Capital 87 by Capital

CAPITAL Beg your garden? A historical stroll through our parks SUMMER 2023 $11.90

Rhyme & reason How local poets created a scene

Paua move

A seafood deep dive from chum to cray

The big short

Original fiction for summer reading

The holiday issue THE STORIES OF WELLINGTON

Summer in Session!

Pop over the hill to our Martinborough Cellar Door for a good dose of Wairarapa sunshine, deliciously good food and beautiful Palliser Estate wines. Nara at Palliser serves up epicurean delights, using the freshest local produce, from Friday to Monday during the summer months, with vineyard platters available on Thursday. Our Cellar Door is open seven days for wine tastings. See you here soon! Book your lunch or wine tasting online at palliser.co.nz/bookings Palliser Estate Winery and Cellar Door : 96 Kitchener St, Martinborough. +64 6 306 9019

palliserestatewines

palliserwine

Located at 93 The Terrace, Tipple in the Nook is a hole-in-the-wall espresso and wine bar perfect for a quick coffee date or for longer, more intimate drinks with friends. Like our vibe, our menu is relaxed with small plates following a nose-to-tail ethos.

HOURS

LOCATION

Monday - Tuesday: 7:00 AM - 3:00 PM

93 The Terrace,

Wednesday - Friday: 7:00 AM - LATE

Wellington

Saturday - Sunday: CLOSED

@tippleinthenook

K AT I E ’ S C OA S TA L D E L I G H T O N T H E S O U T H E R N WA L K WAY

M I H A , M A N AWA & T E M A I H I ’ S A D V E N T U R E O N M ATA I R A N G I / M O U N T V I C TO R I A

Find trails for all walks of life

R O N A’ S W I L D O N TA R I K Ā K Ā / M O U N T K AU K AU

C A S S , N I K I & E L L A’ S N AT U R E R E S E T AT T E W H I T I R I S E R

P E T E R ’ S LO C A L E S C A P E AT R A N G I T U H I / C O LO N I A L K N O B

WellingtonRegionalTrails.com

NEXT STOP, SUMMER Just over the Remutaka Hill from Wellington lies a provincial gem boasting everything from unspoiled bush walks to breathtaking coastal scenery, family-focused facilities, and some of the best boutique cafes, food producers, and wineries Wairarapa has to offer. It’s Masterton, it’s less than two hours out of the Capital, and it could be just the summer break you’re seeking. Masterton District basks in sunny northern Wairarapa. Home to the bustling rural provincial community of Masterton (Wairarapa’s largest centre), and the tourist hotspots of coastal Castlepoint and Riversdale, it has something for everyone – whether

Photos taken by Jet Productions

you’re looking for couple of days away from the big smoke or a longer family holiday that’s conveniently close to home. Staying in Masterton itself is an ideal summer option. Fill your days with visits to galleries and museums, grabbing delicious bites and great coffee at local cafes, sampling the local wineries, exploring award-winning parks and the fantastic 11km network of recreational trails. Watch the kids take on the newly revamped (and radas) skatepark – or give it a go yourself if you’re game! Less than an hour away are the idyllic coastal communities of Castlepoint and Riversdale Beach.

Castlepoint has been voted one of the country’s top 10 most-loved beaches, with its golden sands and iconic lighthouse. Just an hour from Masterton, it’s the perfect getaway, with swimming, surfing, walking trails galore, and a sweeping east coast outlook. Just down the coast, the gently sloping beach at Riversdale is four kilometres long and a fantastic spot for swimming, surfing and fishing. Both communities offer camping options, brilliant general stores, and provide those relaxing summer vibes that make for truly memorable kiwi summer holidays. If an active break in the great outdoors is more your style, an easy drive west

of Masterton takes you to the Tararua Forest Park, with its extensive network of trails and huts. Or take a trip less than half an hour north of Masterton to get up close with endangered species at Pūkaha National Wildlife Centre, where you can walk through the fantastic free-flight aviary or take a tour, including feeding some spectacular eels – or spotting slightly slower-moving tuatara. Heading away for a slice of east coast lifestyle is as easy as throwing a bag in the car or grabbing a train and heading over the hill to Masterton. If sun, surf, skating, shopping, sipping, snacking and sandcastles add up to summer for you, we have it in (buckets and) spades.

Wellington Opera presents this well-loved romantic tragedy, with an all-New Zealand cast, set in the stark beauty of Aotearoa’s deep south.

18–25 MARCH S T JA M E S T H E AT R E T I C K E T S AT :

wellingtonopera.nz

G U E S T

E D I T O R I A L

CAPITAL The stories of Wellington

ia ora and happy New Year to all Capital readers. It’s been quite a year and I’m sure we’re all looking forward to the holiday season. For me, that means having a staycation in Wellington so I can kick back, relax, and enjoy what the capital has to offer. I’m really looking forward to taking my Staffordshire bull terrier called Teddy on walks in our beautiful bush-clad hills. It’s the perfect way to unwind and recharge the batteries. Teddy loves it too. Of course, the festive season isn’t complete without joining family and friends for a bite to eat and a drink or two to wash it down. Wellington is just the place to do that with its amazing range of restaurants, bars, and eateries. Three of my favourites are Loretta, Highwater and Logan Brown. There are also plenty of events happening in Wellington over summer. Gardens Magic is back with its iconic concert series, a light display and Kids’ Garden Trail. Ed Sheeran’s gig at Sky Stadium may well set a new crowd record, plus three extra intimate Sheeran shows will be held in the Opera House. One of the highlights of Wellington’s summer is the return of Jim Beam Homegrown and the incredible vibe it brings to the waterfront. It coincides with my birthday and I plan to be there to celebrate with friends and whānau. Finally, thank you to Capital for shedding light on all things Wellington – its events, people, environment, innovation and all-round awesomeness. Ngā mihi nui.

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Stockists Pick up your Capital in New World, Countdown, and Pak‘n’Save supermarkets, Moore Wilson's, Unity Books, Commonsense Organics, Magnetix, City Cards & Mags, Take Note, Whitcoulls, Wellington Airport, Interislander, and other discerning nation-wide outlets. Distribution: john@capitalmag.co.nz.

