehicles passing before opening the car door. Alternatively, open the door for them and escort them safely to the footpath.

• When you’re approaching a school crossing, anticipate pedestrians from either side and drive with caution. There may be a school patrol manning the crossing to control

• If your route to work unavoidably takes you through a school speed zone, scan ahead, slow down and drive to the conditions. A safe speed may be below the posted limit.

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New AA Council created The Central Otago Lakes area is the latest to have its own District Council.

SEVERAL YEARS OF spectacular population growth around Queenstown, Wānaka and in surrounding Central Otago towns has encouraged the AA to establish a new group to represent AA Members in the area.

The AA has a long history of representing local vehicle owners, going back to 1905 when the Otago Motor Association was formed just a few years after cars started arriving in New Zealand. At that time there was an obvious focus on road conditions, with vehicles regularly stuck in mud on unsealed roads, or drivers losing their way on poorly signposted routes, but road safety issues also quickly emerged with the arrival of cars and have been a core AA interest since.

In recent years, specific issues affecting AA Members in the Central Otago area have often been addressed by AA Councils in Dunedin and Invercargill. But Jeff Donaldson, a Wānaka local and chair of the new AA Lakes District Council, is one of ten volunteers living in the Central Otago area who will now be giving more attention to transport-related issues directly relevant to the region.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JODIE JAMES

AA Councillors Jeff Donaldson (Wanaka) and Kate GordonSmith (Upper Clutha).

There are between 25,000 and 30,000 AA Members living in the Central Otago Lakes area and this is expected to grow, with Wānaka’s population alone doubling in the last six years and further growth predicted throughout the region.

The AA was involved in the recent consultation on Queenstown and the surrounding area’s infrastructure and has also been consulted regarding speed limit changes around the district.

“We’re concerned that infrastructure development isn’t keeping pace with population growth,” says Jeff. “Changes are needed quickly because development continues to push into rural areas. We need better approaches to mitigating congestion and improving public transport, cycling networks and traffic speed limits in increasingly dense neighbourhoods. These problems are no longer someone else’s issue.”

While the AA obviously has a focus on vehicle owners’ interests, Jeff says that everyone uses different transport modes at different times of their lives and the Association takes a much wider view than many people realise.

“We’d like to see better public transport availability in the district. We’re interested in the requirements on housing and business park developers to adequately cater for all transport needs. Road maintenance and heavy transport issues are also areas we’re keen to engage the Regional and District Councils on more,” he says.

The new AA councillors live in Cromwell, Alexandra, Upper Clutha (Wānaka/Hāwea) and the Wakatipu Basin (Queenstown/ Arrowtown/Glenorchy area). Jeff says there is a good balance in the group with younger and older members and a range of skills including a surveyor, accountant, some former and current regional council staff, a media and communications specialist and the Chief Steward for Motorsport New Zealand.

“We are all travelling around the district by vehicle, bus and bicycle. We think we have a good handle on issues from a number of perspectives, but also welcome other AA Members to get in touch and inform us of any issues they’re concerned about.”

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FAIR PLAY

If you feel a registered used-car trader – or someone who should be registered – has not lived up to consumer protection law, the Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal is an economical way to ensure the law is obeyed. It deals with disputes of amounts up to $100,000 or more if both parties agree.

Before making a claim to the Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal, it's a good idea to check the Consumer Protection website (consumerprotection. govt.nz) for advice.

You’ll need proof you have tried to seek redress with the dealer yourself; the tribunal is meant to be a last, not a first resort.

If you don't get a satisfactory reply from the trader within a reasonable timeframe you can then make a claim to the tribunal, which costs $50. It can take up to two months to get a hearing. The tribunal is a court requiring evidence and formal behaviour, but lawyers cannot be hired. An adjudicator will hear evidence with a technical expert and seek a resolution.

COMPASS

NEW ZEALAND’S NEW ICON OPENS

PHOTOGRAPHS SUPPLIED

After many years of concerted community effort, the Hundertwasser Art Centre and Wairau Māori Art Gallery has opened on Whangārei’s waterfront.

THE MAGNIFICENT, architecturally unique building opened its doors in late February, welcoming visitors with its zany, exuberant flair and keeping them smiling for the entire experience, with multicoloured walls, floors, stairs, window boxes and atriums. Surprises at every turn include wavy floors, shiny ceramic details, random things popped into plaster between bricks or welded into wrought iron railings and everywhere, mosaic tiles. Hundreds of thousands of multi-hued tiles shimmer, star-like, on the exterior and interior surfaces, alongside recycled timbers and old, gnarly bricks.

On permanent display in the upstairs galleries is the exhibition Hundertwasser in New Zealand 1973-2000 showcasing the art and legacy of Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser who spent his last years in Northland. He was an environmentalist at heart and embraced the organic, thus the undulating ground floor of the museum and the handdrawn quality of patterns and lines.

Also within the centre is Wairau Māori Art Gallery, a large and inviting exhibition space dedicated to contemporary Māori art. Curated shows will change a few times through each year; the opening show, Puhi Ariki, features work of various media by artists who whakapapa to Northland.

On the roof of the gallery is a garden laden with trees – fruit and native – rare plants, grasses and a meandering path leading to the gold-leafed cupola with views over the city and harbour.

Although not part of the official Vienna Foundationcontrolled design applied to all things Hundertwasser, the museum café extends the playful mood with curves, colour and elements made of upcycled wood and locally-made glass.

It has a terrace overlooking the waterfront and a menu loaded with local produce.

Door prices to the art centre vary, locals get a discount and while Covid is in play, visitors need to book time slots to visit.

Fast & furious For the first time in a decade, the FIA World Rally Championship is returning to New Zealand.

Auckland has been confirmed as host of the 11th round of the championship, which will be held across the region from September 29 to October 2, and AA Members can receive discounts on tickets.

With challenging loose metal roads to tackle, the New Zealand section of the rally will be a true spectator sport,

plus fans will have the opportunity to get close to the WRC cars at Rally New Zealand’s venue in downtown Auckland.

The FIA World Rally Championship features some of the world’s most thrilling driving challenges with 14 events on six continents and 15 countries. Drivers and co-drivers

tackle the elements and race the clock over surfaces ranging from gravel and tarmac to snow and ice.

The event has been cancelled in recent years due to the global pandemic, making the 2022 Auckland round even more special.

Check out rallynz.org.nz/ aamember for details

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DRIVE SMOKEFREE FOR TAMARIKI

It is now illegal to smoke or vape in cars with anyone under the age of 18 present, thanks to the work of community groups across the country who have pushed for this change for a decade. Secondhand smoke can lead to serious health impacts in babies, children and young people and it lingers in cars even with the windows open, which is why it’s so important to drive smokefree.

OLAF PETERSEN (1915-1994) was one of Aotearoa’s most talented landscape photographers of the 20th century.

Nature Boy: The Photography of Olaf Petersen opens at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland Museum on April 7, showcasing 60 of Petersen’s competition prints dating from the 1930s through to the 1980s.

While the collection of imagery focuses predominantly on the wild beauty of West Auckland’s landscapes, Petersen’s work also captures local wildlife and the intriguing aspects of the Waitākere community.

A record of their time, the photographic collection explores the social, cultural and environmental changes that have taken place over the past 70 years, making them

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important historic documents. As such, Petersen’s work has been inscribed onto the UNESCO Memory of the World Aotearoa New Zealand National Register.

“He presents an environment that in some cases may be at risk or off-limits today, such as toheroa shellfish beds at Muriwai. Petersen’s heart was never far from the coast and many of his photographs take us to these places, especially his favourite location, Te Henga – Bethells Beach,” Shaun Higgins, Curator Pictorial at Auckland Museum says.

Visit Auckland Museum to experience Nature Boy: The Photography of Olaf Petersen, free with Museum entry from Thursday, April 7, 2022.

COMPASS

Safety measures HOW CARS ARE RATED for safety has changed, with the focus now on the impact on all people involved in crashes, rather than just the occupants of the vehicle being rated. The change to Rightcar, the Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency website that publishes vehicle safety information, aims to reduce the number of people who die or are seriously injured on New Zealand roads, by simplifying the safety rating data.

A vehicle’s safety rating comes from one of three sources: ANCAP, based on crash test results for new cars; or Used Car Safety Ratings (UCSR) or Vehicle Safety Risk Ratings (VSRR), based on real-world crash data.

Now, both UCSR and VSRR use overall safety as the primary measure. This takes into account the safety of a vehicle for not only its own occupants, but all road users involved in a crash, including people in other cars, pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.

Driver safety ratings will continue to be published on Rightcar for both UCSR and VSRR ratings, so people can find out how well a vehicle will protect them in the event of a crash. Other road user safety ratings will also be published to show the impact of a crash on occupants of other vehicles as well as cyclists and pedestrians.

“Improving safety on New Zealand roads is a top priority for Waka Kotahi.

Waka Kotahi is committed to Vision Zero, which aspires to a New Zealand where no one is killed or seriously injured on our roads. Improving the safety of vehicles driven on our roads is a key part of our work to reduce deaths and serious injuries on our roads,” says Kane Patena, Director of Land Transport at Waka Kotahi. “As we transition to a low carbon transport system, we also need to ensure that walking and cycling are safe travel options, so it’s crucial that vehicle safety ratings now focus on all people using our roads.”

A gift for all A SPECTACULAR, SCULPTURAL building in the heart of Christchurch has risen from the city’s rubble and opened its doors to visitors. Ravenscar House Museum on Rolleston Ave is an ode to the family who gifted the museum to the people of Christchurch.

Art collectors Jim and Susan Wakefield had planned to gift their coastal house and contents to Christchurch, but it was damaged beyond repair in the 2011 earthquake. So they changed their vision. Inspired by house museums around the world that operate as galleries on domestic scale, they secured a central Christchurch site and engaged Patterson Associates to design a building that would itself be a work of art.

That now sits, resplendent, opposite the Arts Centre and over the road from Canterbury Museum, which owns and operates Ravenscar House. Visitors experience a tranquil, light-filled interior with four rooms displaying the benefactors’ collection of contemporary and historic New Zealand paintings – including

The fuel economy and carbon emissions data published on Rightcar has also changed, as New Zealand has adopted a newer vehicle fuel economy testing standard – the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP).

The WLTP is a global standard for testing fuel economy, CO2 emissions and the electric vehicle (EV) range of passenger and light commercial vehicles. It is a standardised laboratory test based on real driving data that better reflects realistic road use, including variable speed ranges, acceleration and deceleration.

Because the new testing better represents real-life driving conditions, fuel consumption may appear higher, and EV range lower than under the old standard. While the vehicle’s performance hasn’t changed, the way fuel economy is measured is now more realistic.

“People are increasingly placing more importance on safety and environmental impact in their vehicle buying decisions, and we’re continuing to encourage people to buy the safest, cleanest, most efficient vehicle in their price range.”

Find vehicles with high safety and environmental ratings in New Zealand at rightcar.govt.nz/safe-and-clean See p.34 for an interview with Waka Kotahi CEO, Nicole Rosie.

works by Charles Goldie, Frances Hodgkins and Colin McCahon – sculpture, decorative glass, antiquities and designer furniture.

Ravenscar House also tells the story of the earthquake via the Wakefield’s experience of it, with fragments of their demolished home exhibited and encased in the building’s cast concrete walls.

The museum is open daily and door charges apply. For more details, see ravenscarhouse.com

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FEATURE

It has been a challenging couple of years for Kiwis but we’ve been collectively strong and some good has come from the experience.

We reckon it’s time to accentuate and celebrate those positives and to remember that diamonds are made under pressure.

Finding Flexibility Clinical Psychologist, Dr Sarb Johal suggests we accept and recalibrate.

Jo Percival reports.

COVID HAS CHANGED OUR LIVES. It has curtailed our freedoms, affected our relationships and forced us to re-evaluate our priorities. But despite the process being uncomfortable, frustrating and often quite unpleasant, what if some of this change has actually been good for us?

Dr Sarb Johal is a Wellington-based clinical psychologist who has been practicing for 30 years and working in the emergency management-psychology crossover field for more than 15. He was instrumental in helping the UK Government prepare for the H5N1 pandemic and worked through the H1N1 pandemic. Having lived predominantly in New Zealand since 2005, Sarb was also involved in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake response.

Back in March 2020, when New Zealand first experienced the full brunt of Covid lockdowns, Sarb knew that there were certain things that we were all going to need in order to cope.

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“The concept of staying within your bubble hadn’t come out yet, but it was clear that people were going to be staying at home and that they would be disconnected from other people’s experiences,” Sarb says. “Finding ways to connect with others when we were going to be physically apart was really important.

"Structure and empathy are the key things you need to survive in a crisis like we’ve been living through,” he explains. “You need both. But sometimes you need more structure and sometimes you need more empathy.”

However, after an extended period of uncertainty and restriction, when we can’t do the things that we have always taken for granted, we begin to shift our focus onto the things that are most important to us.

“Rather than focusing singularly on the stuff we do on an everyday basis without really giving it much thought, we start asking 'what do I actually want to do with my life and how I spend my time?'

“It’s been a mixed bag for a lot of people,” Sarb continues. “It may have been the realisation that they don’t spend any time with their kids, and now that they do it’s actually quite overwhelming. Maybe the balance has gone too far and they need to find somewhere in the middle. They don’t necessarily want to go back to how things were, but they certainly don’t want to be in lockdown 24/7 either.

"We are all having to recalibrate," Sarb says. “For those people who can pay the bills and take care of life's basic necessities, the pandemic has provided an opportunity

PHOTOGRAPH BY NICOLA EDMONDS

LIVING WELL

One of the things I think we’re all continuing to learn is how to hold things lightly, not tightly. Accepting that there might be possibilities for things to happen, but we must also be prepared to let them go. ­­SARB JOHAL

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to ask, ‘how can I assert more agency and control in my life?’ They’ve had it all taken away, so when it starts coming back, how are they going to use it?

“There’s also a process of discovery that people are going through. It’s not just connecting with each other, but reconnecting with yourself and figuring out what’s really important to you.”

One of the other key things that Covid has forced us to come to terms with is accepting that things won’t always go as we’d planned or hoped.

“We all have these imagined futures for ourselves,” Sarb says. “We want to be travelling and doing all the things that we love, but at the same time we know everything is so precarious right now.

“One of the things I think we’re all continuing to learn is how to hold things lightly, not tightly. Accepting that there might be possibilities for things to happen, but we must also be prepared to let them go.

“The idea of reaching a ‘new normal’ encourages what’s called status quo bias,” he explains. “We all desperately want to go back to how things were, or at least find some sort of equilibrium so we can say ‘that’s it’ and draw a line under our experiences. But the biggest skill we can develop now is flexibility. Being able to change according to the situation we find ourselves in.

“People often have this false idea that resilience is about steeling yourself

Dr Sarb Johal’s top tips for finding calm.

In an unpredictable or extended crisis, structure gets us through. Creating some semblance of order can restore a sense of safety in our world. Set up new routines for yourself and your family and stick to them. But don’t feel you have to fill every second of the day. It’s a tricky balance between filling your time and feeling stressed by having too much to do. It’s easy to get caught up in the productivity treadmill and to be busy for the sake of it. Be mindful of what you do, and be sure to schedule pleasurable and fun activities, too.

Engage your calming system Uncertainty is synonymous with the pandemic. When your brain is behaving as if you are in imminent danger, it’s difficult to do anything else. Activities like deep breathing

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pushes the brake and slows down our bodies and minds, allowing us to access the more creative and strategic facets of our minds to come up with new solutions, rather than repeating the same action again and again.

Tackle unproductive worrying Unproductive worries make us feel anxious and uncertain, which can become a vicious cycle. Instead of letting the worries go round and round in your head, try keeping a worry journal. Set aside a defined period, say 15 minutes, when you give yourself permission to worry. Write all your fears down. The journal can act as a parking space, so your unproductive worries don’t keep circling around your mind.

This works well if you find yourself plagued by worries before you go to sleep, too.

PHOTOGRAPH BY NICOLA EDMONDS

Build structure

LIVING WELL

Something to sing about Lockdown worked beautifully for a musical family, writes Kathryn Webster.

HAVING A HOUSE FULL of musical instruments certainly helped make it happen, but it was being in lockdown that got the Low family band humming.

Fifteen year-old Maddy was confined to her Mt Albert, Auckland home with parents Richard and Sonja and her 12 year-old brother Jacob, happy enough doing online schooling, but itching to progress her music.

Maddy, who has been playing guitar on and off since she was seven, had discovered the joy of writing her own songs during the 2020 lockdown, playing with a friend over FaceTime.

Between then and last year’s Auckland lockdown, she and friends established a band, called Innovation, with Maddy on lead guitar and lead vocals. That had to go on hold for Auckland’s 15-week lockdown because they couldn’t find a workable online platform; any they tried featured frustrating time delays.

So Maddy persevered on her own.

“With all the extra time on my hands I started working things out and really got into it. That was the positive; there was nothing else I had to do, so I got invested in my music.

“My dad is into music, too. He’d be upstairs on his electric guitar learning a new song and I’d be writing stuff and then we would just grab a couple of guitars and have a jam together.”

It soon evolved into a family affair.

“We made things up and sometimes we learned songs; we spent quite a while on Rock’n Me by the Steve Miller Band... Dad was on guitar, Mum (she took up bass a couple of years ago) would pick that up and my brother would grab the keyboard or drums.

“My brother didn’t always want to do it but when he did, he had fun.”

Encouraged by the experience, Maddy plans to stick with creating music and is confident the family will keep playing together, too.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JESSIE CASSON

against an adverse situation and thinking ‘I just need to tough this out.’