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Tory Whanau Mayor of Wellington

Produced by Capital Publishing Ltd

The opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher. Although all material is checked for accuracy, no liability is assumed by the publisher for any losses due to the use of material in this magazine. Copyright ©. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of Capital Publishing Ltd.

Staff

Featured contributors

Managing editor Alison Franks editor@capitalmag.co.nz Sales manager Milly Brunel milly@capitalmag.co.nz Campaign coordinators Haleigh Trower haleigh@capitalmag.co.nz Siobhan Vaccarino siobhan@capitalmag.co.nz Factotum John Bristed john@capitalmag.co.nz Project manager Shalee Fitzsimmons shalee@capitalmag.co.nz Art director Rachel Salazar artd@capitalmag.co.nz Designer Elaine Loh design@capitalmag.co.nz

R AC H E L S A L A Z A R Ar t D i re c tor

RICKY SITU Ph oto g r aph er

Rachel has made it back home to Wellington after a few years in the big smoke. She is our new art director, illustrator and designer. An all-rounder hobbyist with a taste for the arts, she can be found watching old movies, collecting sentimental bits from flea markets, or hiking outdoors.

Ricky Situ is a keen outdoorsman and photographer, based in Wellington, Aotearoa. He loves to capture images that tell a story, and explore the macro details of nature. He’s also part of Zhū Creative, a creative content studio.

LIAM GRANDY Ph oto g r aph er

JOHN SAKER Writer

Content manager / writer Sophie Carter content@capitalmag.co.nz Publishing coordinator Hannah Mahon hello@capitalmag.co.nz Accounts Tod Harfield accounts@capitalmag.co.nz

Contributors Melody Thomas, Janet Hughes, Anna Briggs, Sarah Lang, Deirdre Tarrant, Francesca Emms, Dan Poynton, Chris Tse, Claire Orchard, Harriet Palmer, Jess Scott, Griff Bristed, Claire O’Loughlin, Chev Hassett, Joram Adams, Sanne Van Ginkel, Rachel Helyer Donaldson, Matthew Plummer, Fairooz Samy, Adrian Vercoe, Sasha Borissenko, Courteney Moore, Josiah Nevell, Monica Winder, Craig Beardsworth, Olivia Lamb, Wilson Matete

Submissions We welcome freelance art, photo, and story submissions. However we cannot reply personally to unsuccessful pitches.

Liam is a photographer based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Liam principally uses film photography as a medium to engage with people and the spaces they live in. He enjoys going off the beaten track and exploring forgotten places of New Zealand.

John Saker began his working life as a professional basketball player. In the ’80s he took up journalism and since then his features and columns have appeared in many publications, including the Listener and North & South. In 2002 he won the Cathay Pacific Travel Writing Award.

There’s nothing quite like coming home, to a place that just feels ‘right’. Somewhere relaxing & reviving; energising & exciting; full of love & laughter.

0800 888 999 | mcw.nz

Denny by Belle Interiors Collection

LET’S MAKE YOUR HOME BEAUTIFUL

C O N T E N T S

18 22 25 26

CHATTER NOTEWORTHY BY THE NUMBERS NEW PRODUCTS

Stroll in the park Take a walk down memory lane in some of our favourite public spaces

28 Tales of the city

53 Singing monks to kapa haka

Resident high roller Katelyn Kennedy

Take note of the NZSO’s 2023 programme

CULTURE

38 Pay it forward Dr Richard Levy can't get enough of Antartica

56 58

BUG ME EDIBLES

Hook line and sinker This seafood guide is shore to reel you in

C O N T E N T S

74 Days of wine and rosés Stop and smell the rosé with John Saker

90 85

Bijou beauty on the Boardwalk BY THE BOOK

The Dunhams swap Hollywood for Wellywood

96 98

GOOD SPORT WELLY ANGEL

100

80 Greywacke Benn Jeffries spins a yarn with original summer fiction

Inspiring ideas for the summer season. Beautiful bedlinen & tableware, interior fabrics for curtains & blinds & furniture, the best selection of plump feather-filled cushions, ambient signature scent candles, the latest & greatest in interior & garden books, & ideas for making your home beautiful.

cnr Blair & Wakefield Streets, Wellington www.smallacorns.co.nz / 04 802 5795

86 Poetry slam Poet Laureate Chris Tse on well versed Wellington

Heroin chic is back Melody Thomas on traumas past

102 CALENDAR 104 PUZZLED

HUTT'S HOTTEST

Seashore Cabaret Waterfront views, retro vibe and fine food. Trust us, it's worth the visit.

Waffle Box, Brewtown

Days Bay This is what summer all day looks like... kayaks, park picnics, buggy walks, and shakes from Chocolate Dayz of course!

Remutaka Cycle Trail Are you into short & sweet or a bit more of three-day ride kind of vibe? Either way, the trail is for you!

Heat making you crave a sweet? Waffle Box, Upper Hutt's very own dessert specialist has you sussed.

Orongorongo Track The perfect day-walk for the family. If you're lucky you might spot some wild kiwi.

Kaitoke Regional Park Can you think of a better way to cool off than a river swim... Our top spot? Kaitoke of course. Pencarrow Lighthouse A stunning rugged trail to NZ’s first lighthouse – hire an e-bike to explore the lakes too.

Tartines No truer definition of being a hidden gem nestled in Eastbourne with loads of French flair.

Brewtown Picture this: Saturday arvo, scorching day, cold brew in hand... sounds dreamy right?!

Wainuiomata Summer Pool Pack a picnic, go for the waterslide or stay poolside for the minigolf and BBQs.