But the problem with that model is it’s really brittle. If something gets through it can shatter your whole world view and it’s hard to pick up the pieces.

“If your resilience model is more give and take, then you can duck and weave around things that are thrown at you. Sure, sometimes you’ll still catch a glancing blow, but it won’t knock you over and you’ll be able to get back up again. Maybe things aren’t quite as good as they were before, but there are things you can take out of the situation because you’re playing the long game.”

Lockdowns, travel restrictions and even working from home also mean that many of us have stepped back from the frenetic pace of modern life.

“Prior to Covid, we were living at breakneck speed, and growth was the only thing that mattered,” Sarb says. “We were living our lives on autopilot, being swept along with that tide. Covid has given us the opportunity to be much more intentional about how we live our lives and have more control over what we pay attention to.

“Just like when we go through a health scare and we’re forced to look at what we put in our mouths, Covid has forced us to look at our diet of attention – what we put through our eyeballs and into our minds.

Screen time has shot up. And that’s OK for a while, but is that really what you want to be doing for the long term? How do you vary your attentional diet? How are you spending that attention?”

So, as we continue to navigate these challenging and unprecedented times, the key questions we need to ask ourselves are: how do we, in the face of constant change, figure out how to stay afloat? How do we remain flexible? How do we figure out and prioritise what’s really important to us?

“People often say ‘I know my values,’” Sarb says. “But when you ask them how they try to demonstrate them each day, or what they try to teach their kids, it’s hard for them to articulate or put their finger on it. We don’t tend to actively assess our values, we ‘just know.’ But this is an opportunity to reassess. Is what you do in your life and what you value in your life matching up? If you can articulate your values better, you can choose how to live better.”

Dr Sarb Johal’s latest book Finding Calm (Penguin, RRP $35) is available now.

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARTIN HAUGHEY

FEATURE

Connecting with nature Sharon Stephenson meets a family enjoying the simple things in life.

BECOMING A GARDENER was never Laura McIntyre's plan A, or even her plan B. Although the Kāpiti Coast resident’s grandmother had a garden that featured in garden tours, and her mother worked at a plant nursery, Laura seemed to have missed out on the green finger gene.

“I wasn’t interested. I’d put a plant in the ground and wonder why it wouldn't grow,” says Laura who homeschools her three children Millie (7), Grayson (5) and

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three year-old Henry. But in April 2020, as lockdowns swept through the world and supermarket shelves emptied, Laura and her husband Sam, who previously owned a real estate franchise, worried they were too dependent on others for their food.

“Relying on supermarkets for our food seemed too risky. We wanted to grow as much of our own produce as we could, and at the same time teach our kids where their food comes from.”

Although their Raumati Beach home didn’t have an ample garden, Laura realised she could rip up the 150sqm paved driveway and plant a veggie garden.

The couple were, she admits, “starting from zero knowledge base”. Thankfully a landscaper friend stepped in to guide them through the process.

In came a digger to build up the compacted soil. The couple bought six chickens and many kilos of mulch and organic compost to help with soil creation. Their friend created a planting guide and five months after their initial idea, the couple started planting raised beds.

“The idea was for an edible food forest which included lots of fruit trees with herbs and vegetables underneath. It’s all about companion planting, so trees that work with each other, as well as

LIVING WELL

succession planting. So, for example, when one plum tree stops fruiting the other tree starts. It means that we’re not overwhelmed with produce.”

Their planting included plum, nectarine, feijoa, orange, lemon, pear, apple and guava trees, along with passionfruit and blackberry vines.

Underneath, they planted vegetables such as leeks, broccoli, carrots and spinach as well as herbs and edible flowers.

Not surprisingly, the couple is firmly in the organic lane, using no sprays and doing things like scattering crushed egg shells around the garden to prevent snails devouring their crops.

Two years on and their garden is flourishing, so much so that Laura has taught herself how to preserve the bounty.

“I now bottle as much produce as possible, as well as giving excess to family and friends.”

A bonus has been getting her husband and children involved in the garden and, she says, they are now as keen as she is to grow their own food.

“The kids enjoy helping out in the garden and we love the fact that we only have to do an online supermarket order once a month for things like cheese and flour.”

Although Covid was a major cause of the pivot, Laura believes her family would have gone down this route eventually.

“But we might not have got there for a few more years. Having time in lockdown to worry about our food supply and wonder why we couldn’t provide our own food definitely sped up the process. Our lives are now simpler and more fulfilling and we spend more time together as a family connecting with nature.

“Lockdown made us realise that as humans we spend so much time working to save money to buy things that save us time, when instead we can spend time doing the things we really want.”

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY TIM CUFF

FEATURE

A welcome addition Fiona Terry meets a Nelson family who found joy in a new kitten.

ASK THE THOMPSON FAMILY to share their memories of lockdown and their answers are overwhelmingly positive – and it’s all thanks to a furry addition to their bubble that proved a playful distraction.

Pretty tabby Poppy had been returned to Nelson’s SPCA two weeks into the first round of Level 4 restrictions, back in April 2020. It was by chance that Andrea Thompson heard on the grapevine there were kittens in need of a new home. She and the family had said farewell to their 17 year-old cat just a few years beforehand and a new kitten had tragically been run over.

They’d been reluctant to think of another pet, keen to avoid further heartache. Besides, busy lives for teacher Andrea, supply chain manager Damon, and two active kids – Gemma, now 13, and Cameron, now 10 – meant there’d

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been little time to settle in another fourlegged friend.

However, with enforced time at home, a rare opportunity presented itself to get to know a new arrival. There was also the hope that the extra attention might encourage a homebody – a cat that would rather snuggle on the couch than cross the dreaded road.

A phone call to the SPCA led to the emailing of a photo of a kitten that the staff assured them was child-friendly and would be a good fit for their family setup.

“I’d been hoping for a fluffy grey male but as soon as we saw the photo of her, we couldn’t resist,” says Andrea.

That afternoon, Poppy was delivered to their driveway in a travel crate for a contactless delivery.

“We’d never had a cat before that we hadn’t already met,” adds Andrea. “The

SPCA just said she had a nice nature and I trusted their judgement. Since we were fostering her, we also had an ‘out’ if things didn’t work.”

Within just minutes it was clear Poppy – named in honour of the imminent ANZAC Day – felt quite at home. “It was obvious there was no sending her back because she settled instantly and turned out to be exactly what we wanted,” says Andrea, who asked for the adoption papers to be sent that same day.

Family members who lived on the same street had to view her through the window so as not to break bubbles.

And Andrea and Damon welcomed the distraction. “It was good for the kids to have something positive to think about when things were so uncertain, and some entertainment that didn’t involve the 1pm briefings,” says Damon.

The kitten featured in class Zoom meetings, slept on the children’s beds, and followed them into the field over the garden fence to play. In Gemma’s school book, published to commemorate the weeks the pupils spent in lockdown, it didn’t come as any surprise to her friends and family that she cited her overall highlight was, of course, Poppy.

LIVING WELL

The eyes have it

Steph Holloway talks to Jo Percival about how best to connect while wearing a mask.

MASKS ARE GOING TO BE part of our dayto-day lives for the foreseeable future.

But how do you communicate effectively with people when you can only see half of their face? Body language expert Steph Holloway explains that it’s actually quite easy to read people, once you know what you’re looking for.

“With some expressions like the contempt lip or showing disgust, you can’t see that under a mask, so instead you would need to look at the eyes and the bigger body language,” Steph explains.

“From the mask up to the forehead you will still see other expressions like anger because that comes down in the middle of the forehead. You can still see surprise; eyebrows going up. You might see if someone is being a bit dismissive if they do the ‘Beyonce head wobble.’”

Being able to tell if someone is smiling with a mask on can also be challenging.

There are two ways of smiling, Steph says. “There’s a Duchenne smile, which moves the cheeks up. People who smile in that way tend to get lovely crow’s feet which go right up to the middle of their eye socket. People who are wide-mouth smilers get lines down the side of their mouth; you wouldn’t be able to tell if a wide-mouth smiler was smiling at you with a mask on.

“But in New Zealand we also do the ‘East Coast wave’ aka the ‘Kiwi chin up’ which can mean about 12 or 13 different things,” Steph laughs.

Another thing that can be more difficult to pick up with a mask on are manipulators. “Manipulator signals are when you touch your own head, face or hair. The average human does this at least 200 times a day.

“Every time somebody says or gestures to you there’s a cause and effect. People will touch their chin if they’re thinking about what you’ve said. They might put a finger over their mouth if they have something to say but don’t know

whether to say it or not. They might pinch the bridge of their nose if they disagree. They might cover or scratch their ear if they want you to stop talking or don’t want to hear what you’re saying.

Touching the forehead is about minor irritations by the temples with stress escalating the closer someone touches to the middle.”

But even if these kinds of small gestures are curtailed by a face mask, there are many other layers to communication. Steph says that if you can see a person’s whole body, there are lots of signs and signals you can pick up.

“There’s so much you can read with a mask on, you just need to know what you’re looking for. For a body language expert like me, facial expressions are almost a last resort. Your whole body tells a much better picture.”

If you want to communicate better while wearing a mask it’s important to use more directional body language, which

is when you use your hands to really emphasize what you’re saying. “If you needed someone to back off or give you more space, you wouldn’t just say ‘can you give me more space please,’ while keeping your hands at your sides,” Steph explains. “It’s likely your hands would come up with your palms showing.

Whenever you see palms it means ‘slow down,’ or ‘back off.’ And the more urgent it is, the further your hands would be from your body.”

Directional body language also describes when you use your hands to gesture, which could be indicating to the person you're talking to, an object, or giving a direction. And people will use emblems when no speech is used at all. This could be a thumbs up, an ‘OK’ sign, or a ‘call me’ signal.

“You can still tell, with all of these things, what people are trying to communicate even if they’re wearing a mask.

“The best advice I can give to anyone wanting to understand body language is to watch people,” Steph says. “It’s not just about the science and facts of body language; you need to love that observation phase of human interaction rather than just waiting for your turn to talk. And rather than just listening, you also need to add in observation to see the cause and effect of what’s happening.

“The more attention you pay, the richer your interactions with other people will become.”

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FEATURE

Down to earth

Kathryn Webster meets an Auckland family who made the most of the long lockdown. and I’m better later, so we split the day. I would do the morning shift at home with the boys when I was able to get involved in their schoolwork. Gregor would have them all afternoon until about 7pm and I would have my time to work, too, so that worked well.”

Gregor has a studio about 20 minutes’ walk from their home, which is where the boys went to spend their lockdown afternoons. It was a chance for the children to learn techniques of preparing clay and throwing on the pottery wheel.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JESSIE CASSON

BEING CREATIVE IS WHAT Sara Hughes and partner Gregor Kregar do. They’re both successful, professional artists working full time in studios in or near their Auckland home. During the lockdowns, that meant they could easily work around having their sons – ten year-old Luka and Niko, aged eight – at home all day, every day. For the boys, it meant access to those wonderful creative spaces.

“Gregor and I both had work to do, but we weren’t trying to do it at the same time. Gregor is an early morning person

It’s the sort of craft that needs practice and, being able to spend time on it, they both got the hang of it. “They really enjoyed the challenge,” Sara says.

They also learned how to make plaster moulds, covering items such as pears and oranges in plaster in two parts and recreating those forms with liquefied clay.

As well as learning about glazing, they experimented with various firing techniques. “We did a raku firing,” Sara says, explaining that this involves removing a hot ceramic from the kiln and rapidly cooling it by rolling it in sawdust so that it oxidises. “It’s a relatively quick process; you can see quickly what’s happened. It’s magical and pretty exciting.”

Both boys are now hooked on ceramics.

“It was great to see their creativity coming through and the range of shapes and forms they made. They were really excited about it, really positive. They made more than 100 pieces… and there were no kiln disasters.”

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LIVING WELL

With pressure on both adults to keep working on their projects – Sara on an upcoming exhibition at Sutton Gallery in Melbourne, Gregor on a show at Auckland’s Gow Langsford, and both of them working on public projects – they thoroughly appreciated the fact that their lifestyles readily accommodated the change in their circumstances.

“I totally appreciate that trying to do regular hours with people in the house would have been stressful. We were able to set it up in a way that really worked for us.”

Another element to the lockdown experience that Sara appreciated was the opportunity to be involved more closely in the boys’ schoolwork.

"It was so nice for me to know more about what they were doing at school and seeing what they were doing with writing and how maths has changed and the teaching of different things...”

Overall, it was a precious and memorable time in their small, intense bubble. “Hopefully we won’t have more lockdowns but the age the boys are, they still like hanging out with us. We thought – we might not have this opportunity again so let’s make the most of it.”

For more information about the artists, visit sarahughes.co.nz and gregorkregar.com

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LIVING WELL

Better breathing

Musculo-respiratory Physiotherapist, Tania Clifton-Smith advises “breathe slow, low and through the nose.” Kathryn Webster reports.

THAT WE NEED TO LEARN to breathe properly may surprise many people.

We breathe unconscientiously; it’s as fundamental and effortless as our blood coursing through our veins – in and out, in and out. But breathing well is something else again.

Clinician and educator Tania CliftonSmith focuses on the value of breathing for health and wellness. She has been helping people correct their breathing patterns for over 30 years and promotes the concept of breathing consciously as a universal resilience tool. It helps relieve pain, control stress, improve physical performance and assist sleep. For those navigating respiratory viruses, knowing how to breathe well makes a difference.

“Awareness of your breath is essential to assist your body in healing as well as for resilience and for many other functions,” she says.

“We know that the most efficient breathing for an adult is low (in the abdomen) 10 to 14 breaths a minute. If you’re breathing very fast at rest that’s a waste of energy; if you’re holding your breath or if it’s in your upper chest not your belly, or you’re breathing through your mouth not your nose – you have to ask, ‘why am I doing that?’ What’s going on changes how we breathe and how we breathe changes what’s going on for us.”

Breathing regulates body systems at a chemical and cellular level for the functions required, Tania explains. For example, if you’re breathing fast as if you’re running but you are not, your body responds with adrenaline. Deliberately slowing your breathing stops the cascade of stress chemicals and calms your body.

“If you’re aware of the symptoms and how you’re breathing, you can bring yourself back. You cannot be anxious and breathing well at the same time. And if you’re breathing well – that will help you not be anxious. “'When in doubt, breathe out’ is the famous BradCliff Breathing Method motto. Breathe out – pause – and then carry on with what you’re doing. Don’t underestimate how our body responds.”

When in doubt, breathe out.

She suggests you then add in a quick physical check for tension, breathe out, relax your shoulders and feel your feet on the ground as the grounding exercise below describes.

Grounding exercise This is an excellent exercise to use in all stressful situations. The aim is to bring awareness to the present moment in order to distract us from our thoughts.

It can be done either standing or sitting.

1. Focus on your feet.

2. Feel your toes, heels and the soles of your feet on the ground beneath you.

3. Relax your knees.

4. Drop your shoulders.

5. Focus on your out breath.

6. Now breathe in through your nose, low and slow.

7. Breathe out.

8. Pause.

9. Feel your feet on the ground and continue what you were doing.

BradCliff Breathing Five by Five technique for recovery breathing Prolonged over-breathing quickly depletes the body of carbon dioxide. This can cause distressing symptoms like tingling fingertips or lips, lightheadedness, poor balance or panicky/nauseous feelings. If you experience this, try this effective and discreet way of restoring CO2 levels that places you in control.

1. Cup both hands over your nose and mouth.

2. Breathe softly in and out through the nose five times.

3. Drop your hands to your lap and count to five.

4. Repeat breathing with cupped hands, counting each breath in and out, up to five again.

5. Repeat this five by five sequence. until the symptoms subside.

Tania Clifton-Smith has recently published How to Take a Breath (Random House, RRP $30). Alongside in-depth information for adults she includes breathing exercises of specific use for babies, children and adolescents.

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Look for the safety rating label

visit rightcar.govt.nz

You can now find simple safety information on cars for sale, to help you choose the safest car you can afford - and stay safe on our roads.

Look for the safety rating label when you buy your next car and remember - the more stars, the safer the car.

How can I find out more information?

To find out more information and to check the safety and environmental ratings for vehicles, visit rightcar.govt.nz 21-321

Did you know that in a crash, you and your family are twice as safe in a 5-star than a 1-star car?

THIS ISSUE IN

MOTORING

34

Steering the waka We talk to Nicole Rosie, Chief Executive of Waka Kotahi, the New Zealand Transport Agency.

36

Cups of sorrow What is needed to win the fight against drunk and drugged driving?

43

Old vs New How does a 2012 Toyota RAV4 Limited stack up against the latest model?

Wheel Love

Kayleigh Simons-Smith is the Queenstown manager for KiwiHarvest, a food rescue project that diverts otherwise wasted food to New Zealanders in need.

“THERE’S A WASTE Minimisation Fund through our local council for community projects, and we got funding from that to purchase the ebike with a purpose-built trailer last winter.

We launched in November. The bike is great; it’s our company vehicle. We have a pool of volunteers using it three days a week to collect and deliver food.

We still do pick ups with a truck, but

central Queenstown has lots of small lanes and it’s difficult to park or find free loading zones, so we thought a bike would be more suitable for café and bakery collection. And we were right!

It’s quicker to do the rounds on the bike than in the truck. And we’ve had great response. As far as we know, it’s the first of its kind in the country – a food rescue project using an ebike.”

PHOTOGRAPH BY JODIE JAMES

To volunteer, donate or find out more, see kiwiharvest.org.nz

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MOTORING

Dylan Thomsen meets Nicole Rosie, the Chief Executive of Waka Kotahi, the New Zealand Transport Agency.