Want more? Visit huttvalleynz.com You're welcome ;)

S E C TCI HO ANT TH EE RA D E R

CPotY Snapshots

One

Title: Sunbathing Photographer: Nathan Hall Category: Society semi-finalist

We l c o m e b a c k Hooray: the Gardens Magic free concerts and light show return to the Botanic Garden Soundshell (10–29 January, Tuesdays–Sundays, 8–9.15pm). Descriptions of the bands’ style/genre include The Kist (intelligent chamber folk), Crash Bandihoot (New Orleans jazz, funk, brass), and Radar Angel (synthpop, arena rock, light industrial). Come early, as the placement of bottoms is a competitive sport.

Behind the camera: Nathan is a 24-year-old “chess nerd, board game fan” and “photography enthusiast.” Originally from Gisborne, he calls himself “a country bumpkin by nature.” He moved to Wellington to study design at Massey University and now works in the industry. Why photography? Nathan took up photography as a hobby at the age of 11, but has always been unsure about moving into the professional world for fear it might “take the fun out of it. I like to follow my nose and take the photographs that interest me,” he says. He’s particularly interested in street photography and has always been “fascinated by the chaos and noise of cities and how people move around.” He is inspired by the likes of photographers Robert Frank, John Free, and Saul Lieter. “It's a great way to feel a part of things and tap into the energy of the city.” He enjoys working with film, finding that it leaves room for “happy creative accidents.”

Two Sta r t yo u r e n g i n e s

The snap: This photo was taken during summer 2021 in Oriental Bay. “The scene, it leapt out straight away – I loved the pair acting the same, the anonymity of it.” He says, “I like how the edges have nothing intruding. It feels like these two are in their own world.”

Lowriders, American classics, and roadsters will be among the hundreds of cars rolling up to Hardpark 2023. The festival brings together car enthusiasts from all over the region to parade their vehicles and meet fellow petrolheads. Taking place over Wellington Anniversary weekend (21–23 January), it starts with the main event at Brewtown in Upper Hutt. The following day drivers have a chance to show off their skidding skills at Masterton Motorplex, and the weekend finishes up with a Clubs and Crews BBQ.

Judges' thoughts: Judge Chris Sisarich said he loved “the simplicity of this image. It's the sort of photo I like to take. It has a bit of that Martin Parr feel about it.”

C H AT T E R

New in town

Best regional magazine

N e w ex h i b i t Bright and new, contemporary gallery Exhibit is showing some of New Zealand’s most admired established and emerging artists. Art fans Lucy Jackson and Allen Maher are behind the venture, bringing something different to this cute corner spot in Hataitai village. Trish Campbell, Jane Denton, and Alexandra Weston are among those represented.

Three To o t i n g o u r ow n h o r n Right this moment, you’re reading an award-winning magazine. Aotearoa’s Best Regional Magazine. The judges at the 2022 media awards said that Capital “represents the kind of city Wellington wants to be: curated and well designed; eclectic but inclusive.” On top of this our biennial Capital Photographer of the Year (CPotY) competition received Highly Commended in the Best Brand Event category, and Anna Briggs, our wonderful regular photographer, was one of the top two finalists for Best Photographer. We’re as pleased as punch.

Four

F i ve

Lea k Street

H a p py n ew b e e r

Estimates from Wellington Water show the region is losing around 27 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of water each day, from over 5,000 leaky pipes. The loss equates to around 40% of the region’s daily water supply. During winter Wellington Water has around 220 million litres available per day, which satisfies the demand, whereas only 160 million litres are available in a dry summer, to be quickly consumed as people water gardens and fill pools.

Whether it’s a thirst-quenching lager, a hoppy hazy, or a stout as thick as a milkshake, this city is the place to find your perfect pint. Capital has put together its eighth annual Beer Guide for your drinking pleasure, to showcase the best spots to try this summer. Pick up this handy little map and head off on a beer adventure, exploring local bars and breweries with delicious drops and truly great grub. Find your free Beer Guide in participating bars around town.

S E C TCI HO AN T TH EE RA D E R

Eight

Six R e d d y fo r r u g by Former governor-general Dame Patsy Reddy (see Cap #79) has been elected New Zealand Rugby’s first female chairperson. She was appointed to the NZR board in April and will replace Stewart Mitchell, who has spent nine years on the board and almost two years as chair. He will step down from the position as of 31 January. Dame Patsy’s joint deputy chairs will be NZ Rugby directors Bailey Mackey and Professor Farah Palmer.

Sea change Feel like plunging into a slightly-less-chilly ocean? Brave souls can sign up for the Interislander Swim The Lighthouse event (29 January): choose between Round the Lighthouse (off Evans Bay) or Around the Fountain (in Oriental Bay), plus there’s a kids’ event. Mountains to Sea is again running free community snorkel events – gear provided, no experience needed – at Taputeranga Marine Reserve, Island Bay (21 & 28 January) and at Whitireia Park, Porirua (18 February, 4 March).

S eve n Ret u r n of A n n e International exhibition Let Me Be Myself: The Life Story of Anne Frank returns to Wellington, to the Academy of Fine Arts gallery on the waterfront. The exhibition has toured Aotearoa and Australia with more than 40 successful shows. It has been updated, with a new section aimed at young people, about the harm caused by prejudice in today’s world, using stories from people who have experienced it. From 12 January until 26 February.

It's cool to kōrero E haere ana koutou ki tātahi? Kaua e wareware i ōu koutou pōtae me te pani arai hihirā!

Are you lot going to the beach? Don’t forget your hats and sunscreen!

Nine D r i ve r s , b ewa re (PARK)ing Day is turning 10! The global event has designers, artists, creatives, and community groups (anyone with a good proposal) transform metered street-parking spaces into interactive installations to spark debate on how public space is used. In Wellington, it runs the length of Cuba St, using 30 spaces borrowed from Wellington City Council. This year it’s on a Saturday (4 March, 9am–5pm), rather than a Friday as in the past, so rangatahi can experience the installations – or even create one as a group.

HERE’S TO A ROCKIN

See you at the College St café.