W

hat do you see as the biggest challenges ahead for Waka Kotahi?

We have some strong cultural paradigms in New Zealand, such as that speed equals productivity and that risk taking and driving fast are good things. These are quite deep cultural elements in New Zealand that are just not right when you look at the facts.

Another challenge is one of funding. We're a small country and we want to be ‘First World’ in all modes of transport, but that costs a lot of money and we have an infrastructure deficit to catch up on. How do we sustainably fund the system to the levels our people want, but don't want to have to pay for – at least not right now?

Why does New Zealand have a worse road safety record than most other developed nations?

The countries that are best in the world in safety are investing across a range of interventions that cost a lot of money. They are able to improve safety much faster than us because they're doing safety by design as they build new roads and new infrastructure.

Secondly, I think we do have this very pervasive culture that wants to retain moving fast as a key aspect on our networks, despite the evidence that it’s not safe to do so.

What is Waka Kotahi doing to reduce deaths and injuries on our roads?

Road To Zero is the Government’s road safety strategy for 2020-30. If I break it into the big pieces, one is designing the roads and networks to be safer. This is focusing on our side and median barriers, which are really important, but are also expensive and take a lot of time to improve.

The second piece is to get people into safer vehicles and different modes of transport. The

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third dimension is to have people operating at safe speeds. We have done speed assessments based on best-practice evidence of our networks and we know a lot of them are overscoped for the safety of that network. Another element is to look at behavioural change, including the training and licensing of operators. That will always be a focus but doesn’t produce the same outcomes as other interventions.

The three things that have the biggest impact are infrastructure investment, road policing and speed.

Do you think the public are prepared for the scale of speed reductions that are going to be coming?

Well, we don't know the scale yet because it will genuinely be dependent on each community and each consultation. We are consulting on speed changes in many communities at the moment.

To take a few minutes longer driving more slowly from A to B, you'll see quite dramatic safety improvements with minimal impact on productivity.

Are New Zealand’s highways up to the standard they should be?

New Zealand’s highways are, I think, fit for purpose considering the investment made in them. Are they up to the standard of European roads and German highways? No. But there are millions and millions of people going across those networks; they have been designed for massive volumes moving at a really high pace.

We don't have massive volumes moving through our corridors, so relative to the size of our network and the amount of funding, I think we have a road network that is fit for purpose.

Could it be better and could you design and build it to a high standard? Absolutely. But there is a trade off, in terms of other things you might like to do or investment made in other modes.

WAKA KOTAHI

How are people going to have to change the way they travel in their daily lives if we are going to achieve the emissions reductions that are required of the sector?

While the targets for New Zealand haven’t formally been set, indicatively it would be 20% fewer trips on the road, a 30% increase in the use of electric vehicles and a 20% reduction in hydrocarbon-emitting heavy vehicles.

The first of those is, fundamentally, a dramatic shift. To reduce the number of times that people travel in a car from A to B, you'd have to have very viable options around mass transit, walking and cycling, and have those options used consistently. I think that's a very ambitious goal. That sort of target has never been achieved anywhere in the world, even in cities that have a lot of mass transit. So, I think it would require us to do a lot in terms of changing our behaviour.

It’s worth noting that urban intensification is perhaps one of the fastest ways to achieve transport goals. Having people live closer to their schools, their services and to mass transit is how you achieve a lot of better transport outcomes.

PHOTOGRAPH BY NICOLA EDMONDS

Since becoming CEO of Waka Kotahi have you personally changed any of your transport choices?

Moving to Wellington has changed how my family and I get around. There is a regular bus service right outside where we live, there's a train station just down the road and a very good community where people rideshare and help out with kids and other things.

We use a lot of buses. We use trains. We walk and cycle to the supermarket, which is just one kilometre down the road. I walk there more than I take the car. It’s an example of how you change behaviour – not necessarily by enforcing change but by making it easy for people to live and operate in a different way.

Is there anything you would like to add?

Waka Kotahi is really focused on optimising the transport system. There is a lot of feedback from the public along the lines of ‘you should do walking’ or ‘you should do freight’ or whatever.

There are a lot of views that are focused on a single transport mode. I think we still suffer from the view that, as a roading agency, that's all we're interested in. But I can be categoric that we're not.

Our mindset is very much in the space of how we optimise transport choices for New Zealand.

Our relationships, at a strategic level, are with KiwiRail, Kāinga Ora and others, and they're all about integration, rather than just building roads. And we're looking at how we genuinely create better safety and climate outcomes for New Zealand while we do that. *Responses have been edited and abridged for clarity.

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MOTORING

As the fight against drunk driving continues, Dylan Thomsen looks at what needs to happen to turn things around.

R

oad deaths involving alcohol or drugs reached historic lows a decade ago but have since increased. In the five years from 20162020, there was an average of 78 road deaths each year where a driver or rider was above the legal alcohol limit. That works out at one in five road deaths involving a drunk driver. If you add deaths when a driver or rider tested positive for drugs, the number grows to two out of five.

“It’s incredibly frustrating that we’ve gone backwards in recent years and there are now more fatal crashes with a drunk driver or rider,” says newly appointed AA Motoring Affairs General Manager Simon Douglas.

“Every crash where someone loses their life is a tragedy, but the crashes where someone intoxicated smashes into others and takes innocent lives are particularly horrific.

“Recently the advocacy work of the AA has been focussed on how we can most effectively reduce the risks from drunk and drugged drivers on the road.

Changes need to be made because what authorities are doing right now isn’t delivering the results we all want.”

While deaths involving alcohol have been going up, the number of alcohol checkpoints on the roads has been going down.

In 2014 the Police did about three million roadside alcohol tests and there

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were 48 deaths where someone was driving over the limit. In recent years the number of tests has halved and annual deaths have ranged from 79 to 87.

While it’s acknowledged that Police have been under pressure to deliver on many fronts with Covid and other demands, the AA is one of many groups

New Zealand's drunk driving problem isn't fixed 100 90 80 70

Annual road deaths where a driver was above the limit or refused a test.

79 deaths

60 50 40 30

48 deaths

2020 figure is still provisional and is the latest data available.

20 10 0 2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

3m 2.5m

Annual alcohol tests of drivers.

3 million tests

2m 1.5m 1.5 million tests

1m Test numbers have dropped 50% since 2014.

0.5m 0 2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

IMPAIRED DRIVING

Drugged driving remains a huge problem, too 120 100 80

Annual road deaths where a driver tested positive for the presence of drugs.

97 deaths

60 40 2020 figure is still provisional and is the latest data available.

20 0

18 deaths 2014

2015

2016

involved in road safety that wants the number of alcohol tests quickly brought back up.

Dave Cliff, who used to be the head of road policing in New Zealand and is now Chief Executive of the Global Road Safety Partnership in Switzerland, has no doubt that the compulsory breath testing (CBT) programme is falling short.

“The ideal target is for Police to aim to test each licensed driver once per year, on average. With New Zealand having around three million licensed drivers, a target of three million tests per year will maximise the deterrent effect of the CBT programme,” he says.

“With the increasing number of alcohol involved fatalities, the programme must be the subject of an external independent review to understand where it is failing.”

Dave says for alcohol enforcement to be most effective, it needs to be highly visible, rigorously enforced, sustained, well publicised and also have an element of unpredictability for drivers.

“It is critical that Police have a laser focus on effectively delivering CBT programmes.

Lives depend on it.”

A recent independent review of the Government’s work delivering on its road safety targets highlighted that road policing officers can be diverted on to other duties 30% of the time.

The National Manager of Students Against Dangerous Driving, Donna Govorko, believes conflicting demands on Police and Covid restrictions on breath testing have limited the ability to enforce at the level needed to deter those willing to risk drinking and driving.

She would like to see a wider review of changes that may have happened on the road or in court sentencing in recent years

2017

2018

2019

2020

to understand what other factors could be influencing the increase in alcohol deaths.

“Police can’t be everywhere, so it requires a whole community response to stop drunk and drugged driving. People make choices to abide by the road rules or not. Our attitudes towards road safety and taking responsibility as a community to keep our friends and whānau safe is a choice we all need to make to reduce this worrying upward trend.”

Many people reading this will remember that New Zealand lowered the adult alcohol limit in 2014. The AA supported the change then, and still does, as the previous .08 alcohol level allowed quite impaired people to legally drive. But our position at the time was that it was unlikely to make much difference to safety unless it was paired with other changes. This has sadly proved to be the case, and more targeted measures for the highest risk drunk drivers are needed now more than ever.

Alcohol interlocks are one of the best ways to target high-risk drunk drivers.

They are like an in-car breathalyser that won’t let a car start without a test showing no alcohol present. Figures recently obtained by the AA show how effectively they work.

In 2020 the few thousand alcohol interlocks in use in New Zealand prevented 37,061 attempts by someone with alcohol in their system to start a vehicle. That equates to every single interlock in a car preventing 10 attempts to drive.

“Those figures should convince anyone that doubts whether interlocks make the roads safer,” says Simon.

“Traditionally we’ve just taken away drunk drivers’ licences and then relied on them obeying their driving ban, but

interlocks put a physical barrier inside their car to stop them. There is one big problem with interlocks though – we aren’t using them enough.”

A law change in 2018 made interlocks a mandatory sentence for repeat drunk drivers or those caught at a very high alcohol level. Unfortunately, there are loopholes in the system that are preventing it from working as well as possible.

In 2020 there were 3,488 drunk drivers sentenced to an interlock yet only 2,359 devices were installed, effectively meaning one in three of our highest risk offenders are not complying with their sentence.

“We literally know who these people are, but there is no follow up in the current system to make sure someone sentenced to an interlock follows through on getting a device. We have been calling on the Government to urgently close that loophole. That one change would make a real difference,” says Simon.

There is one big problem with interlocks though – we aren't using them enough” SIMON DOUGLAS The other more challenging issue is that a decent proportion of drunk drivers have substance abuse problems that go well beyond their driving.

“If someone has a serious alcohol or drug problem and it doesn’t get addressed as part of their sentence, then it’s very likely they will end up impaired on the roads again at some point,” says Simon.

“Past AA research showed many of those caught driving drunk have done it before. At a minimum, all repeat offenders should be assessed for substance abuse problems as part of their court process, and rehab treatment made part of the sentence for those who need it.

“Many people these days don’t drink at all if they are going to be driving, which is a great change from our attitudes in the past. The next step in the war on impaired driving needs a coordinated four-pronged campaign from authorities, bringing roadside alcohol testing numbers back up, putting an interlock into the car of every high-risk offender, assessment and rehab treatment for those with addiction issues and introducing roadside drug testing as well.”

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MOTORING

Ben Whittacker-Cook explains why your next car will be your last internal combustion vehicle.

T

he drive towards cleaner cars is no longer the debate. Globally, our most recognisable car manufacturers are doing great things in the electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem. Renault, for example, aims to achieve carbon neutrality in Europe by 2040 and worldwide by 2050, while Volkswagen Group’s e-offensive centres on the launch of almost 70 e-models by 2025, with plans to sell more than three million electric vehicles annually.

With the largest per capita fleet of EVs globally, Norway is in the lead, boasting around 17,000 publicly available

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charging units. Approximately 54% of new passenger cars sold there in 2020 were fully electric EVs, not including plug-in hybrids. The political goal is for the entire Norwegian car fleet to be zeroemission (electric or hydrogen) by 2025.

At the end of 2020, New Zealand’s electric fleet sat at three percent; 12 months later it increased to eight percent. However, the data reveals only some of the story. In December 2021, new EV sales accounted for 17% of all new car sales, with the Tesla Model 3 the best selling fully electric EV, with 619 units sold.

New Zealand may be a long way off Norway’s numbers, but the appetite for EVs, and the EV culture is rapidy changing. Perhaps not surprisingly, China will play a significant role in getting those numbers up.

“China will undoubtedly write the next chapter,” explains Anthony MacLean, Principal at Boost Auto, an independent advisory service to the automotive industry. “There are several reasons why I believe your next car will be an electric vehicle from a Chinese brand you've not yet heard of.

EV GLOBAL UPDATE

“China is the automotive leader globally, making 20 million vehicles a year, compared to Japan, for example, which manufacturers around seven million.

But what do you do if you want to be the strongest tomorrow? You invest in electric.”

Anthony points to the likes of Great Wall Motors (owners of HAVAL and ORA), BYD (which started out as a battery maker in the 1990s) and NIO as the newer manufacturers producing competitive and affordable EVs which, if they aren’t there already, will soon be appearing in your supermarket car park.

“When you look at these products close up, your expectations soar. MG is now Chinese-owned and making excellent electric vehicles such as the ZS, which is extremely popular in New Zealand.

“The BYD Dolphin and the ORA Cat are well built, perform well and have cool interiors. Naturally these EVs need to be good to sway the Kiwi buyer – but they don’t need to be best-in-class.”

These affordable electric crossover SUVs, hatchbacks and subcompacts provide options for all demographics, and while confident car purchasing comes with a fair slice of loyalty and familiarity,

these names will soon be as familiar as our most popular Japanese imports and the likes of Volvo, MG, LDV, Lotus and Pirelli, which are are all Chinese-owned.

“A Chinese brand, made in China, selling EVs to Kiwis is perhaps going to have a tougher job than other brands, but New Zealand drivers are pretty accepting and will embrace new concepts if they are good.”

Polestar and its parent company Geely are increasing the competition and forecourt choice, too. The latter has research centres and design bureaus in Sweden, England and Germany as well as at its Hangzhou base, blending mechanical profusion with European know-how and expertise.

HAVAL is also on a drive to increase brand recognition, having launched the world's first SUV with a C-Class hydrogen fuel cell and applying that technology to 49-tonne trucks and high-end passenger cars, revealed at the Olympic Winter Games.

Anthony says that the stars are perfectly aligned for China’s EV giants to win – and the increased competition will benefit the Kiwi driver. “For people who don't want

a used Nissan LEAF, for example, the starting point is currently around $50,000 and those cars are in short supply.

“So, right now, electric vehicles are seen as rich people's cars, but that’s going to change very quickly. Suddenly with the Government’s existing Clean Car Discount you’ve got a chance to purchase an EV for under $30,000. That’s a game changer.”

Fuel price spikes, driver subsidies and the 2019 Clean Car Standard (encouraging importers to bring cleaner cars to New Zealand by forcing them to balance imports of high-emission vehicles with low-emission vehicles) is widening the gap between petrol and electric.

For many manufacturers, the EV ideal isn’t enough. Going greener still, NIO has dramatically accelerated its innovative battery-swapping technology for electric vehicles by introducing a new Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) subscription model in many parts of the world (NIO has done more than four million battery swaps in China alone), with more manufacturers set to follow suit.

The ability to decouple a car from the battery will bring buying costs down even further, and combined with decreased running costs, the EV market is looking shiny, sophisticated – and affordable.

The golden question, of course, is: ‘great, I can now afford an EV, but what’s the point of having one if I’m going to run out of charge in Invercargill?’

On the road, the charging station infrastructure is looking good. New Zealand has more than Australia, relative to population size, with around 500 public charging sites across the North and South Islands.

ChargeNet leads the way in terms of privately-owned sites, with a network of more than 250 strategically positioned rapid charging stations around the country. BP unveiled its first charging station in Pakuranga, Auckland, in 2016 and it has plans to markedly increase the number of EV charging stations in its forecourts over the next few months.

“It normalises charging and, just as importantly, the culture,” says Anthony.

“If you've got a petrol station nearby that's got good pies, good coffee and you can charge your vehicle in just a few minutes, we’re on our way.’

For car reviews and motoring news, go to aa.co.nz/cars. To qualify for the Government’s Clean Car rebate, vehicles must have a safety rating of three stars or more. See the rightcar.govt.nz for details.

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MOTORING

steering control, keeps your wrists clear of the airbag mounted in most wheel centres and usually means you can work indicators, wipers and even the horn without removing a hand from the wheel. An added bonus is that on long, straight stretches of road, having your hands at nine and three allows you to tuck your elbows into your sides to keep the wheel dead straight for long periods with minimal effort.

Consider your position Some people drive a car for years without realising how much they can adjust their seat and steering wheel (both reach and rake) for optimal comfort and control.

Find a position in which the weight of each arm is split between wrist and shoulder, and pedals are pressed by the ball of the foot. Then adjust your mirrors to suit with your head in a normal driving position.

Stay onside with cyclists

Andrew Kerr lays down some challenges for drivers of all ages and stages.

Review your rubber

Switch to nine and three

It’s all very well having a car with a five-star safety rating, but heavily worn or damaged tyres diminish benchmark safety. (See ‘Be Safe Out There’ on p.41).

Although many of us learned to drive with hands at ‘ten to two’ on the steering wheel, ‘quarter to three’ is now the way to go. This position allows better

Cyclists are vulnerable if they don’t have a dedicated cycle lane. Parked cars and pinch points can quickly bring them into your path and they don’t have rear-view mirrors to monitor the risk from behind.

Only overtake cyclists when you can give them plenty of clearance, at least 1.5m.

Resist being pressured by the car behind you to overtake.

Break out smoother moves On motorways, abrupt lane changes heighten the risk of two cars converging

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Vehicle experts you can trust 40

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DRIVER CHALLENGES

in the same lane. When changing lanes, indicate early, double-check your blind spot, and make the move gradually, not suddenly. Give yourself the time and space to retreat if necessary.

Be streetwise Reverse into car parks whenever possible to reduce the risk of a lowspeed collision and risk to pedestrians when exiting a space. On a shopping strip, if the car ahead is attempting to reverse parallel park, hang back and let them make the manoeuvre. And more and more driveways have walls or plantings that restrict driver visibility at the entrance. Come to a stop and look both ways for people on the footpath before you slowly emerge.

Get more from your gears If the Sport mode for your automatic transmission is pretty much redundant, make a point of exercising it. It’s useful to know how it affects performance and is an asset when overtaking.

Be smarter with the phone We all know that messaging while driving is a serious no-no, so send a message before driving that excuses your unavailability or potential lateness. Then sit back, relax, and concentrate on the drive.

Accentuate the positive Acknowledge good driving and the courtesy of other drivers whenever possible. They will appreciate (even expect) the gesture, whether it’s a quick wave, a flash of your lights or a gentle toot.

You’ll also feel good for the interaction.

Start a safer driving conversation There’s a time and a place to tactfully critique someone’s driving, regardless of their level of experience. That time is seldom when they’re trying to negotiate a busy intersection! With a learner driver, perhaps point out errors other drivers are making, thus encouraging them to observe and concentrate harder. Or leave the observations until the end of a trip

BE SAFE OUT THERE

Check your tyres and windscreens and take care around batteries.

HOW ARE YOUR TYRES?

• The correct pressure for your tyres

can usually be found on a sticker on the driver’s doorjamb of your car.

Check monthly. Tyres lose pressure over time, and underinflation can cause a tyre to flex more than it should, building up heat that can lead to its failure. Underinflated tyres are less fuel-efficient and wear out faster.

• A new car tyre begins life with approximately 8-9mm of tread depth.

Legally, the minimum depth of driveable tread is 1.6mm, across 75% of the tyre’s width and around its circumference. However, keep in mind that on wet roads braking performance will progressively decline with lower tread depths and there is also an increased risk of aquaplaning.

• Look out for any tears, cuts, nicks, bubbles or bulges in your tyre's sidewalls; these are signs of serious damage to the tyre’s structure and are dangerous. Get it checked immediately and, if appropriate, have the tyre replaced.

• Every tyre has a date code for when it was manufactured. Look on the lower sidewall of your tyre for ‘DOT’ followed by several digits. The last four numbers identify when the tyre was made. For example, 3815 indicates that the tyre was manufactured in the 38th week of 2015. Recommendations on when to replace a tyre vary but many brands, including Ford, Nissan, Mazda and Mercedes Benz , suggest tyres be

replaced six years after their production date regardless of tread life.

• Remember to also apply these checks to your spare tyre.

CAN YOU SEE CLEARLY? • Check the cleanliness of your

windscreen, as a dirty windscreen is a significant risk to safe driving.

• Check that your windscreen wipers don’t smear or miss spots. Properly functioning wipers are important for visibility and also prevent a build up of dirt and rough particles that can scratch glass.

• Obviously a completely broken windscreen can’t be ignored, but neither should slight chips or cracks.

Every chip weakens the structural integrity of a windscreen and can quickly develop into a crack that can spread across the entire windscreen.

In most cases, a windscreen chip repair takes around 30 minutes. If necessary, it takes about half a day to remove and replace a windscreen, including recalibrating the advanced driver assistance systems often incorporated in the windscreens of modern cars.

POWER ISSUES?

• If your car is becoming sluggish to start, consider getting the battery tested and, if necessary, replaced. While jumpstarting a car is an option in an emergency, getting it wrong can cause expensive damage. The safest option is to call the AA. • AA Roadservice and AA Battery Service vehicles are equipped with top-of-therange surge protectors to revive flat batteries in all modern cars, plus the experienced technicians will use modern battery testing equipment to diagnose your battery system.

when you can reflect on what went wrong and offer constructive feedback.

Visit aa.co.nz or call 0800 500 222 for Roadservice.

For more driving tips, see aa.co.nz AUTUMN 2022

41

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MOTORING

Toyota RAV4 Limited 2012.

W

e recently took a trip down memory lane, revisiting the third generation Toyota RAV4 Limited. It had quite a life, spanning 2005–2012, and marked a significant step up on the previous model. We investigated how it stacks up nine years later, compared to the latest model.

The 2012 RAV4 was given a longer wheelbase and a wider track than its predecessor, making it more comfortable and more practical for families packing for road trips. The 2012 model also featured roof rails and smart 17-inch alloy wheels. Its spare tyre was stowed in the side-swinging tail gate; the way the door opened could be problematic if you parked close to a wall, so it’s no surprise that the spare on today’s model is not stored that way. The 2021 model is also fitted with roof rails, features 19-inch alloy wheels and has a more conventional power-operated rear hatch.

Size-wise, the current Limited model is the same width (1,855mm) as the 2012 model, however it is actually 25mm shorter; surprising when most new vehicles seem to be getting larger.

Style-wise, the 2012 RAV4 is quite reserved by today’s standards. The grille is relatively small, with compact fog lights finished in chrome – special for its time.

Overall, it has a conservative yet sporty look with its cheeky spoiler. The latest, fifth generation RAV4 looks taller and has more sophisticated styling accents, however it retains the compact spoiler.

The interior of the 2012 RAV4 is comfortable, complete with dark fabric seats. When first launched, buyers of the 2012 model could also opt for a sunroof and leather seating package for an additional $1,900. The standard seats in the model we reviewed stood up well considering the mileage the vehicle had done.

The latest Limited model has noticeable upgrades in comfort and refinement, with leather accented seating, 10-way power-adjustable seats, plus heating and ventilation for the front seats.

The factory stereo of the 2012 model can be controlled via the steering wheel and the six-disc, six-speaker audio system also has Bluetooth for connecting to modern devices.

The latest RAV4 has a lot more going on in the infotainment space. It features an eight-inch infotainment system with satellite navigation, the ability to integrate smartphones with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and audio command is available through a Voice Recognition system. There are also more ways to charge devices, with five USB ports and a wireless charging tray.

The 2012 Limited model we reviewed, like the majority of RAV4 models sold in New Zealand, features a 2.4-litre power plant. The transmission is a simple and conventional four-speed automatic.

What is cooking under the bonnet of today’s model? The capacity has decreased

to a 2.0-litre power plant and features a modern Variable Transmission.

We found the drive of the 2012 comfortable, light and nimble. At cruising speeds, the noise level was also acceptable, considering its age.

But there is no denying that the latest RAV4 has come a long way in terms of cabin improvements, particularly in sound reduction. As the transmission is flexible, at motorway speeds the engine doesn’t seem to be worked hard at all which contributes to the latest model’s fuel efficiency.

In summary, the 2012 RAV4 Limited is still a great performer with plenty of grunt. However, the latest model has a lot going for it, including a vast array of enhanced active safety equipment, thanks to the standout Toyota Safety Sense suite.

The fuel consumption and emissions of the latest RAV4 also show how far Toyota has come, refining an already brilliant product. It’s no wonder the RAV4 is such a popular model today with many New Zealanders still buying this iconic vehicle, both new and used.

Key comparative view Make/ Model/ Year

Toyota RAV4 Limited 2012

Toyota RAV4 Limited 2021

Original Price New

$48,990

$49,290

Price Used

$17,995

N/A

Engine

2.4L

2.0L

Power/CO2 Fuel Efficiency

125kW /224Nm (227g/km)

127kW / 203Nm (137g/km)

Economy

9.6

6.0

Transmission

Four-speed Automatic

Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT)

Storage

540L

580L

A special thanks to Advantage Cars for the use of this used model. See aa.co.nz/cars for more secondhand car reviews.

AUTUMN 2022

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MOTORING

NEW TO MARKET MG HS PLUS EV* 1L/100KM 19.2kWh/100KM Range: 63KM

The second ‘new energy’ vehicle released

by MG Motor, the MG HS Plus EV unites impressive performance and technology with low-emission practicality. It offers a pure electric range of 63km on a single charge, plus a low-emission, fuel-efficient option for longer journeys. Kitted out with conservative exterior and interior design and easy-to-use controls, it’s a pleasant space to travel in. The MG HS Plus EV is priced from $54,990 drive away, making it a tough choice against the smaller MG ZS EV.

RENAULT ZOE* 13.2kWh/100KM Range: 395KM

Featuring a more modern and dynamic design with bold curves, sleek lines and an impressive driving range, the ZOE makes switching to electric an easy decision. The ZOE features new colours, full LED lighting and sleek lines with a powerful and expressive design.

Paired with a completely new electric powertrain utilising a 52kWh battery, this model offers more performance than ever and a range of up to 385km, all on pure electric power. Available at a rebate-worthy price of $63,990 + ORC.

HYUNDAI IONIQ 5 19kWh/100KM Range: 430KM

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With the latest in EV technology and luxury, the IONIQ 5 is a crowd pleaser, drawing from the past to take Hyundai into the future. Offering a generous amount of interior space, lavish occupant comfort and superior infotainment technology, the IONIQ 5 is a vehicle designed to please. Plus there is an entry level model that, priced from $79,990, fits into the clean car rebate category and has a 5-Star ANCAP rating.

NEW TO MARKET

HYUNDAI STARIA* This is a bold move by Hyundai: an eight-seat passenger van that looks like a vehicle from a science fiction movie.

With a strikingly futuristic exterior based on the streamlined aesthetics of a spacecraft, its standout design features include horizontal daytime running lights that span its front end, expansive panoramic windows and roof height optimised for premium comfort. Packed with innovative features, there is a lot going on here; the Staria is anything but ordinary. Priced from $69,990.

MITSUBISHI OUTLANDER* The product of an alliance between Mitsubishi and Nissan, the latest Outlander has undergone a total transformation in every area, bar the three-diamond logo. The new generation Outlander has a bigger and bolder style and the practical, sensible interior feels very upmarket and serious. The use of high-quality materials throughout makes the overall Outlander package much more competitive than past iterations. Available with seven seats, 2WD and 4WD with a price starting from $41,990 + ORC.

PEUGEOT 208 GT* Peugeot’s latest generation 208 GT looks worlds apart from the original 208 from 2012. Its three-claw and saber-design LED running lights at the front and its claw-design LED rear tail lights give this compact car a hint of a wilder side.

The crown jewel of the interior space is the Peugeot i-Cockpit 3D instrument panel which features a hologram display.

This nifty little hatch comes with two powertrain options, petrol engine or electric. As expected, this vehicle has become a hot favourite. Petrol GT priced from $38,990 + ORC. *No ANCAP ratings available at time of writing

www.ancap.com.au

BUYING A NEW CAR? Get advice from the experts.

The AA Motoring Services team test-drives new models and makes of car.

Their detailed, impartial reports are available at aa.co.nz/cars, along with ANCAP safety ratings.

Fuel economy ratings apply to the models illustrated. To compare fuel economy and safety ratings across other vehicles, go to rightcar.govt.nz AUTUMN 2022

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YOUR ROAD TRIP COMPANIONS...

Packed with travel ideas, road trips, maps, things to do and places to stay on your next trip.

North Island Road Trips South Island Road Trips Northland Region Auckland Region Central & Lower North Island Region Upper South Island Region Lower South Island Region New Zealand Touring Map Cycling Walking

Pick up these free 2022 travel guides and maps from AA Centres, i-SITEs and tourist centres.

Order online at aa.co.nz/shop or read at aa.co.nz/travel-guides

Top Spot Janaye Henry (Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa) is a comedian and a finalist for this year’s Billy T Award.

I SPEND A LOT of time in Wellington for work, but I often go there for holidays as well because I love the city. Right now when everyone is desperate for international travel, visiting Wellington feels like going overseas. It’s so good.

I’m a regular at BATS Theatre. I was a student in Wellington and when I was living there I’d watch every single show that was on and be hanging out for new ones to start.

I love Maranui Café out at Lyall Bay. It’s not really a secret anymore as it’s become so well known, but it’s my favourite spot to eat a bagel. I also spend a lot of time in Newtown because that’s where my friends are. Newtown feels like it’s mostly people in their 20s and 30s; it’s a bit of a youth mecca.

Check out Janaye's show Crush Season at the 2022 NZ International Comedy Festival, May 3-7 at BATS Theatre in Wellington and May 17-21 at Basement Theatre in Auckland.

Tickets are available from comedyfestival.co.nz

THIS ISSUE IN PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK SMITH

TRAVELLER

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We loop around a wild stretch of the Southern Scenic Route.

Up close with our native icons in the Tāwharanui Open Sanctuary.

Road trip

Kiwi-as

AUTUMN 2022

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TRAVELLER

TIME OUT IN

NORTHLAND T

his may be the ultimate way to reach a winery. Grab wallet, sunscreen and one double kayak, then paddle 15 minutes across Mangōnui Harbour to the northern tip of Paewhenua Island. Beach the boat and stroll a few metres uphill to Dancing Petrel Vineyard’s waterfront tasting room, which faces historic Mangōnui township and the entrance to Doubtless Bay. Visits are by appointment only and owner Kim Gilkison admits most wouldbe customers arrive by road; the island is actually a peninsula, connected to SH10 on Northland’s eastern coast.

However, the kayaking option is vastly more fun.

We sample eight wines and leave with broad grins and a bottle of oaked viognier tucked into the bottom of our kayak. Somehow, the return paddle seems considerably easier with all those tastings under our belts.

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The unplanned kayak adventure happens only because our hosts at Mangōnui Waterfront Apartments offer lifejackets and the use of several vessels including a stand-up paddleboard. This is a great part of the world to be a water lover, with legendary fishing as well as excellent swimming and coastal walking options close by. The accommodation is a literal stone’s throw from the deep, sheltered harbour that has been luring humans since Polynesian explorer Kupe’s arrival around 900AD. Whalers showed up much later, followed by European settlers and traders, millers, flax and gum merchants.

These days, trade tends more towards café fare and tourist trinkets, with some smart boutique stores and arty offerings strung along the waterside road. The Four Square sells Dancing Petrel wine and Little Kitchen Café has a row of shelves dedicated to local foodie treats

including salt that is harvested six minutes’ drive up the coast.

A couple of men dangle rods off the wharf, which is busy with boats and a pair of Moana seafood chiller trucks lined up to cart away the kaimoana.

Further along, the scent of smoking fish wafts from the back of the fish and chip shop built on piles over the water, and locals swear the Thai restaurant down the street is the best in New Zealand.

The old courthouse, erected in 1892, now houses a gallery while the two-storey verandaed hotel has been serving pints for almost 120 years.

Our accommodation is a similar age to the hotel. When it was purchased by then property developer Daniel Thompson in 1985, he had big plans that he couldn’t bear to follow through with.

“My idea completely changed,” he says.

“I saw the beauty in what was there, and shifted my thinking.”

PHOTOGRAPHS BY KERRY MARINKOVICH

Sue Hoffart stops for a dose of culture and history in Mangōnui.

MANGŌNUI

OPPOSITE PAGE: Dancing Petrel Vineyard on Paewhenua Island.

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: Exhibit A Gallery features beautiful works from local artists, the famous Mangōnui Fish Shop, one of many cute heritage buildings that line the waterfront, kayaking on the tranquil Mangōnui Harbour.

Instead, he instigated creation of the Mangōnui conservation zone, which now protects the town’s heritage buildings.

One corner of the community hall, built in 1894, hosts a volunteer-run library where books are still stamped with ink, the old-fashioned way. Used books are for sale for a gold coin. On the day I visit, the hall has already hosted a tai chi class and a keep-fit class, and the librarian confides that the indoor bowling nights are amusing because the floor slopes. She is a retired chartered accountant who moved to Mangōnui when her husband took up a two-year teaching job. She says the lifestyle and ‘nice people’ have ensured they stayed put for the last 43 years.

A resident book borrower agrees. The night she arrived from Auckland, seven years ago, a checkout operator at the local Four Square store introduced her to a fellow customer who promptly invited her to a street party that same evening.

“It’s the best thing I ever did,” she says of her shift north. “Here, you can smile at people and they smile back.”

And what’s not to smile about, I ponder, as I don walking shoes and head uphill to watch the sunrise. A path cuts above

the town and down to neighbouring Mill Bay, named for the sawmill that did a roaring trade in kauri logs in the late 1800s. Nowadays, the bay is scattered with yachts and pleasure boats and a local greets us with a wave. “Great spot,” we call. “It is,” he agrees. Then adds, “don’t tell too many people.”

From here, a Department of Conservation track connects to the high point I’ve had my eye on. At the Rangikapiti Pā site, I find a man sitting quietly, facing the town. He used to live nearby and, when he visits now, he likes to stay in the same motel on Coopers Beach and trek up to this same spot each morning of his stay.

“I could sit here for hours,” he tells me, as we mull over the historical significance of this place, where Ngāti Kahu found strategic advantage and where we can relish sweeping 360-degree views. Below us, Butler Point is home to another pā site as well as a whaling museum renowned for its artefacts, restored whaleboat and historically significant gardens.

In the opposite direction, Coopers Beach is a perfect golden arc of sand and sparkling sea, with a thick fringe

of grandaddy pōhutukawa trees that obscure most of the dwellings. A tyre swing and a clear-flowing stream complete the idyllic picture.

There are other stunning beaches to the north I’m told several times by helpful locals keen to point out neighbouring attractions. They tell me I can drive to another winery, olive groves, several sightseeing tours, Karikari Peninsula and Cape Rēinga just up the road. But I stubbornly refuse to leave for two days, too content and too charmed to be tempted into a vehicle when a walk or a paddle will take me everywhere I want to be.

For more Northland travel inspiration and to book accommodation go to aatraveller.co.nz AUTUMN 2022

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TRAVELLER

Jo Percival loops around the Southern Scenic Route.

I

at Florence Hill lookout to take in the sweep of coastline at Tautuku Bay, buffeted by the breeze.