N O T E W O R T H Y

MAKING WAV E S Wellington radio station RadioActive has just celebrated its 45th birthday. It started with a two-week broadcasting license and using a homemade transmitter. Three years later it had become the first station in the capital to use FM broadcasting (a change in the way waves are carried, which produces a higher quality sound) and by 1985 were broadcasting fulltime. The station has kick-started the careers of some of the country’s musical, and journalistic talents, including John Campbell and Tova O’Brien.

I SPY

IT'S REIGNING WREN

PARK LIFE

The Security Intelligence Service (SIS) has agreed a settlement of $66,000 to compensate writer Nicky Hager (see Cap #81) for unlawfully accessing his phone records. The SIS originally pursued the records in an attempt to discover the unnamed sources Nicky consulted for his book, Other People's Wars, which investigated New Zealand's involvement in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The SIS apologised to the journalist in 2019 but it has taken until now to agree compensation.

The pīwauwau rock wren has been crowned New Zealand Bird of the Year 2022. The tiny yellow bird clocked up 2,894 number one votes on Forest and Bird’s website over the two-week voting period. Chief Executive Nicola Toki says, “As Aotearoa’s only true alpine bird, these tiny wrens are already feeling the impact of warmer temperatures, which encourages predators like rats and stoats to climb higher and invade their mountaintop homes.”

Environmental groups including Forest and Bird Kāpiti-Mana, the Kāpiti Coast Biodiversity Project and Low Carbon Kāpiti are petitioning for flood-prone land in Paraparaumu to be turned into a wetland park. The 28-hectare piece of land is currently for sale and is being marketed for commercial or residential building, despite the known flood risk. A wetland would create a spillover area for flooding, as well as a muchneeded green space for the town.

Showing New Zealand art to Wellington since 1882. Contemporary art, gifts and indulgences or unique venue hire. Visit our beautiful waterfront galleries, open daily: 10 – 5 pm Free entry. Te wahi e kitea ai nga mea ataahua – The place where beautiful things are to be found

Visit us : 1 Queens Wharf, Wellington Call us : (04) 499 8807

Find us : www.nzafa.com

nzafa

academygalleries

N O T E W O R T H Y

SWEET 16 Porirua city council has voted in support of the of Make it 16 campaign, which proposes lowering the national voting age. In November the Supreme Court ruled that the current voting age of 18 is unjustified discrimination under the Bill of Rights Act. Pāuatahanui general ward councillor Josh Trlin (pictured) moved the motion, wanting to push the government to make the change ahead of the 2025 local elections. It was voted for by almost all council members, with the exception of Ross Leggett and Mike Duncan.

DING-DONG

NAILED IT

A WEE WAY TO GO

The Bell Gully Building on Lady Elizabeth Lane is the newest addition to the Wellington waterfront. Despite disruptions from covid and winter weather, the project was finished within weeks of its original completion date by developers Willis Bond. The 3,800-square-metre base-isolated building is occupied by law firm Bell Gully, real estate company JLL, co-working provider Servcorp, and optometrists Eye Institute. There are three retail spaces on the ground floor, one of them currently occupied.

A new sculpture by Glen Hayward has been unveiled on the Wellington waterfront. The Whanganui-born artist was commissioned in 2021 to produce a sculpture to honour the city’s maritime history. The Grove features 15 giant wooden nails, some four metres high, which give the impression they have been hammered into the pavement. The Grove is Hayward’s first permanent sculpture in Wellington, but he has previously participated in the Sculpture Trust’s Te Papa 4 Plinths project.

The demolition of the Te Aro Park toilets leaves us wondering why Cuba Street has no public loos. Wellington City Council’s Urban Regeneration and Design Manager Farzad Zamani says public toilets “may not be appropriate and compatible with the street’s design and limit the space for pedestrians and other activities. Cuba Street has a unique character and is identified as a significant heritage area in our District Plan… We will consider this in our long-term planning”.

Not to be missed Anne Frank : Let me be myself 12 January - 26 February 2023 ‘Let me be myself and then I am satisfied,’ Anne Frank wrote in her diary on 11 April 1944. This exhibition connects Anne Frank’s life story with the present and makes the fate of the millions of victims of the persecution of the Jews during the Second World War personal and palpable.

‘Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart’ - ANNE FRANK

Visit us : 1 Queens Wharf, Wellington Call us : (04) 499 8807

Find us : www.nzafa.com

nzafa

academygalleries

Until 2 April 2023

Beatdol iii, 2022 Photo by Jungwoo Lee

B Y

T H E

N U M B E R S

CO M P I L E D BY HANNAH MAHON

Best flippin BBQ

Sunburn is (not!) hot

The inside scoop

2.50

1952

the price of a Bunnings fundraising BBQ snag

the year the modern BBQ grill was invented in Illinois, USA

the length in metres of the giant sausage atop a fork sculpture in Tuatapere

percentage of Kiwis who consider a BBQ an essential home appliance

10–30

the minimum level of spf that should be worn every day

time in hours after which sunscreen should be reapplied

optimum number of minutes of sunlight to boost vitamin D levels

time in minutes you should apply sunscreen before leaving the house

28.4

3.08

litres of ice cream eaten a year by New Zealanders on average

the most popular ice cream flavour is vanilla (how vanilla)

the temperature in degrees Celsius at which ice cream starts to melt

the height in metres of the largest ice cream cone ever made, in Norway, 2015

the most in the world per capita

Singles awareness day

5,500

1861

40,000

13.2

the number of free mini bullet vibrators and C-rings given away with Hell pizza purchases on Valentine’s Day 2022

year the heart-shaped box of chocolates was introduced

the price in $ of the world’s most expensive bouquet of roses

the average number of sexual partners a man has in NZ over a lifetime

25 25

N E W

P R O D U C T S

8 5 7

9 10

Cherry bomb

1. Castle bath towel, $99, Small Acorns 2. Monstera deliciosa plant, $34.99, Palmers 3. Vincent Sheppard Joe barstool, $595, McKenzie & Willis 4. Flip straw water bottle, $79.99, Stanley 5. Cherries, Moore Wilson's 6. Fee Brothers cherry bitters, $29.95, Moore Wilsons 7. Black waxed cap, $120, That Was Then, This Is Now 8. Summer coffee bundle, $15, L’affare 9. Cherries velvet cushion, $119.90, Tickadeeboo 10. Making Space: A History of NZ Women in Architecture, $65, Unity Books 11. Timberland ankle strap sandal, $200, Solect

Summer Events Join us for some whānau-friendly fun!