Further south at Curio Bay I keep an eye on the waves to spot any resident Hector’s dolphins, but it’s only swirling clumps of kelp in the froth today.

At Waipapā Point I shelter behind one of the last wooden lighthouses built in New Zealand. It’s too windy to stand upright otherwise.

The next day, at Nugget Point, I visit another famous lighthouse. While the clifftop pathway is sheltered from the southerly wind, the vegetation

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JO PERCIVAL

t begins, like history does, with wilderness. Forest, alive with fluttering songbirds. Waterfalls carving their way through rock. Coastlines sandblasted and weather beaten. It is wild here in The Catlins.

Overnight it rained heavily, creating perfect conditions for admiring the region’s most famous waterfalls: Pūrakaunui, triple-tiered and glamorous, and the 22 metre-high Mclean Falls, tumbling down a vertiginous mossy gully.

But as well as waterfalls there are beaches – wild, windswept, literally breathtaking beaches. I pause

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ROAD TRIP

bears the legacy of many storms. Trees, groomed by gales, form tunnels over the path, clinging tenaciously to the rocky cliff.

From the viewing platform I look down on seal pups playing in a mermaid pool on one of the rocky islets. Kelp surges, slick and oily-looking in a narrow chasm. Waves crash into white foam over the craggy, inhospitable rocks with thunderous booms.

Gulls wheel and lament, while the stoic white lighthouse stands guard above it all.

Split across the Mataura River, Gore Maruawai is a pretty town that does not live up to its parochial reputation. Gore is home to fresh street art, the classic, Instagrammable Creamoata building and one of the best provincial art galleries in New Zealand.

The Eastern Southland Gallery is housed in a curvaceous brick building that was once the public library, now expanded to fit the gallery’s seriously impressive collections. Inside, ornate ceilings are painted deep charcoal to offset the clean white walls showcasing the works from some of New Zealand’s most renowned artists: Ralph Hotere, Rita Angus and Theo Schoon are all featured here.

On a sunny evening, the Gore Public Gardens are a treat. I stroll amongst manicured beds of roses, camellia bushes and rhododendrons and find a well-populated aviary with exotic birds clearly accustomed to human interaction. A bright green parakeet flutters down to a perch at eye level and wolf whistles just centimetres from my nose.

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Nugget Point Lighthouse, the dramatic coastlines of Southland, Gore's Eastern Southland Gallery, Gore Public Gardens, the Faith in Fiordland on Lake Te Anau.

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TRAVELLER

Heading out of town the next day, I stop in at Mandeville, where a grassy airstrip in the middle of the countryside has evolved into an extensive collection of aircraft with an on-site restoration workshop.

At the Croydon Aviation Heritage Centre the majority of planes on display are De Havillands, with cheerful yellow Tiger Moths and an impressive blue Dragonfly sitting alongside a bright orange Fox Moth that was once a passenger plane on the West Coast. Meticulously maintained by the local community trust, the best part about the collection is that the majority of the aircraft are still in service, often participating in classic air shows or taking scenic flights from the neighbouring paddock.

Despite Fiordland’s reputation for being one of the wettest places in New Zealand, I arrive in Te Anau on a cloudless, windless afternoon. The lake gleams in the sunshine, lapping gently at the stony beach. I slip off my shoes and sit with my feet in the cool water.

It is the definition of tranquility, still but for the occasional slosh of a boat’s wake and tūī song.

The best way to appreciate a waterside location is to get onto the water. I board the Faith in Fiordland for an indulgent evening cruise, exploring Lake Te Anau with wine and canapés. A 1935 motor yacht, Faith was originally built in Scotland and hosted esteemed passengers including Winston Churchill, before eventually making her way to New Zealand in the 1980s. Her heritage has been restored and preserved, with glossy oak paneling, red velvet squabs and weathered wooden decking.

We set off from the jetty into the low evening sunshine, golden and glinting on the ripples worked up by an afternoon breeze.

Lake Te Anau is the second largest lake in New Zealand; the largest in the South Island, stretching for more than 60km, with 30km-long fiords branching off the main lake. Marie, the boat’s captain, tells me that

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South Fiord is quite similar to the famous Sounds on the other side of Fiordland, though with fresh water rather than ocean. And, of course, no dolphins.

I finish my day aboard a train bound for nowhere.

One of the quirkier accommodation options at Te Anau Lodge is the Fiordland Carriage – a repurposed train carriage from Dunedin’s Taieri Railway nestled at the bottom of the garden. Refitted to include a comfortable bed, a bathroom midway down the carriage and a traditional train seating area, it’s unconventional and utterly charming.

Driving south in the morning, the snow-topped mountains twinkle, backlit against blue in my rearview mirror. Ridgelines taper to the coast where more shades of blue merge on a hazy horizon. The wild stretch of Foveaux Strait is masquerading as a lake on a windless afternoon, calm, flat and deceptively tranquil.

On the southern coast, Gemstone Beach is a fossicker’s dream and a parent-of-toddlers’ nightmare: a beach that looks like it’s made of colourful jelly beans. Ocean-smoothed stones are washed and glossy from the waves. Semi precious stones are often

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Beautifully preserved aircraft at the Croydon Aviation Heritage Centre; aboard the Fiordland Carriage at Te Anau Lodge; colourful pebbles at Gemstone Beach.

ROAD TRIP

Visitor information

The writer was hosted by Great South who arranged this journey around the lower portion of the Southern Scenic Route.

The road trip from Invercargill through The Catlins to Te Anau and back to Bluff is 621km, and is best completed over five or six days.

Te Anau

Gore Gemstone Beach

found here, too, from quartz to garnet and even sometimes gold. I leave with a pocket of colourful surf-tumbled pebbles.

Riverton Aparima is having a lie-in on Saturday morning, snuggled under a blanket of soft grey fog. A small coastal village, tucked between Taramea Bay and the Pourakino River, Riverton has a strong creative pulse. With its back to the river, the main street is lined with pre-war heritage buildings, many painted in vibrant murals and housing independent galleries, antique shops, crafts, and quirky knick-knacks.

From Riverton, I head into Southland’s Big Smoke. Invercargill Waihōpai is famous for its Scottish heritage and wide streets, named for rivers in the British Isles, including Dee and Tay, as well as the Forth, Tyne, Thames and Spey.

By far the largest tourist attraction here is Bill Richardson Transport World, founded by a classic car aficionado. It is vast to the point of overwhelming – sprawling over 15,000 square metres; an entire city block – winding through a series of linked, cavernous warehouses.

Inside, under the museum lights, the vehicle collection is immaculate. Bright, beautiful bonnets sparkle, regularly and lovingly dusted by a team of volunteer retirees. Alongside cars and trucks, there are also classic tractors, a fascinating wearable arts display, more than 250 beautifully restored historic petrol pumps, a vintage tea towel collection, classic children’s pedal cars, die-cast toy cars and a chronological collection of jukeboxes dating from 1935 until the 1980s.

It’s a short drive from Invercargill to Bluff Matapōhue, where the iconic signpost at Stirling Point seems a fitting spot to finish my journey, closing the Southern Scenic Loop. Wisps of sea fog hang around on a windless afternoon as I wander along Foveaux Track, an easy stroll through hardy coastal trees thick with tūī and korimako, surf fizzing placidly below, benign in the sunshine.

Riverton

INVERCARGILL

Nugget Point Florence Hill Lookout

Stirling Point

Curio Bay

ABOVE: The majestic Pūrakaunui Falls in The Catlins are impressive after rain; the famous Stirling Point signpost at Bluff Matapōhue.

For more Southland and The Catlins travel inspiration, see aatraveller.co.nz AUTUMN 2022

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TRAVELLER

PHOTOGRAPHS BY HAMISH BARWICK

kes a pictorial Hamish Barwick ta y’s streets. tour of the river cit

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WHANGANUI

I

t was a pleasant surprise to discover Whanganui’s love of and support for street art. There is art everywhere, both in the central city and further afield, like in the seaside suburb of Castlecliff.

And it’s accessible anytime; no need to enter a gallery or queue to pay an admission fee. Street art is there for all to enjoy, always.

In past years the city has celebrated its street art in an annual event called Whanganui Walls. Other artists in the fields of glassblowing, ceramics and painting opened their studios and the city put on a free music festival.

The public was able to watch artists such as SwiftMantis working on their giant canvases during the festival. And recently, several new pieces have popped up, such as ‘Hangar’s Home,’ a homage

by SwiftMantis to a stray cat that hangs out by the airport.

On another street, another building is given life with a huge man in a diving helmet exploring the sea floor. Entitled ‘Aquanaut, Find,’ it was painted by Milarky.

Elsewhere, in a carpark off Drews Avenue, is ‘Te Ao Marama (The World of

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Light)’ a powerful portrayal of a wāhine crying – painted with great expression

by Jacob Chrisohoou.

Another favourite is of a kārearea – a New Zealand native falcon – flying over the Whanganui CBD, painted by Charles and Janine Williams.

Visitors to Whanganui can spend the best part of a day checking out the street art, discovering surprises around many corners. Even locals find delight, spotting work they’d not seen before, perhaps stumbling upon the black and

white stylings of Simon Ormerod aka Cracked Ink next to the Whanganui Opera House. His art is in several locations, including by the Sarjeant Gallery (currently closed for renovations) and behind the Whanganui RSA.

For more inspiration and information on things to see and do in Whanganui, visit aatraveller.co.nz

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AUTUMN 2022

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TRAVELLER

Vanessa Trethewey joins a night tour in Tawharenui Regional Park.

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY LOLA MEDIA

C

reeping stealthily through the undergrowth on a dark and stormy night, red light torches clutched in clammy palms, it’s hard not to giggle. The melancholic call of a ruru floats through the night, but our small band of strangers remains soundless.

No, we’re not hunting for truffles or scoping out nocturnal laser tag targets, we are scouring the native bush for something far more elusive. And with Vanessa Wards at the helm, we couldn’t be in better hands.

Ness is a nature-lover, self-confessed patriot and owner/operator of Kiwiness Tours, a boutique Matakana Coast tour company that gives new meaning to the word ‘local.’ Raised quite literally in the Tāwharanui Regional Park, Ness offers everything from vineyard and craft beer tours to local foodie forays and personalised adventures. But her three-hour nocturnal kiwi walks in the Tāwharanui Open Sanctuary are the real gems.

TĀWHARANUI REGIONAL PARK

Most people haven’t seen a kiwi in the wild and it’s quite a thrill to get up close to them in their natural habitat.

“Most people haven’t seen a kiwi in the wild and it’s quite a thrill to get up close to them in their natural habitat,” says the 34-year-old. She’s not wrong. Our group was in awe as not one, but three northern brown kiwi nonchalantly foraged for food just a few steps away from their astonished audience.

Living predator-free for close to two decades, they haven’t got much to worry about. Thanks to the efforts of communitybased TOSSI (the Tāwharanui Open Sanctuary Society) and the Auckland Council, a 2.5km predator-proof fence was erected across the peninsula in 2004; more than 200 northern brown kiwi were introduced, along with other endangered birds such as takahē, kākāriki, kākā and tīeke saddleback. Now the place is teeming with native wildlife.

“We always see roosting kererū and I have my resident ‘Pete the Pigeon’ who sleeps on the same branch above the trail each night. There are plenty of ruru, which can be hard to spot but I love pointing out their different calls and, especially in the summer months, the kākā, which are very noisy parrots.”

Add to that a slew of New Zealand tree wētā, eels, wetlands and native forest, there’s plenty to look at.

Visitors are picked up from Matakana Village and, before the night walk begins, treated to a stroll along the Tāwharanui coastal headlands for hot

chocolate and cookies at the sanctuary hut, where Ness shares a history of the park and those residing in it.

This guide knows her stuff. Her dad Colin has only recently retired after 38 years as a Tāwharanui park ranger; Ness lived on site in the ranger’s house until she was 10. After that they moved up the dirt road a few kilometres to their family farm at Christian Bay. Her childhood backyard was a playground of rolling farmland, bush and some of the country’s most spectacular beaches.

“We had a pretty amazing upbringing, with all the beautiful beaches and bays at on our doorstep. It’s fair to say my siblings and I were never bored.”

But it wasn’t until Ness left to explore the rest of the world that she truly understood there’s no place like home.

“I went overseas at 18, first to the mines in Western Australia and then to Ireland where I worked in outdoor education. From there I moved to Queenstown and spent six years working as a hiking and tour guide. That’s where I launched my first tour company.”

Eventually, yearning to showcase her own backyard, she returned to Matakana and rebranded her tour company Kiwiness Tours: Matakana Coast Tours and Transport.

“I’ve genuinely never felt so patriotic.

This place is a wonderland and I really can’t say I’ve found a more beautiful beach than Tāwharanui in all my travels.

“I’m definitely a chip off the old block.

Dad has inspired a love of nature, people and the local area, so I know I’m in the right place.”

When Covid hit, Ness remained resolute, working as a fencing labourer during the lockdowns to pay the bills.

“Outside of lockdowns I’ve been busier than ever. I’ve had great feedback and lots of my tour bookings are through word of mouth. It’s a good feeling knowing that people recommend my tours to friends and family.”

Why does she reckon Kiwiness Tours are such a hit?

“We are so close to Auckland and people are keener than ever to explore close to home. Plus the best way to travel is always with a local!”

For more information, see kiwinesstours.co.nz.

See aatraveller.co.nz for more Auckland travel stories.

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TRAVELLER

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AORAKI MOUNT COOK

Mark Meredith ticks off an iconic Kiwi destination.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARK MEREDITH

W

hen bucket list dreams come true. That was the thankful feeling I had gazing from my hotel balcony at sunrise, on a beautiful clear morning, to mighty Aoraki Mount Cook.

The tip of the mountain’s snowy peak sparkled in the sun’s first rays. On my left the hanging glaciers on Mount Sefton were lit up, while the slumbering Hooker Valley which stretched past Mount Wakefield to Mount Cook waited on the spark of the sunshine. If there is a more dramatic view from any hotel room in the world I’d like to see it because this one surpassed all expectations.

In 2014, while on a motorhome trip around the South Island with the kids, we paid a flying visit to The Hermitage Hotel in Mount Cook National Park. So sensational was its location and views of the famous mountain, so magnificent the scenery in the park, we vowed to return one day and stay a while.

In November, my wife and I flew to Queenstown to tick off that bucket list item. We picked up a SUV at Queenstown Airport and headed into town for the night. With our borders closed, Queenstown was quieter than I’d ever seen it; finding a table for dinner was easy.

The approach to Mount Cook National Park is made alongside the large and impossibly blue Lake Pūkaki. Like the nearby Tasman Lake, its incredible colour comes from fine silt particles, or glacial flour in the water, a result of glacial erosion of the Tasman Glacier.

The Tasman Glacier is New Zealand’s longest, stretching for 27km with a depth of over 600m, flowing from the Southern Alps to the Mackenzie Basin. It’s one of the only lakes in the world with its own icebergs.

The glacier lake trip has to be booked through The Hermitage. After an informative commentary on the bus, we were dropped off and walked 15 minutes to the dock at the moraine wall where we boarded three motorised dinghies.

It was a cloudless blue day, perfect for seeing the glacier wall, which had calved overnight, scattering small icebergs that floated like glistening jewels on the milky blue water.

The dinghies won’t go within 200m of the glacier wall for safety reasons and I was quite happy to keep my distance.

Even in the sun, the wind sweeping over the lake was icy. The thought of tumbling into iceberg-strewn water didn’t bear thinking about.

The glacier trip was part two of a long, tiring day that would include a 10km trek in the afternoon. I had been up before sunrise on the balcony of our sixth floor room to take dawn photos of the mountain. Right now, lunch was calling.

The Hermitage is designed in a dark grey granite, to blend in with the mountains. It’s not terribly attractive.

If it was located in a town or along the coast, the hotel would dominate its surroundings in a negative way, but here, among the snow-capped peaks, it looks almost puny.

This is the third iteration of The Hermitage. The first was small, not much more than a cottage, built in 1884.

A larger one was built in 1914 to cater to the increasing numbers of visitors to the area, but it burned down in 1957. The Government quickly built a new one in the modernist style we see today, in 1958.

The 10-storey Aoraki Wing, with its spectacular views, was completed in 2001. We moved into that wing for our last night, on the ninth floor. Huge glass windows to Mount Sefton and Mount Cook fill your vision as you enter. A telescope is provided for each of these premium rooms.

Although Covid caused an announcement that the hotel would close indefinitely in May 2020 with the loss of 157 jobs, it thankfully reopened in September. It was very busy when we arrived, and the wonderful staff were obviously thrilled to be up and running again.

Among the attractions the hotel offers is a Sir Edmund Hillary museum and a cinema which shows films about the area and mountain rescues. A fine statue of Sir Ed, who honed his pre-Everest mountaineering skills on Mount Cook, stands gazing down the valley looking towards his beloved mountain.

The hazards of exploring the alpine wilderness, showcased in the cinema, are brought home when you walk the valleys below glacier-laden peaks in everchanging weather and hear thunderous avalanches rumbling in the distance.

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Near the beginning of the Hooker Valley Track is a poignant memorial to all who have died climbing here.

The 5km Hooker Valley walk to the Hooker Lake at the foot of Mount Cook is the park’s most popular trek. We are not walkers, per se, and in the heat we found it quite hard going, measuring our progress by each suspension bridge. But we both agreed: it’s the most impressive

walk we have ever done, so beautiful it’s enough to bring you to tears. I’ve never felt quite so awed by nature and its magnificence as I did on the Hooker Valley walk: the mountains rising steeply around us, scarred by massive landslides; the glaciers hanging off Mount Sefton above Mueller Glacier Lake; the roaring grey river washing over giant boulders; the diversity of alpine vegetation.