Gardens Magic

Concert Series, Light Display, Kids Garden Trail 10–29 January Botanic Garden ki Paekākā

Whānau Film Night 6pm–9pm, 5 February Waitangi Park

Te Rā o Waitangi 12pm–6pm, 6 February Waitangi Park

Wellington Pasifika Festival

12pm–6pm, 11 February Waitangi Park

wellington.govt.nz/events

TA L E S

O F

T H E

C I T Y

Raising the skates BY S O P H I E CA RT E R P H OTO G R A P H Y BY J O S I A H N E V E L L

CAFÉ

FILM

EAT

MUSIC

AUTHOR

Dough Bakery

Mamma Mia

Mr Go’s

Wilkinson

Colleen Hoover

Katelyn Kennedy is Upper Hutt’s resident high-roller.

t takes some people a lifetime to find their calling. Katelyn Kennedy found hers at age six. Donning her first pair of skates at her cousin’s roller-skating birthday party, she fell head over heels for the sport. “I realised I was quite good at it and begged my mum to let me start taking classes. And 16 years later I still love it as much as that very first day.” In those 16 years Katelyn has reached world class, competing in all the artistic skating disciplines, including Dance, Figure, Free Skating, and Precision. Each is judged on a combination of choreography, accuracy, creativity, technical agility, and virtuosity. She has represented Aotearoa at the Oceania Championships (between Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Taiwan) six times, receiving gold medals at five competitions. “One year I had an absolute blow-out and placed fourth in all my events – it happens!” In 2017 she took to the world stage, jetting off to China for the World Roller Games, and then heading to France the following year for the Artistic Roller-Skating World Championships. “Being selected for these teams is not easy”, she says. “I was extremely happy to have placed 14th in the world at both these competitions.” Recently Katelyn has stepped back from competing to focus on coaching. While she always envisioned a future as an athlete, teaching seemed to develop by itself, starting with her first assisting role aged 12. With her calm teaching style and a mantra of “just keep trying,” coaching has grown into a full-time career,

helping fearless children hone their techniques and adults look less like baby giraffes on wheels. “It’s special to give back to the sport.” Coaching extends far beyond the rink. It involves choreographing routines, selecting and producing perfectly timed music, and even designing costumes. “Planning a new routine takes several hours, and when you have to do it for 22 kids you can imagine how long it takes.” Each routine needs a show-stopping costume, and Katelyn sketches ideas for them, then works with a local maker to bring them to life. A favourite leotard was created for a Transformers-themed routine, featuring blue shoulder pads and embellished with a diamante robot. Last year the 22-year-old’s career came full circle, when she became an assistant coach for New Zealand’s Oceania 2022 team, nine years after she competed in her first Oceania. The team of 44 skaters returned triumphant with 39 medals. “Skating is still a very small and niche sport in New Zealand,” says Katelyn, who grew up close to Upper Hutt Roller Skating Club, one of the largest in the country. Now it’s where she trains and teaches her classes, six days a week. The capital can be tricky for outdoor skating, but Katelyn makes a point of taking a skate around the waterfront each summer. “You just can’t beat Wellington on a good day, and when you combine it with rollerskating it’s the cherry on top!”

Whanganui River discoverwhanganui.nz

Vinnie

Automotive Engineer Apprentice

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C U L T U R E

BROTHERS IN BED Brothers Donald and Dave Armstrong enjoy working together. Dave wrote In Bed with Schoenberg and Donald – the NZ Symphony Orchestra’s Associate Concertmaster – is the play’s musical director. “The great thing about working with your brother,” Donald says, “is being as critical as you like, without fear of offending. Once, for a script that was too long, I cut some lines with a pencil and with pleasure!” This play’s set in the 1950s, when numerologist and modernist composer Arnold Schoenberg, believes it’s his last day alive. At Circa, from 25 February.

ARIEL IN THE DELL

PAST AND PRESENT

At 24, the upper age limit for the Outlook for Someday Film Challenge, Ben Stewart and William Cho (pictured), from Wellington video-production agency Studio Halfgray and their mate Josh Dale hit the brief: making a sustainability-related, youthfocused film no longer than five minutes. Second Job is a doco about artists who need two jobs to survive. “What sustainability means was broad,” says Ben, who is also a musician. Of 10 winners, they nabbed the “Photogear Standout” prize, getting vouchers and a framed film still.

After two years off because of covid et al, Wellington Summer Shakespeare is turning 40 and performing The Tempest (11–26 February) in the Botanic Garden’s Dell. Director Megan Evans, a Victoria University lecturer, calls this an “eco-ethical production” of Shakespeare’s play about Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan-turnedsorcerer. “In this production, Prospero doesn’t speak for others quite so often,” Megan says, “and [spirit] Ariel has a bigger role”. Bring a picnic, puffa jacket (because, Wellington), and maybe a folding chair.

With its solar-panel project, community engagement, and education programme, Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History has received a Qualmark endorsement with a bronze Sustainable Tourism Business ward. Keri Edmonds, Qualmark’s Tourism Business Advisor, was impressed with Aratoi’s manaakitanga (care, respect, generosity) and strong relationship with Wairarapa iwi. Around a third of its exhibitions are linked to taonga Māori, Keri notes.

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NOW OR NEVER

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SOUNDS GOOD Longtime Wellington-based collaborators Stephen Gallagher and David Long didn’t attend the NZ TV Awards ceremony in Auckland, not expecting to win Images & Sound Best Original Score. A friend collected the award for them. “I kept refreshing Twitter then phoned Dave,” Stephen says. The internationally recognised pair (The Hobbit, The Luminaries etc) won the award for their work on Libertine Pictures’ TV show Mystic (pictured). Based on Stacy Gregg’s pony novels, it’s about Londoner Issie’s initially boring life in New Zealand – and has been sold in 74 territories internationally. Catch all three seasons on TVNZ+.