After crossing the Mueller suspension bridge, the landscape changed as we followed the Hooker River to its source, the glacial lake below Mount Cook. The valley opened up and a beautiful boardwalk took us over snow tussock, spear grass, large mountain daisies, and the iconic Mount Cook lily which sprouted in beautiful clumps at the pathway’s edge. At the end, above the freezing glacial lake, Mount Cook rose into the blue sky above us, jagged, dangerous, dazzling, wonderful.

What a finish. Now we just had to walk all the way back.

The next day, as we prepared to leave, the weather closed in over the mighty mountain, shutting it off from view.

Grey clouds scudded low and lowering, sending icy rain sweeping over Hooker Valley which was fast disappearing before our eyes. We congratulated ourselves for doing the wonderful walk the previous day, vowing to return to Aoraki Mount Cook one day and do it all over again.

For more travel ideas and inspiration, see aatraveller.co.nz 60

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HOME & LIVING

PHOTOGRAPHS BY EMMA WILLETTS

Home & Living

A dream come true Sue Hoffart visits an extraordinary home near Ōamaru.

FORGET FICTION. The queen of Riverstone Castle can spin a rollicking yarn to rival any imagined tale, while showing paying guests her extraordinary home.

Flamboyant septuagenarian Dot Smith grew up in a humble Wellsford farmhouse, reading about princesses and dungeons, secret doors and hidden passageways.

She then cemented her childhood dreams while visiting grand English manors and historic castles. Fifty years on, the North Otago entrepreneur has donned a regal costume to take ticketholders through the stone castle she built with husband Neil.

Dot travelled overseas multiple times to furnish the audacious 1,200m2 abode, which sits on an island in a human-made lake 15 minutes’ drive from Ōamaru. Long before commissioning an architect, Dot spent decades tearing inspiring pages from magazines and stashing away English antiques for her future home. She also collected Mexican doors studded with handmade nails, exotic fabrics, suits of armour and vast swathes of decorative crockery. Local stonemasons used 20,000 concrete blocks and 150 tonnes of locally quarried Ōamaru stone, while other artisans were commissioned to carve stone gargoyles and a grand stained glass window that features the family crest.

The castle’s distinctive white turrets stand on Smith land that encompasses a dairy farm, retail shops and an always-busy restaurant surrounded by four hectares of impressive gardens.

Chef son Bevan is behind the award-winning Riverstone Kitchen, which employs 20 staff during busy periods. Farming is Neil’s domain – he and son Mike have developed AUTUMN 2022

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HOME & LIVING

several dairy farms in the Waitaki district – and he supplies the restaurant with beef and pork. But Dot remains at the centre of it all.

She is the one who dried flowers and converted an old barn into a shop to help fill family coffers when the children were young and money was tight. Other farm buildings were subsequently overtaken by a dizzying array of giftware and homewares, soon to be housed in a new purpose-built retail centre.

It was Dot who created the lush, productive gardens from barren ground, transforming what she describes as “a gravel pit with not an ounce of soil.”

At age 74, she still helps Bevan make preserves in the restaurant kitchen and is wholly responsible for the grand floral arrangements that adorn both the castle and the restaurant. “They only take five minutes,” she insists. Though she does admit to spending hours digging and weeding and planting in the garden when she isn’t engaged in sword fights

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or sleepovers with the grandchildren. Or playing the piano. Or knitting. Or painting. Or showing visitors through her home.

On an unseasonably miserable Friday afternoon, the born performer quickly has her tour guests hooting with laughter behind their masks.

She’s glad of her own mask, she tells her assembled guests, having lost a tooth two days ago. And her current costume is pleasingly cool after spending a month encased in brocade and velvet, dressed as Anne Boleyn. With perfect comic timing, she lists other wardrobe failures involving gaping bustlines and too-tight waistlines.

The one-hour tours run periodically throughout the year. The first time she opened the castle it was a sell-out fundraiser for breast cancer that saw almost 3,000 people traipse through the doors in three days. Recently, the $30 ticket proceeds are also

ABOVE: Dot's castle sits on an island in a lake and is surrounded by four hectares of gardens.

RIGHT: Dot spent years collecting crockery, fabrics and suits of armour to furnish the castle.

HOME & LIVING

helping fund construction of a stacked stone building, designed

by Dot to resemble an old English mill house, to accommodate disabled guests or families. Once that project is complete, visitors will be able to stay overnight in the cottage on the edge of the island, or in the castle’s upstairs rooms.

Those who stay only an hour should be prepared for anything. On one recent tour involving 40-plus people, an impromptu operatic performance broke out on the staircase after Dot discovered some guests had held starring roles in her favourite musicals. The private show brought her close to tears; she was especially tickled to learn one of the singers had performed for the Queen of England several times.

Visitors are asked not to touch anything in what is, they are reminded, a private home. (Dot and Neil retreat to their original farm cottage while tours are running, as “poor old Smithy can’t bear the thought of people walking through his house.”)

Guests see the extraordinary master bedroom, where a canopied bed lies beneath a painted light fixture featuring starry constellations in the night sky directly above the castle.

They learn the provenance of grand chandeliers, marble fireplaces and elaborately-tiled bathrooms and might hear the stories behind a Parisian cemetery mural and a photograph of Dot and friends with Prince Charles.

Then, if they are lucky, their hostess may laughingly throw on a wig and witch’s hat and gather up a broom to utter an “abracadabra and weasel’s ear” spell, before ushering everyone out of her dungeon and into the real world.

See Riverstone Castle's Facebook page for tour details.

A subscription to AA Home Response Plus gives you access to expert tradespeople any time of the day or night, and up to six free emergency callouts. Our tradespeople help with a range of household emergencies and aim to be there within the hour, or at a time that suits you.

To find out if AA Home Response Plus is available in your area and for your type of home, go to aahome.co.nz, call 0800 AA Home (0800 224 663) or visit your nearest AA Centre.

AUTUMN 2022

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Robyn Yousef takes a deep breath and launches into the Airbnb business.

LOTS OF OUR FRIENDS were doing it and tried to encourage us, but I wasn’t convinced I wanted strangers staying in my freshly-renovated house by the sea.

We’d bought the very worst, most unloved house in a small seaside settlement in Northland. It took us years and many minor dramas to gut and remodel, and the locals were all very complimentary about the house’s new look.

After patting us on the backs, they’d then ask: “Are you going to do Airbnb?”

I wasn’t keen. I knew it was a growing trend in our enclave. Noone claimed great riches, but I knew it

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provided welcome extra income and friendships were even forged with guests.

Initially I stuck to my proverbial guns.

“Let’s keep upstairs for us and the two units downstairs (conveniently with bathrooms and kitchenettes) for our family and friends. Let’s enjoy these retirement years surrounded by the people we want to be with, not some randoms.”

Then I saw our rates bill. We were paying more for our reno than we were for our home in Auckland.

Bring on the randoms! I joined the happy band of people who have hooked into the Airbnb phenomenon.

I asked countless questions about kettles and toasters, bed linen and towels. Together with my husband (who was annoyingly enthusiastic), we did the research and acquired a charming couple as agents.

Our first experience did not go well.

It was the New Year and our guests were young kids wanting to party, but conscious of us old fogies in residence upstairs. I thought they were slightly reticent when I rushed down and welcomed them in with a (virtual) hug.

They left early, complaining we were “a bit too worried about their welfare.”

Since then we have had moderate success. I have watched Alex Polizzi (the British hotel inspector) for winning tips to give my place that edge. I’ve taken to double-checking under the bed for dust, and another Alex idea is a free postcard for each guest.

Other things I’ve learned are that my white, high-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets feel great next to the skin, but are not as practical as other colours; it’s unaffordable to offer hand-milled French soap or the finest in coffee and tea blends. If you are going to rent the place out, the lure is the care taken with presentation, facilities offered, the location and the affordability.

And if you happen to live on site or be there when guests arrive, don’t welcome them with a hug or a kiss on each cheek.

It’s a business transaction. Friendships are sometimes forged but don’t push it.

AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY LESLIE NOBLE

HOME & LIVING

HOME & LIVING

Products today have become more and more disposable.

Tools, appliances and homewares are all manufactured with built-in obsolescence – they are not designed for the long term because companies want you to keep buying more. Jo Percival meets one Auckland-based company that has taken a different approach.

PHOTOGRAPH BY MANJA WACHSMUTH

THE IRONCLAD PAN COMPANY launched in 2020 with the aim of creating cookware that lasts more than a lifetime.

In fact, their cast iron skillets are guaranteed to withstand 100 years of daily use. That’s three meals a day for three generations.

Kate and Levi Slavin and Joe Carter founded the company in 2019 with the goal of creating a sustainable product using traditional techniques.

Ironclad founders, Joe Carter and Kate Slavin.

Every Ironclad Pan is hand-poured and hand-finished with high-grade recycled iron in their Auckland foundry. “The important part is that we're not taking anything out of the ground – we're repurposing existing iron into cookware,” Joe Carter explains.

“It hasn’t been an easy process!” he continues. “Designing the patterns took a lot of research and development, with a lot of refining along the way. The moulds are made by hand-packing sand

into our custom patterns – each having a top and a bottom, which are connected after the sand has set. There is also a science to getting the molten iron the right temperature on any given day (it is affected by weather conditions and humidity). This is then poured – at the right velocity – using a bucket and pulley system operated by a crew of experienced workers into the prepared sand moulds.”

The iron is left to cool, then is removed from the sand and painstakingly completed by hand – buffed to a smooth finish. “We wanted to have a beautifully smooth finish, rather than the coarse textures often associated with cast iron cookware,” Joe explains.

“Finally, the pan is shot blast with millions of tiny metal balls. We ship the pans unseasoned, which means there are no unnecessary chemicals, dyes, enamels or paints in the production process.”

By using traditional methods of cast iron production, every Ironclad pan is unique and built to last.

Currently the Ironclad range includes a family-sized Legacy Pan, and a smaller Lil’ Legacy, with a 4.5 litre Dutch oven – The Old Dutch – currently in production.

“Since we launched, we have been overwhelmed by the support from our customers as well as some of the best chefs in Aotearoa,” Joe says. “Covid has forced many people to adjust their values and discover the joy of cooking at home again. We’re delighted to help them by providing durable, sustainable cookware. And we’ll continue to be here, for generations to come.”

AA Directions has one Ironclad Legacy Bundle to give away, valued at $450.

The Legacy Bundle includes one 28cm Legacy Pan and one 20cm Lil’ Legacy. To be in to win, send your name and contact details to 'Ironclad Giveaway,' AA Directions, PO Box 5, Auckland 1140, or enter at our website: aadirections.co.nz by 30 April 2022.

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Vanessa Trethewey meets an author who has driven the length of New Zealand to discover some of our most fascinating heritage buildings.

HAVE YOU EVER driven past an intriguing signpost and wished you’d followed it?

Or wondered about the lives once lived in a run-down or abandoned building?

Nicola McCloy has. For years the South Islander would make the winding drive between Alexandra and Roxburgh, now a mecca for stone fruit but once a gold-rush town and, before that, an ancient moa hunting ground for local Māori.

“I’d always pass a little sign that said ‘Historic Cottage’ and think ‘one day I must go and have a look,’” Nicola says.

The author finally got her chance when she and friend Jane King decided to write Who Lived There? The pair set out on a journey of epic proportions – a 'Thelma and Louise'-style road trip that took them from the Empire Tavern in Dunedin to the Coles Joinery Factory in Ongaonga and everything in between, including – at last – that historic cottage.

“It was a funny day. The weather was rolling in over the hills and we were treated to that classic Central Otago view – the golden colours, the poplars, the schist. We arrived at the cottage and were blown away by how immaculate it was. It was originally

Mitchell's Cottage, Otago.

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Brain Watkins House, Tauranga.

built from schist and the stonework was beyond anything I’ve ever seen.”

Nestled on the edge of historic gold fields and now managed by DOC, the home was lovingly crafted well over a century ago by Shetland Islands stonemasons Andrew and John Mitchell. One brother a bachelor, the other a father of ten. It quickly became

clear that living together in a corrugated iron shack was far from ideal.

“The more kids John’s wife had, the more the brothers realised they needed to build this cottage to house them all.”

Mitchell’s Cottage is one of more than 60 fascinating historic buildings that feature in the book, which traverses the

BOOK REVIEW

length and breadth of the country. But it didn’t quite turn out as planned.

“We had a list of big, significant buildings we wanted to visit and include, but hardly any of them ended up in the book. Jane and I kept getting sidetracked by the small stories that aren’t so well known and places that people mightn’t have thought to visit.”

Like Brain Watkins House in Tauranga, built 140 years ago and passed down through generations until the last daughter, Elva, died in 1979, leaving the house and everything in it to the Tauranga Historical Society.

“Elva’s mother had left it to Elva and her sister Bessie, but stipulated that if either of them got married they’d be disinherited.

Elva finally married for the first time at the age of 72! It’s a small story but you learn so much about life in that place over a century ago. Now it’s a beautiful historic house, surrounded by car yards, where the Historical Society hosts garden parties and makes jam from the old fruit trees for their fundraisers. We found it by just poking around online and when we got there I was completely floored. I just loved it.”

Designed for readers to dip in and out of, and to make history more easily accessible, Who Lived There? has been the perfect way for Nicola to indulge in her lifelong fascination for the past.

“My family is from Māniototo and growing up I spent a lot of time in places where gold-mining history is really present. It has always fascinated me and I think buildings are such a great way to connect with history.”

Jane shares that sentiment; it’s not the first time the pair have teamed up on a like-minded project. While both are writers and adventurers, Jane is also a talented photographer.

“Jane and I have driven thousands of kilometres. You need to get on really well with someone to spend that much time in a car together! We’ve met so many amazing people along the way and heard incredible stories. The passion that people have for buildings and their willingness to share is awe-inspiring.

Who Lived There? is a celebration of these people.

“I hope this book encourages people to go and explore – not only the buildings

featured in the book, but anything intriguing they may come across.

I hope it gives people a nudge to go and discover things.”

AA Directions has five copies of Who Lived There? to give away. To be in to win, send your name and address to ‘Who Lived There? ’ AA Directions, PO Box 5, Auckland 1140, or enter via our website: aadirections.co.nz by 30 April 2022.

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AUTUMN 2022

69

Setting your safety net Should you reconsider your insurance cover when you make changes in your life?

Hamish Barwick looks at the options.

IT WOULD BE FAIR to say the past two years have involved a lot of change due to the impact of the global pandemic.

Many New Zealanders switched jobs, launched or closed down businesses or restructured their lifestyles in quite substantial ways. Without the ability to travel internationally, many invested in home upgrades or renovations. Couples reconsidered their timelines and elected to start or extend their families.

While insurance might not be top of mind when making big life decisions, significant changes may impact your cover. It’s a good idea at some point to actively reconsider and possibly reset your safety nets.

If you’ve recently become a parent you may want to consider taking life

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insurance so that in the event of your death your dependants would be looked after. If you are the main breadwinner, income protection insurance is another one to consider if being unable to work due to illness would impact your ability to pay your rent or mortgage. This insurance provides a percentage of your income while you recover, keeping in mind that ACC only covers loss of income if you have an accident at work.

Other options are trauma and disability insurances which provide lump sums to those diagnosed with a serious illness, such as cancer.

Those embarking on home renovations also have some insurance cover considerations to ponder. Did you know that specific insurance is available – and

important – to cover damage to a property while it’s being worked on? As well as accidental damage, it covers the impact of theft and weather events. If renovations including knocking down walls, additional insurance cover is required specifically for that.

Contents insurance is another area that deserves reconsideration, especially if you’ve been spending up on treats and treasures. At the other end of the scale, there are basic contents policies available that only cover specific events, rather than all risks.

Perhaps one of those treats was new wheels. If you’ve spent your overseas travel fund on a new car, what insurance cover should you go for? Comprehensive car insurance could mean you’re fully covered – whether you’re in an accident, your car gets stolen, or your pride and joy is damaged in a storm or a fire. Comprehensive insurance will also cover you for damage you might cause to other cars or property.

However, there are cheaper options.

Third party insurance covers for damage to another person’s vehicle or property, but not yours. Extending third party insurance to fire and theft covers the risk of the car being destroyed by fire or stolen.

Another trend over the last couple of years, made easier as more people work from home, has been for families to take on a pet. If there is a new cat or dog in your life, consider insurance to cover unexpected vet bills. As well as accidents, dogs and cats can suffer from the same illnesses as humans, like cancer, and also have their own health risks. Dogs can get sick from eating chocolate and cats can have allergic reactions to insect bites; check policies cover such things when you’re shopping around for pet insurance.

Overseas travel – when it’s back on the agenda – may feel riskier than it once did. Travel insurance covering loss or theft of belongings, extra costs if flights are cancelled and medical treatment if you have an accident or become ill is more critical than ever before. Consumer channel sorted.org.nz advises taking out insurance if you are travelling domestically, too. This means you are covered if flights are delayed or if there are costs that won’t be covered by ACC or your home contents insurer.

There are plenty of options available if you are considering changing your insurance cover – and it makes sense to do so when you make significant changes in your life.

ILLUSTRATION BY RETROROCKET/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

HOME & LIVING

HOME & LIVING

Money matters

Duncan Garner is the host of Duncan Garner Today, weekdays from 9am on Today FM.

Broadcaster and journalist Duncan Garner aims to get his spending/saving balance right.

Does money matter to you?

Of course. It gives you more options and choices.

Not having it teaches you how much we throw it away. We simply buy stuff now for the sake of buying something. Ask yourself, do you actually need it?

Describe your relationship with money…

Fleeting. One minute I have it and next it’s gone.

I have four kids and with everything that brings, I’m rinsed.

Are you a spender or a saver?

Spender mainly, but since KiwiSaver started I have now been a regular saver for 10 years. Sir Michael Cullen will go down in history for being the architect of it, and in many ways it’s his legacy. Not many politicians have something they can say they left behind, but he certainly can. And remember your employer must contribute, too, so why wouldn’t you do it?

How do you like to treat yourself in ways that don’t involve big splurges?

Can you treat yourself without involving big splurges?

Sleep is free. I guess that’s a treat at times.

Who, if anyone, influenced your relationship with money?

Dad was always cautious. Mum was sometimes cautious but mostly generous if she could be. Dad's family worked in banking and I guess they were naturally conservative.

Mum would slip us the odd $20 when we would go out on the town. She always said: “Use it for a taxi.” “Yes, Mum…” It never got past the first bar.

Has there been a particular milestone in your life that’s made you reconsider your relationship with money?

Having kids means you no longer do things just for yourself.

PHOTOGRAPH SUPPLIED

Are you working toward a financial goal?

Yes. Being debt free.

What is the best financial advice or words of wisdom you’ve received?

If you can stretch yourself to getting the better house rather than the average one, you won’t regret it.

What does retirement look like to you?

Fishing, fun, friends, travel, work.

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Hit the road with AA Traveller!

As an AA Member you can enjoy fantastic travel benefits on your next trip.

An extra

10% OFF

selected accommodation with AA Traveller

15% OFF

the daily rate with GO Rentals car hire.

10% OFF

the best available fare on Interislander and Scenic trains with Great Journeys of New Zealand™

15% OFF

the base rate with Hertz car rentals in New Zealand, and a 5 cents per litre AA Smartfuel discount, on up to 50 litres*

10% OFF

the best daily price on Maui, Britz, and Mighty campervan rentals

10% OFF

selected group tours and short breaks with Leisure Time Travel

10% OFF

selected sailing and cruising experiences with Explore Group

10% OFF

selected guided cycling and hiking tours with Adventure South NZ and walks with Great Walks of New Zealand

An exclusive

NEW PARTNER

NEW PARTNER

SPECIAL AA MEMBER DISCOUNTS

To find out more about any of these travel discounts, visit: aa.co.nz/member-deals

NEW PARTNER

AA Member discounts available when you provide your valid AA Membership number at the time of booking. Rental car offers excludes tax, fees, optional products and services. Terms and conditions apply for each travel offer. Visit the relevant Member Benefit Partner’s page via aa.co.nz/member-deals for more details. * Redeemable in a single fill up to a maximum of 50 litres.

STAFF PROFILE

Mike Noon, General Manager of AA Motoring Affairs, is retiring after more than 16 years in the role. He has been instrumental in many major policy developments for the AA, advocating on behalf of New Zealand motorists and representing AA Members in public as well as behind official doors. AA Directions talked to Mike on the eve of his departure.

W

PHOTOGRAPH BY NICOLA EDMONDS

hat went on behind those official doors, Mike? Can you describe your role with the AA? My role has been to represent the voice of the reasonable motorist, making sure we have AA Members' backs and they are fairly treated. We like to think we are the Motorists’ champion. I am talking about ensuring fuel taxes are being well spent, roads are safe and that rules and the enforcement of them are fair.

People often think that to influence you need to jump up and down and demand stuff. One thing I’ve always remembered, whether I was meeting with Ministry staff or a Minister, is that they are people first – normally good people – trying to do their best with the right motivation.

So, I treated like I liked to be treated.

We often had different views, but it was far better to help move them to the best outcome I could for our Members than have a standoff. And if we couldn’t agree to a compromise, I never made it personal.

Was there a pet project that you’re particularly proud of ?

In 2008, the AA introduced a road assessment programme (RAP) to New Zealand. And then, along with the Ministry of Transport and the New Zealand Transport Agency, KiwiRAP was born. This was a programme to video all our State Highways, to analyse and code them and rate their inbuilt safety. They were given a star rating for how many people were being killed or injured, reflecting a collective risk, and also the risk to an individual driver on a particular road. KiwiRAP gave AUTUMN 2022

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us a national safety blueprint of New Zealand’s State Highways. For the first time we knew where our highest risk roads were and could target safety upgrades where they would save the most lives. It was a game changer; it directed investment and I think will have saved many lives and thousands of injuries. I’m proud to have been part of that.

How has the AA changed during your time here?

We have been the main advocate for the car for over 100 years, but now more than ever we take a holistic view for our Members’ mobility needs, including cycling, walking and public transport.

We also survey our Members much more now, so we can understand what they want and what is concerning them the most. For our advocacy work, we are more professional, our submissions are better and I like to think we are influential and our views are well considered by the Government of the day and Ministries.

Has working with the AA changed you?

Are you aware of different things as a motorist now, for example?

I now understand how Government works and just how long it takes to effect change, so yes, I am more patient. But I am still pretty determined. Also, you can’t work in road safety as long as I have without getting a real sense of the risks of driving, how everything can change in a moment. I am much more attentive when I drive, and always keep a good following distance, giving me more time to react should it all go pear-shaped ahead of me.

What were some of the highlights of working with your team?

I have been lucky to have had a great team of dedicated and skilled people.

The AA has a really good work culture; everyone enjoys being part of it and we know our work makes a difference in the community, especially for road safety.

One of Motoring Affairs’ achievements under your watch was the launch of a research foundation. How did that came about and what does it do today?

The AA Research Foundation was established in 2011. I remember the then AA President and the CEO asking me what resources I needed to take our advocacy for Members to the next level.

I think they expected me to say ‘more

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I have been lucky to have had a great team of dedicated and skilled people. staff ’ but I answered ‘research, research, research,’ because there was a lot about road safety we thought we knew but we didn’t actually. I got the go-ahead to establish the AA Research Foundation with a budget of $250k a year. That Foundation has undertaken some fantastic New Zealand-based research, from the need to introduce interlocks for recidivist drink drivers, to those not wearing seat belts and why; comparing actual and perceived risks and how drivers interpret them, and cycling safety at intersections. The insights have shaped policy and on-the-ground actions to help keep people safe. I see it as the Association giving back on behalf of our Members and all road users.

Can you tell us about your work with FIA, – what did that involve?

The FIA is a fascinating organisation with 246 automobile and motorsport clubs in 146 countries representing over 80 million consumers and their households. I had the pleasure and

privilege to be on the Mobility and Tourism World Council for many years, and was the President of the Asia Pacific Region for the past four. What was really rewarding was the promotion of road safety programmes, the mentoring of smaller developing clubs and seeing the sharing of best practice across the region.

The FIA is really dynamic and it was great to be part of a truly global organisation.

What's next for you?

A number of years ago my wife Debbie and I bought a lifestyle property north of Wellington with some covenanted native bush. We have developed lots of organic gardens and a small orchard. I also keep bees and take great pleasure in that. They are fascinating creatures; you get really attached to them and of course the honey is superb. We also have dogs, so there is a lot of walking to do. There is definitely going to be more fishing, and travelling in New Zealand in a campervan is a distinct possibility. There is so much to do and we are excited about the future.

NUMBER 40 OPENS IN WHAKATĀNE

THE AA’S 40TH AA Auto Centre opened for business in Whakatāne last December. Located at 69 Mill Road, Whakatāne, the Centre is owned by Brian Keindel, who has been in the motoring industry for more than 40 years.

“We know the Whakatāne community well, so we are really pleased to be up and running for them,” Brian says. “Our fully qualified team can handle all mechanical needs, big or small.

“We’ve got the latest equipment and a state-of-the-art workshop which is in a very handy location near The Hub shopping centre and the Whakatāne Mill. And of course it’s easy to spot – just look for the bright yellow building on Mill Road!”

AA Motoring Services General Manager Jonathan Sergel adds,“we’re incredibly proud to now have 40 AA Auto Centres in our network, from Whangārei down to Dunedin, and we have plans to continue our spread across the country in the years to come.”

Customers can visit the Whakatāne AA Auto Centre for WoFs, services, repairs, oil changes, AA ten-point checks and more. All services are covered by the AA Motoring guarantee.

For the location of your nearest AA Auto Centre and to book a service, see aa.co.nz/autocentre or call 0800 456 654.

MY AA

SNACKS for the road

Make your next road trip more delicious with the AA's Tableside Assistance.

THE AA IS EXCITED TO announce a range of tasty new additions to the Member Benefits programme. Now, you can get delicious extras with Tableside Assistance at BurgerFuel, Pita Pit and Mad Mex restaurants nationwide. When you visit any one of the 150+ restaurants and show your AA Membership card, you’ll be eligible for great deals. At BurgerFuel, this means a free thickshake with any large burger purchased, free small wedges or a drink with any regular pita or salad bowl from Pita Pit, or free Baja fries and a drink with any main meal at Mad Mex. “BurgerFuel are proudly Kiwi owned and operated, and car culture has been part of our DNA since the very beginning,” Nikki Soons, Head of Brand and Marketing at BurgerFuel NZ says. “So we’re stoked to be associated with another iconic Kiwi brand that shares our love of motoring.”

Kevin Andrew Falk from Mad Mex is, too. “We are happy to align with a Kiwi original like the AA and be part of the Tableside Assistance programme. It’s the perfect way to offer fresh Mexican deals to AA Members.”

“Pita Pit is pleased to partner with the AA," Duane Dalton, Pita Pit CEO adds. “Our 85 locations nationwide mean that AA Members can easily access nutritious and tasty options when they're on the road.”

Next time you find your tummy rumbling when you’re on a road trip, head in-store to one of these great Tableside Assistance Partners and show your AA Membership card for delicious extras.

Find out more at aa.co.nz/dining

Servicing

Repairs

WoF

AA Member Benefits: • Save up to $30 off your next service • Save $7 off the cost of your WoF • Up to two free AA 10-Point Checks each year • Boost your AA Smartfuel discounts with 5 cents off per litre^ Terms and conditions: ^AA Members can save up to 5 cents per litre with AA Smartfuel, when they spend $60 or more at AA Motoring sites.

Book at aa.co.nz/autocentre or call 0800 456 654 AUTUMN 2022

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MORE LEISURE BENEFITS for Members

AA Traveller is expanding the travel options available to AA Members with three new leisure partnerships.

AT THE END OF last year AA Traveller launched a new partnership with New Zealand’s leading cycling and walking tour operator, Adventure South NZ. The arrangement gives AA Members an exclusive 10% discount on selected guided and self-guided walking, hiking and cycling tours.

And now, joining Adventure South NZ are two new partners – Leisure Time Travel and Explore Group.

Leisure Time Travel has been operating in New Zealand since 1987 providing escorted coach touring. AA Members can receive a 10% discount on selected group tours and short breaks all around New Zealand, hitting the road with small groups of like-minded travellers.

Explore Group is renowned for running memorable cruises, day trips and overnight experiences in Auckland and the Bay of Islands aboard their

fleet of yachts and comfortable cruising vessels. They’re also offering a 10% AA Member discount on selected day trips and overnight cruise tours.

AA Traveller General Manager Greig Leighton says the new partnerships add to the fantastic portfolio of travel and tourism products available to AA Members, including discounts on accommodation, rental cars from Hertz and GO Rentals, campervans and motorhomes, Great Journeys of New Zealand Scenic trains and Interislander ferry trips.

“AA Traveller already has a strong presence in the leisure segment in New Zealand, not only with our travel-related Member Benefits but also our range of famous Must Do’s guides. These new partnerships with Adventure South NZ, Leisure Time Travel and Explore Group further cement AA’s strong position as New Zealand travel experts,” Greig says.

For more information, see aatraveller.co.nz/member-benefits

AA Centres on the move

TWO KEY REGIONAL AA Centres have moved.

The Feilding AA Centre shifted to its new location at the end of last year, relocating to 4 MacArthur Street, and 400km north in Hamilton, AA’s Five Cross Roads Centre moved up the road to a new site in the Rototuna Shopping Centre.

“The first AA Centre in Feilding opened 80 years ago,” Lower North Island Area Manager Yvonne Milne says.

“Our team who live and work in the area understand how important the Centre is to the community and locals being able to access our services without driving for miles.

“They can also be assured that all our AA Centres follow strict health and safety protocols during Covid outbreaks to protect themselves and our people.”

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Waikato District AA Manager Cathy McDonald expressed similar sentiments: “Our customers can expect the same friendly, high-quality customer service, just now in a more easily accessible and visible location.”

Customers can visit the new AA Centres to join the AA, arrange car, home and contents, life, health or travel insurance, renew vehicle registration and driver licences, pick up travel guides, free maps and more.

There are 36 AA Centres nationwide.

To find an AA Centre near you, see aa.co.nz/aa-centres

MY AA

Seeing into the future

Lara Flannery and fellow RNZB Artist Calum Gray in The Sleeping Beauty, 2020.

IT’S BEEN TEN YEARS since Specsavers launched a partnership with the AA to provide free eye tests to AA Members.

Over the decade, the national chain of optometrists has hosted over 1.19 million appointments, delivering savings of over $71.63 million back to Members.

One of the first wellbeing partners to join the AA’s Member Benefits programme, Specsavers’ ability to provide regular eye health check-ups to Members was an arrangement very well suited to the AA’s emphasis on safety.

“Being confident of your eyesight is obviously critical to safe driving, so having a partner involved in caring for Members’ eyesight health and providing solutions when issues show up is a win-win for the AA,” says General Manager Club Developments, Dougal Swift.

“It’s been a real success story. We’re delighted to have Specsavers in our Member Benefits family.”

AA Members can receive a free eye test, worth $60, every two years. Qualified optometrists check overall eye health and, when necessary, provide prescriptions and advice; the 30-minute test also includes a non-invasive OCT 3D eye scan which can detect potential eye health conditions.

PHOTOGRAPH BY STEPHEN A’COURT

Together, the AA and Specsavers are celebrating a decade of helping Members.

SUPPORTING ACT This new partnership between the AA and the Royal New Zealand Ballet will delight dance fans.

AA MEMBERS CAN RECEIVE a 15% discount on tickets to RNZB performances when they book online at aa.co.nz/rnzb.

“The Royal New Zealand Ballet and the AA are both long-established, with histories of excellence,” Dougal Swift AA’s General Manager Club Developments says. “This partnership will help build connections with New Zealanders of all ages, while continuing to provide great value for AA Members.”

In addition to discounted tickets, the AA is also partnering directly with one of the RNZB’s talented dancers, Lara Flannery.

Wellington-born Lara has been dancing since she was three years old.

She trained at Wellington Dance Academy and at just 15 joined the fulltime classical programme at the New Zealand School of Dance.

In 2019, Lara joined the RNZB as an apprentice before becoming a Friedlander Foundation Scholar in 2020 and, as of 2021, a company member.

“Partnering a dancer offers an insight into their professional life, from daily class and first rehearsals, to first nights and final bows,” says Susannah Lees-Jeffries, RNZB Director of Marketing and Development.

While Covid has created uncertainty about live performances, the RNZB hopes to take their much-loved shows on the road later this year.

If all goes to plan the popular Tutus on Tour will be touring multiple regions towards the end of 2022.

To book an appointment with Specsavers, go to aa.co.nz/specsavers For more information, see aa.co.nz/rnzb AUTUMN 2022

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T

he Association managed well in the 2020-2021 financial year, adapting operations as necessary, reaching another AA Membership milestone of 1.8 million Members, introducing new initiatives and growing strongly in several commercial areas.

This was in spite of localised alert level changes forcing AA Centres to close and driving lessons to be postponed, among other service changes, and continued knock-on effects of the pandemic such as border closures and supply chain issues.

I am proud of the operational decisions made during Covid, such as the decision to pay all employees in full throughout the year, including those who could not work from home when required. This was the continuation of a decision made and implemented very early on in the pandemic in 2020 by outgoing Chief Executive Brian Gibbons and supported by the Board. The Board and National Council also adapted, holding meetings virtually during the year, while the 2021 AA Annual Conference was also held online.

The continued growth in AA Membership is testament to the Association’s rich history,

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PHOTOGRAPH BY DESTINATIONSINNEWZEALAND/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

ANNUAL REPORT 2020-2021

the faith New Zealanders have in the organisation and value they continue to see in belonging to the club.

A great new service introduced for Wellington AA Members was a mobile electric vehicle charging van, which can give EV owners who get caught short a boost at the roadside. This is not only a fantastic extension of existing mobile roadside services, but one that personifies the Association’s commitment to providing New Zealanders renewable energy mobility assistance and advice.

Member Benefit partnerships with Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools & Spa and Torpedo7 were launched during the year, along with the AA Preferred Dealer Network, which gave the AA 'seal of approval’ to quality, licensed motor vehicle traders, and AA Money secured personal loans which allowed customers to use a vehicle they own as security against a personal loan.

In response to increased demand for home renovation and maintenance jobs stemming from lockdowns, AA Home launched the new Book a Job service making it easier for customers to find an expert, trusted tradesperson for work around the home.

It was also a significant year for AA Smartfuel, which for the first time in its nearly 10-year history gave customers the option to redeem their AA Smartfuel discounts on something other than fuel, with new partnerships with Qantas Frequent Flyer and the carbon offsetting company, CarbonClick.

Elsewhere, AA Insurance had its strongest year on record, despite the impacts of Covid and multiple significant weather events over the year. AA Insurance remained the only insurer to freeze car, home and contents premiums and did so until August 2020 for home and contents and November 2020 for car premiums. It also gave a rebate of over $19 million to all car customers and waived $200,000 in premium payments for 1,800 customers who would otherwise have become uninsured, as part of its $2 million hardship fund.