BREAKING BARRIERS

WHAT’S BREWING?

NEVER GETS OLD

In 2017 Miria George, from theatre company Tawata Productions and the Kia Mau Festival, set up writers’ collective Maranga Mai, to help Wāhine Māori and va’ine Pasifika with their writing. “I’d been thinking about systemic barriers stopping Wāhine Māori and va’ine Pasifika writers having a voice,” Miria says. Maranga Mai has released a five-part audio-drama, available on Kia Mau’s digital platform Moana Nui, featuring new writing with elements of fantasy by collective members Tina McNicholas, Sandra Tisam, Sherilee Kahui, Teherenui Koteka and Stevie Greeks.

Brewtown in Upper Hutt was inspired by a similar set-up in Portland, Oregon. It has three craft breweries, a distillery, a restaurant, and a family-entertainment complex. Brewtown hosts (rather than stages) new music festival Hutt Sounds (5 March) drawing bands such as Australian rockers Hoodoo Gurus. Brewtown’s Phil Gorman says, “A band like them coming into the Hutt is pretty cool”.

To mark the start of its 70th year, Tutus on Tour 2023 looks back at the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s early days and the history of ballet in this country. They’ll stage performances in some smaller cities and towns, often in historic theatres. One work, ‘Nobody Takes Me Seriously’, from 2001 production FrENZy, is a toetapping solo set to Tim Finn’s eponymous classic song.

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A visit to Whanganui isn’t complete without a visit to the Sarjeant Current Exhibitions: New Zealand Society of Artists in Glass Members Show 22 October 2022 – 29 January 2023 Peter Peryer: Holy Tomato 3 December 2022 – 12 February 2023 2022 Pattillo Whanganui Arts Review 12 November 2022 – 26 February 2023 Collection Focus: Charles Blomfield 17 December 2022 – 5 March 2023

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FL AXIBLE Who knew you can take lessons in raranga – traditional Maori weaving – using harakeke (flax leaves) in Ōtari Wilton’s Bush? Aotearoa’s only botanical garden dedicated solely to native plants includes three Pā Harakeke (Harakeke habitat/eco-systems). The Ōtari Raranga Weavers, Māori artists Linda Lee and Frank Topia, weave Te Ao Māori into the classes, by sharing their knowledge of tikanga (customary practices), and traditional Māori healing, singing waiata, and speaking some te reo. Linda has a permit to harvest harakeke at Ōtari for her private projects; the students find harakeke patches around town.

GOOD WOOD

STAR STRUCK

DEAR JUDE

Wellington perfumier Francesco van Eerd has created a scent, inspired by the aroma of a piece of kauri resin, that captures the smell of wood shavings falling as a waka is carved. This scent accompanies a soundscape by Tiki Taane in Te Papa’s multi-sensory exhibition He Kaupapa Waka | A Fleet of Waka, which runs throughout 2023. Francesco also created the scent of a kākāpō for the museum’s Te Taiao Nature exhibition.

Ever noticed references to Shakespeare in Star Trek? Tanya Piejus did. She’s directing Henry IV Part 1 for Eastbourne communitytheatre troupe Butterfly Creek’s annual Bard in the Yard production (23–25 February, 2–4 March). Staged in the Muritai School yard, Shakespeare’s comedy is adapted to a future world where Captain Henry faces Northumberland Rebels and Star Trekkers rebelling against the Crown. “Shakespeare’s plays are ‘man-heavy,’” says Tanya, “so a future setting makes it easier to cast females. Young Hal’s played by a girl.”

Award-winning actress/singer Ali Harper is up for the daunting task of ‘inhabiting’ Judy Garland in fourperson play End of the Rainbow (17–19 February, Opera House). Producer Tania Dreaver offered Ali the role after seeing her one-woman show, Legendary Divas, about women Ali admired, including Garland. “Fortunately,” Ali says, “there are Judy’s films, albums, and biographies, so I’m finding out things to help me empathise with her.” The play is set in a hotel room before a concert.

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Pay it forward P H OTO G R A P H Y BY A N N A B R I G G S

Antarctic geologist and climatologist Dr Richard Levy is a communicator and educator as much as he is a scientist. He talks to Sarah Lang.

ntarctic researcher Richard Levy, who has been to the great white continent a whopping 13 times, enjoys his weeks in a tent there. But when he gets back to Wellington, he appreciates running water, showers, toilets, and beds. “Much of your time in Antarctica is spent melting snow to make water, cooking, keeping warm, with a bit of time left to do your work!” Richard recently received one of seven Blake Leadership awards, for New Zealand individuals making an exceptional contribution. Richard had won awards before, but mainly for team projects. “The Blake award is special to me because it acknowledges my role in leading teams and driving some things forward.” It recognises that, on top of researching climate change and its challenges, he’s working to translate the science and find ways forward. “But the award also makes me feel slightly uncomfortable, as I fluctuate day to day between introvert and extrovert.” Richard lives with his wife Amy, a psychotherapist, and daughters Sophia, a nurse graduate, and Maya, a chef. He met Amy while doing his PhD on Antarctica’s 40-millionyear-old ice sheets at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), known for Antarctic science. “She was a waitress in a cocktail bar. Well, it was a brew pub and my geology mates and I would head there to end the week. Amy was studying for her psychology bachelor’s degree. We chatted briefly but it wasn’t until she bought me a beer that I knew something could happen!” “I’m lucky my parents let me figure out what I wanted to do, and encouraged my PhD. Because back then, many people would say ‘Why are you doing more study? Get a job!’” He studied further, doing a master’s in science teaching. “I decided to become a teacher of teachers. I taught at a science-focussed high school and in a middle school. I realised I wasn’t just teaching science but was

responsible to help young people navigate through societal struggles.” He returned to UNL as a researcher in 2003. Five years later, he moved to Wellington to work at Crown research institute GNS Science Te Pū Ao “and Amy and our daughters graciously came with me. My mum was thrilled of course!” “My time in the field has put pressure on our family,” he admits. “But Amy’s always supported me and acknowledged my work is important. I also benefit from her insight as a psychotherapist, about interacting with people.” When asked by people what he does for work, he used to simply say a geologist, but people often asked for details. “Then I’d say: ‘I’m trained as a geologist – and, more specifically, as a palaeontologist, I study fossil lifeforms to help interpret environmental change’. Nowadays, I typically say ‘a geologist and climatologist trying to figure out how our climate will change in the future’.” Paleoclimatologists use information captured in layers of rock and ice to get insights into the climates during Earth’s different geologic ages. Richard studies microfossils (generally 0.001 to 2 millimetres in size) in rocks and sediments. He specialises in fossil dinoflagellates and diatoms: the microscopic remains of marine algae floating around in the ocean. “I can take a gram of sediment, dissolve it in water and a bit of acid and so forth, put it on a microscope slide, and discover a whole hidden world. One quick look and it’s wow, I can see what the ocean was like 30 million years ago: the temperature; whether it was fresher or saltier. Then you piece together a jigsaw that tells you how the climate affected the environment then and might do so again.” Richard spends four days a week as a Principal Scientist at GNS. “I lead our environment-and-climate research theme. We’re always asking, ‘Is our research addressing

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what our country, government, and other stakeholders need?’ If not, we realign.” Richard spends the remaining day each week as Professor at the Antarctic Research Centre Te Puna Pātiotio, which has 27 staff and 16 students, at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. “Happily, in my two jobs, the science connects seamlessly.” His first Antarctic trip was as a geology student in 1992, when he was offered a spot on a field team going to Antarctica. Did Richard want to go? Did he what. Even after 13 times, “Excuse the cliché, but Antarctica’s awe-inspiring.” Once, a Hercules aircraft couldn’t get Richard’s research team to their field location, so the pilot of a smaller plane said “‘Drop them at the South Pole and I’ll take them from there.’ The South Pole was as close as I’ll get to a moon landing!” Richard has led or participated in figuratively and literally ground-breaking ice-drilling projects in Antarctica and elsewhere (including the pioneering international ANDRILL project). He uses data to project sea-level rise, working with “data people” (geologists and statisticians) and climate and ice-sheet modellers. The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets – each a mass of glacial ice – are effectively reservoirs containing about 99% of Earth’s fresh water (mostly frozen, for now); the Antarctic ice sheet is almost 14 million square kilometres. The Ross Ice Shelf, the size of France, is the world’s largest body of floating ice. Richard is currently co-leading international project SWAIS2C. Next summer, they’ll set up camp on the Ross Ice Shelf. “We’re trying to determine whether Antarctica’s large ice shelves will collapse as earth’s temperature pushes towards a two-degrees-celsius rise; if they collapse, sea-level rise will speed up.” Their process? “We’ll use a special drill to literally pour hot water on top of the ice shelf and melt a hole about 600 metres deep into the ocean cavity below, then lower a special sediment-cutting drill bit from a specialised coring rig to get the sediment beneath the sea floor.”’ Richard also co-leads, with long-time colleague Tim Naish, the $7.1-million, multi-organisation NZ SeaRise: Te Tai Pari O Aotearoa programme. It has released sea-level-rise projections for every two kilometres off the coast of New Zealand up to the year 2300. They just got funding to continue this work, focusing on shoreline change and impact.

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A typical day? “I get up at 5:30am, feed our golden retriever, and by 7:00am, I’m on my way to work. Mostly, I’m at a computer: writing papers, responding to requests for information, writing funding proposals, supervising students, making sure my team’s research is supported and progressing. It’s quite diverse. I’m never bored. I’m home at a reasonable hour to help cook, and usually in bed by 10pm.” At weekends, he enjoys mountain biking. “I like the hardship of climbing the hill, then the fun of coming down fast, trying to avoid trees. When life’s so busy, mountain biking allows me time out, to be in the moment.” He also finds time to speak to groups such as city councils, rangatahi, and science communicators. “Scientific knowledge is hollow if it’s not translated well. I try to communicate the climate-change challenge while also highlighting there are ways forward.” If we feel overwhelmed as individuals? “If you access scientific knowledge, and pass that on, we’ll get more people on board and put pressure on those in power. Acknowledging climate change is a big challenge – learn about it, but don’t get too afraid of it.” Richard has read about the psychology of educating people without creating fear. “If I’m ever getting a bit down and dark, Maya says, ‘Dad, let’s be positive about this. This is our future’. I’m confident we’ll get on top of this problem.” Richard grew up in Masterton. “I loved Meccano and Lego. I wanted to build and create things.” He studied architectural design for a year at Victoria. “But I had too much fun in my first year, as you do, and didn’t do well in several courses. Then I took a geology course and thought, ‘Wow this is science: three-dimensional, creative, and you’re not always stuck in a lab’. Understanding how the world once was – and cracking open a rock unseen for potentially hundreds of millions of years – fascinated me.” Years later, he and GNS colleagues established an inquiry-focused program, Geocamp. “We keep our mouths shut and let young people be geologists, because research shows if you get hands-on, that’s effective.” “I like to listen to and encourage young people, partly because I was once that person given a life-changing opportunity. We should give young people a chance, particularly if they’re showing interest and enthusiasm. Don’t just look at whether they’ve got A, B, or C grades. Recognise we all have potential.”