As a final note, I would like to pay tribute to Brian Gibbons whose last full financial year as Chief Executive of the Association was this year. Brian has steered the Association to success for nearly four decades, including holding off retirement for an additional calendar year following the emergence of Covid. Brian’s leadership since the New Zealand Automobile Association was formed in 1991 has played a huge role in the Association’s successful position today, including the ability to weather the impacts of the pandemic, and he leaves us in 2022 in good stead for the years to come.

AA President, Gary Stocker

AA Membership

Despite the continuing challenges posed by Covid, AA Membership numbers grew to a new record, passing 1.8 million for the first time in June 2021. Nearly a third of personal Members are now AA Plus Members.

Roadside Solutions

Throughout all regions and levels of lockdown, AA Service Officers maintained their essential worker status, mobilising Members’ vehicles on trips to essential services or work.

Overall, AA Roadservice attended 451,668 roadside jobs during the year, the most common being flat battery-related with over 90,000 callouts.

Business Vehicle Solutions, an arm of Roadside Solutions, saw 3.86% growth in Business Membership during the year, despite being heavily impacted by Covid.

Motoring Services

AA Motoring launched an AA Preferred Dealer Network in May that gives the AA 'seal of approval’ to quality, licensed motor vehicle traders. There are now 26 dealers nationwide that have completed the review and selection process.

ANNUAL REPORT 2020-2021

A cornerstone of the AA Preferred Dealer Network was the requirement for dealers to have AA Odometer Verified window stickers on newly imported vehicles. This prompted AA Motoring to sign on two new Odometer Verification partners – Bordercheck and Jacanna, in addition to JEVIC. The 39th AA Auto Centre opened in Wānaka in March – the first in the Lakes District.

There was a nearly 10% year-on-year growth in Entry Compliance; two new Entry Compliance sites opened in Auckland. It was likewise a strong year for Pre-Purchase Inspections, up 12.5% year-on-year and Warrants of Fitness and Certificates of Fitness were also up.

$800 million a year. We asked for them to be ring-fenced for use on measures that will help reduce the emissions from transport, and the Government made this change.

We undertook analysis that identified a need for $900 million extra in road maintenance investment for the next three years and urged for an increase in funding.

Our efforts saw the Government increase the investment in road maintenance over the next three years by $500 million.

The Government has been developing a new approach to speed management as part of its plans to improve road safety, involving

new rules for setting speed limits and the use of speed cameras. The AA reviewed the proposals closely, as well as surveying our Members for their views, and continued to urge authorities to take a balanced approach on speed that targets highest risk roads, includes roading upgrades as well as lower limits and is credible and understandable to road users.

Almost all of the AA’s 17 District Councils nationwide made submissions to local councils as the important Regional Land Transport Plans were developed that set local transport priorities for the years ahead.

AA Driving School

Even with Auckland in-car lessons being postponed in lockdowns, the team of AA Driving School Instructors delivered over 100,000 lessons to more than 25,000 students, while more than 13,000 students completed the AA Defensive Driving Course.

Seeing the need for a focus on online and distanced capability in the age of the pandemic, there was a move towards e-learning and modules for AA Driving School’s B2B corporate customers.

Government Services

The AA’s Government Services opened agencies in Kawerau, Ōpōtiki, Hokitika, Wairoa and Paeroa. In addition to driver and vehicle licensing, these agents provide a suite of identification services including personal IRD number applications, RealMe identity verification, Kiwi Access card applications and the ability to add a photo to SuperGold cards.

It was the first full year the AA has been offering RealMe identity verification and Kiwi Access card services. Over 37,000 RealMe transactions were completed and 3,716 Kiwi Access cards, which replaced what was formerly known as the 18+ card, were issued.

Overall AA Government Services carried out over 950,000 transactions during the year, translating to roughly 80,000 a month, the majority being driver licensing related.

The AA is now nearing a total of 23.2 million driver licensing transactions over the last 22 years since it became New Zealand’s leading driver licensing provider.

Advocacy and AA Research Foundation

The AA continued to be a strong voice for Members around road maintenance, safety and reducing transport emissions in particular.

The largest issue in transport over the year was how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the sector. Motorists have already been collectively paying $400 million a year to the Government for their carbon emissions through the Emissions Trading Scheme and, as the levy increases, this may soon rise to

Being responsible citizens AT THE AA WE LOOK at everything we do with a sustainability lens to ensure our activities demonstrate the care we show for our environment, investment in our community by ensuring safer roads and drivers, fostering a diverse and inclusive AA through our culture, and that our operations use only what is needed, reducing our energy consumption and recycling where we can.

• As well as introducing a new fast-

charge EV service, a partnership with carbon offsetting company CarbonClick was launched via AA Smartfuel, giving Members the ability to convert their AA Smartfuel discounts into carbon offsets that fund New Zealand and the world's top climate projects.

• We joined the FIA’s Environmental Accreditation programme, which offers a certification framework, to measure and improve our environmental performance. The

FIA programme focuses on energy use, water use, waste management, transport/commuting, noise, air quality and carbon management, and provides a framework against which to accredit activities.

• A Diversity and Inclusion policy

launched, recognising our commitment to treating individuals equally, respecting the differences of our people, contractors, AA Members, customers and other stakeholders and ensuring we have a collaborative, supportive and respectful work environment that increases the participation and contribution of all employees.

• AA Roadservice rescued 600 pets

from vehicles during the year; we also rescued 593 children locked in vehicles. We attend locked vehicles free of charge, regardless of whether or not the caller is an AA Member.

We also provide lockout assistance to the SPCA.

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SUMMARISED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS THE NEW ZEALAND AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION INCORPORATED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF COMPREHENSIVE REVENUE AND EXPENSE FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 JUNE 2021 2021 2020 $'000 $'000

THE NEW ZEALAND AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION INCORPORATED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CHANGES IN NET ASSETS/EQUITY FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 JUNE 2021 2021 2020 $'000 $'000

Revenue Share of net surplus/(losses) in joint ventures Other gains/(losses)

ASSOCIATION FUNDS AT BEGINNING OF PERIOD Net surplus for the year attributable to the Association acting in the interests of Members

TOTAL REVENUE Employee entitlements Delivery and distribution expenses Plant, office and property overheads Advertising and promotion expenses IT and telecommunications expenses Motor vehicle expenses Driver education programs Other expenses TOTAL EXPENSES Operating surplus before tax and grants Grant to NZAA Research Foundation Grant to SADD Aotearoa – Students against Dangerous Driving Charitable Trust Taxation benefit/(expense) NET SURPLUS FOR THE YEAR ATTRIBUTABLE TO THE ASSOCIATION ACTING IN THE INTERESTS OF MEMBERS

145,161 18,441 31,128

137,437 23,992 21,408

194,730

182,837

78,378 38,289 7,991 4,621 10,975 2,957 72 6,713

75,891 35,149 7,591 3,686 9,139 2,848 2,926 6,298

149,996

143,528

44,734 125

39,309 188

400

400

-

-

44,209

38,721

OTHER COMPREHENSIVE REVENUE AND EXPENSE NET OF TAX: Gain/(loss) on revaluation of properties 2,240 Gain/(loss) on revaluation of available-for-sale assets (122) Share of other comprehensive revenue and expense of joint ventures (16) OTHER COMPREHENSIVE REVENUE AND EXPENSE FOR THE YEAR NET OF TAX TOTAL COMPREHENSIVE REVENUE AND EXPENSE FOR THE YEAR ATTRIBUTABLE TO THE ASSOCIATION ACTING IN THE INTERESTS OF MEMBERS, NET OF TAX

500 5

2,102

505

46,311

39,226

THE NEW ZEALAND AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION INCORPORATED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION AS AT 30 JUNE 2021 2021 $'000

2020 $'000

295,802

256,576

44,209

38,721

OTHER COMPREHENSIVE REVENUE AND EXPENSE: Gain/(loss) on revaluation of properties 2,240 Gain/(loss) on revaluation of available-for-sale assets (122) Share of other comprehensive revenue and expense of joint ventures (16) TOTAL OTHER COMPREHENSIVE REVENUE AND EXPENSE TOTAL COMPREHENSIVE REVENUE AND EXPENSE, NET OF TAX ASSOCIATION FUNDS AT END OF PERIOD

500 5

2,102

505

46,311

39,226

342,113

295,802

THE NEW ZEALAND AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION INCORPORATED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 JUNE 2021 2021 $'000

2020 $'000

Net cash (used in)/from operating activities Net cash (used in)/from investing activities Net cash (used in)/from financing activities

(2,990) (20,751) -

17,051 10,631 -

Net (decrease)/increase in cash and cash equivalents Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of period

(23,741) 65,396

27,682 37,714

CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS AT THE END OF PERIOD

41,655

65,396

REPRESENTED BY CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS

41,655

65,396

NEW ZEALAND AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION INCORPORATED NOTES TO THE SUMMARISED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 JUNE 2021 MEASUREMENT BASE The financial statements are presented in New Zealand Dollars (NZD). The functional currency is New Zealand Dollars (NZD).

ACCOUNTING POLICIES There have been no material changes in accounting policies covered by these financial statements.

EVENTS SUBSEQUENT TO BALANCE DATE On the 20 September 2021 the Group paid $1,750,000 of capital to AA Finance Limited.

There were no other material events post 30 June 2021 which would require adjustment ASSETS to the amounts reflected in the 30 June 2021 financial statements or disclosures thereto.

Cash and cash equivalents 41,655 65,396 Other financial assets 236,994 169,967

Sundry receivables & prepaid expenses 9,458 8,302 RECONCILIATION OF OPERATING SURPLUS TO NET CASH FLOW FROM Assets classified as held for sale 545 OPERATING ACTIVITIES TOTAL CURRENT ASSETS 288,652 243,665 2021 2020 $'000 $'000 Property, plant and equipment 39,425 39,955 Net surplus for the year attributable to the Association Investments 60,470 61,761 acting in the interests of Members 44,209 38,721 Goodwill 3,118 3,118 Movement in non cash items (45,236) (28,047) Other intangible assets 4,729 2,874 Movement in assets and liabilities (1,963) 6,377 TOTAL NON CURRENT ASSETS 107,742 107,708 NET CASH INFLOW FROM OPERATING ACTIVITIES (2,990) 17,051 TOTAL ASSETS 396,394 351,373 LIABILITIES CURRENT LIABILITIES 23,873 27,139 NON CURRENT LIABILITIES 3,121 2,731 FULL FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AVAILABLE These summarised financial statements are unaudited and have been TOTAL LIABILITIES 26,994 29,870 extracted from the full financial statements for the Association for the year NET ASSETS 369,400 321,503 ended 30 June 2021.

The full financial statements have been prepared in accordance with New ASSOCIATION FUNDS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS IN ADVANCE Zealand generally accepted accounting practice ("NZ GAAP"). They comply Accumulated comprehensive revenue and expense 326,186 281,993 with Public Benefit Entity International Public Sector Accounting Standards Asset revaluation reserve 15,927 13,809 ("PBE IPSAS") and other applicable financial reporting standards.

The full financial statements were issued by the Board, and approved for TOTAL ASSOCIATION FUNDS 342,113 295,802 distribution by the National Council on 24 September 2021.

The summarised financial report may not contain sufficient information Subscriptions in advance 27,287 25,701 for a full understanding of the financial affairs of the Group but copies of TOTAL ASSOCIATION FUNDS the full financial statements and the unqualified auditors' opinion, dated 24 AND SUBSCRIPTIONS IN ADVANCE 369,400 321,503 September 2021, can be obtained by Members from: For and on behalf of the Board, G T Stocker, President M R Winger, Vice President 24 September 2021

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aadirections.co.nz

General Manager - Governance & Compliance, The New Zealand Automobile Association Incorporated, P.O. Box 5, Auckland 1140.

ANNUAL REPORT 2020-2021

SADD

Students Against Dangerous Driving (SADD) signed a Letter of Agreement with New Zealand Police formalising the organisations’ partnership after many years of working together to achieve better outcomes for young road users.

In another significant milestone, the first youth representative on the SADD Board of Trustees was appointed, strengthening SADD’s commitment to being youth-led.

AA Insurance

AA Insurance delivered the strongest growth in its history. The company experienced 10% policy growth to reach almost 960,000 policies at the end of June 2021, as well as 9% customer growth to reach 478,000 customers. The FY21 Gross Written Premium of $550 million equated to 21% growth in revenue compared to FY20.

The joint venture between the AA and Suncorp New Zealand contributed positively to the Association’s funding, while continuing to showcase its award-winning customer service.

During this financial year, AA Insurance handled over 180,000 car, home and contents claims, including more than 1,700 claims from 11 events including flooding, hail, storms, high winds, bushfire, earthquake and tornado.

In addition to providing rebates and waiving premium payments as part of its hardship fund, AA Insurance gave four New Zealand charities (Age Concern, The People Project, Auckland City Mission and KidsCan) $10,000 each, in addition to a $30,000 donation to Women’s Refuge.

AA Home

AA Home launched its new Book a Job service for customers to more easily find tradespeople for work around the home. This covers minor home repairs, installation and maintenance services related to electrical, plumbing and locksmith jobs by AA-approved tradespeople. Since its launch, the service has completed 158 Book a Job jobs, close to half of which were plumbing-related.

After a successful Auckland trial, Book a Job rolled out to more regions around New Zealand starting with Hamilton, Tauranga and Rotorua.

AA Home Response also saw a significant jump in subscribers and callouts over the last financial year. The active subscriber count for AA Home Response and AA Home Response Plus grew by 11,374 to a total of over 131,000. There was also a significant uptake in emergency response callouts, increasing by 44% compared with last year.

AA Money

AA Money, a joint venture between the AA and Suncorp New Zealand, launched in February 2020 with competitive vehicle

finance offers; in September 2020 it introduced a second product – secured personal loans. The product offers no ongoing account fees, no termination fees and uses a vehicle owned by the customer as security against their loan.

AA Money manages the entire journey for customers, from application to loan funding to customer care and servicing of the loan on an ongoing basis. The model attracted a 94% customer satisfaction rating.

Elsewhere, the AA Money team began a significant amount of work preparing for the 1 December 2021 introduction of new consumer lending laws.

Wellbeing Protection

Coming within the umbrella of Channel Strategy and Delivery, the AA Partner Insurances portfolio represents AA Life Insurance (with Asteron Life), AA Travel Insurance (with Allianz Partners), AA Health Insurance (with nib) and AA Pet Insurance (with PetSure).

This year, the Channel Strategy and Delivery division saw a significant restructure to accommodate the new compliance requirements for insurance and financial products that came into effect and with it, an alignment of delivery channels (phone, digital, and the AA Centre Network).

Online policy sales jumped from 53% to 59% of the total, which came as no surprise in the age of Covid, however the 36 AA Centres remain a strong presence in communities across New Zealand.

AA Life, AA Health Insurance and AA Travel Insurance also won awards for customer service and as trusted brands.

AA Smartfuel

Fuel discounts at the fuel partners BP and GAS are still popular with $83.9 million of fuel discounts issued in the year.

In March a new partnership with Qantas Frequent Flyer was launched; cardholders can turn some or all AA Smartfuel discounts into Qantas Points. Qantas Points can be used to book flights with Qantas, Jetstar and partner airlines and affiliates around the world, as well as to book accommodation through Qantas Hotels.

AA Smartfuel also launched a partnership with CarbonClick, giving Kiwis the ability to convert some or all of their AA Smartfuel discounts into carbon offsets.

AA Tourism Benefits

A surge in domestic tourism saw strong uptake of exclusive offers for AA Members including discounts with Hertz, GO Rentals, maui, Britz and Mighty, as well as Scenic trains and Interislander. Members also enjoyed discounts on accommodation through the AA Traveller booking platform, powered by Expedia.

The 'We Love You New Zealand' campaign promoted fresh travel ideas and Kiwi Gems to complement Tourism New Zealand’s Do Something New, New Zealand campaign.

AA Traveller surveyed more than 3,500 AA Members about the information and resources they use for trips within New Zealand. It revealed that Members still value free printed travel guides and maps while increasingly accessing digital content online.

Financial Results

Another very challenging financial year was weathered with a record surplus for the second successive year of $46.3 million.

The Association’s Club activities recorded a loss of $3.2 million, a slight increase on the loss recorded in the previous year. Revenue, including subscription income, increased year-on-year, as did expenses, particularly the cost of our Roadservice activities.

However, the largest impact on the result has been the continued closure of New Zealand’s international border for the whole of the financial year as opposed to only part of the previous financial year. The border closure continues to significantly impact our international travel related revenue streams.

The second significant business area was the Association’s five commercial joint ventures. The AA’s equity share from the results of those joint ventures contributed $18.4 million to the overall result. The diversity of business activity across these ventures continues to serve the Association well, with consistent year-on-year results.

The Association benefited significantly from the unprecedented recovery in the financial markets in the 12 months to June 2021. This business area contributed $31.1 million compared to $8 million in the previous financial year.

Overall, another very successful year highlighted the benefit of the diversity of the Association’s numerous business activities, particularly when considering that this period encapsulated three periods of heightened alert levels in the Auckland region and one in Wellington.

The result also saw a further strengthening of the Association’s financial position with net assets increasing by $48 million to $369 million.

This places the Association in a strong position to meet the trading challenges ahead and also to continue to invest in new initiatives and technologies, thus ensuring we continue to remain relevant and deliver the services and products AA Members have come to rely on.

The full Annual Report will be available online at aa.co.nz after the Annual General Meeting, 23 June 2022.

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