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Stroll in the park I L LU ST R AT I O N S BY R AC H E L SA L A Z A R

Emus, earthquakes, and estates – oh my! Matthew Plummer takes a trip down the garden path to explore how three Wellington parks came to be. 43

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Botanic Garden 1868

ellington was always intended to have a Botanic Garden. Scientific research and global trade in the early 19th century supercharged the concept of the monastic physic garden, where plants were grown for agricultural or medicinal purposes. The New Zealand Company instructed surveyor William Mein Smith to include “ample reserves for all public purposes such as a … botanical garden” in his design for the city. Creating reserves also drove up land values. Five hectares of Town Belt were duly set aside in 1844, but it took almost a quarter-century, some questionable transactions with iwi, and impetus from the Chief Government Scientist James Hector before the garden was established in 1868. Hector planted 127 varieties of conifers, and today the Botanic Garden has some of New Zealand’s oldest pinus radiata, grown from seeds imported from California, ancestors of millions of pines across the country. The new concept of planned urban recreation spaces came out of concern for the health of the population. Joseph Paxton’s Birkenhead Park in England, opened in 1847, was the world’s first publicly funded civic park. It inspired municipal parks across the world, including New York’s Central Park (1853). Photos of the Botanic Garden in 1880 show paths laid out for promenading in a landscape dotted with immature trees and bushes. By the start of the 20th century the vegetation had filled out, and the 1897 New Zealand Cyclopedia praised the garden as “the only redeeming feature of Wellington.” The city council took over management of the Botanic Garden from the Royal Society in 1891, and inevitably the balance shifted from

science to recreation. It was hugely popular – with visitors arriving on the Kelburn Cable Car (1902) and the electric tram to the Tinakori Road entrance (1904). Attractions included a collection of animals, including emus and monkeys. Zoo-keeping must have been relaxed, as they regularly escaped, attacking children and keeping Thorndon’s residents on their toes. When UK circus Bostock & Wombwell’s gave a year-old lion cub to Prime Minister Richard Seddon in 1906, the animal collection was moved to the new Zoological Garden in Newtown. King Dick (the lion, not the PM) was stuffed when he died in 1920 and now enthrals children in the Wellington Museum. The departure of the animals was balanced by an investment in recreational facilities, with huge earthworks creating Anderson Park in 1910. Government-funded “relief work” during the 1930s Depression filled in the gully to create a temporary transit camp for the military in World War Two, where the Lady Norwood Rose Garden now flourishes. This was a pet project of Edward Hutt, the city council’s Director of Parks and Reserves, and generously supported by the Norwood family (Sir Charles Norwood was a former Wellington mayor). Work progressed smoothly until a gardener accidentally sprayed the roses with herbicide shortly after the garden’s completion in 1953, killing all but two beds. The Council covered up the error, blaming a mystery fungus. Seven decades on the garden remains highly popular. It’s a horticultural throwback, but perfectly in keeping with the wider setting.

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Kelburn Park 1906

he initial wave of settlers made quick work of turning Wellington’s hillsides into pasture, despite government restrictions on scrubbing native bush. In 1843 Col. William Wakefield protested against the damage to the Town Belt (“one of the greatest ornaments of the Town”) – to little avail. The rapidly denuded slopes must have made for a desolate setting, and by 1897 the Cyclopaedia described Wellington as the “ugliest in the colony”. Yet within a year the foundations of our city’s quintessential postcard view would be laid – helped by the establishment of Wellington City Council in 1870, and spurred on by the Wellington Tree Planting and Scenery Preservation Society. Founded in 1895, it persistently sought civic funds to plant native flora, and restore beauty to the natural environment. “Kelburne” (the ‘e’ was quickly dropped to avoid confusion with Kilbirnie) was established on farmland purchased by the Upland Estate Company from William Moxham in 1896. Wellington historian Fanny Irvine-Smith in Streets of my city, 1948, described it as an “essentially man-made suburb”: opened up by the cable car at one end and the viaduct at the other, a warren of pathways and zigzags, and houses perched on steep hillsides – all offset by Kelburn Park’s incongruously flat playing fields. Kelburn Park was the initial anchor of the development, with Parliament granting £10,000 to fund the park and approach roads in 1897. Kelburn was intended to stand out from the mass of land coming to market, and the scope of works was impressive: a small ridgeline was levelled at the north to improve the central city vista, with spoil tipped into the gully that ran south along Salamanca Road today (further levelling was done

by Depression “relief labour” in the 1930s, and motorway construction in the 1970s). The cable car – funded by the developers – opened up land that would have been a long slog from Lambton Quay in the pre-tram era, offering a point of difference from other new suburbs. Construction started in 1898, with spoil from the top tunnel filling in the Kelburn Park gully. Progress was slower than expected, and the “cable tram” opened in February 1902: the developer’s toleration of their contractor delivering behind schedule probably reflected slow uptake of sections in Northland. Sluggish sales drove the pursuit of a large-scale resident. The Victoria college Act was passed in 1897, and the institution needed a campus. Wairarapa farmer Charles Pharazyn (an investor in the new development) offered the College six acres of land and £1,000 if it sited the new college in Kelburn: enough to see off its interest in the site of the widely loathed Mount Cook Prison Gaol (now occupied by Massey University), much to the dismay of local residents who preferred students to convicts. Kelburn Park was ready by the end of 1906, with spoil from the construction of the now iconic Hunter Building – unsurprisingly – added to the gully. The landscaping created a campus entrance unrivalled among New Zealand universities, and ensured Kelburn’s unwaning reputation as a desirable suburb. Today Kelburn Park has a timeless feel, with the Kelburn Municipal Croquet Club (established in 1913) operating from a pavilion built in 1924. The impressive fountain was installed in 1955 (with a motor recycled from the demolished Centennial Exhibition centrepiece) at the edge of the grounds; perched above the CBD’s towers it creates a sense of scale and grandeur.

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Midland Park 1983

trong tremors were felt across Wellington in the early hours of May 24th, 1968, originating from a powerful M7.1 earthquake in Inangahua, 235km away. Little remembered now, it caused huge damage to roads and railways in the South Island, killed three people, and triggered a change in the Municipal Corporations Act allowing local authorities to step in to strengthen buildings. The new powers were the perfect match for the mayor, Michael Fowler (later Sir Michael) who had beaten long-standing mayor Frank Kitts by 20 votes in the 1974 mayoral race. Fowler was a prominent architect who’d worked for Ove Arup in London, and designed Wellington’s modernist Overseas Passenger Terminal in the early 1960s. The Golden Mile’s 187 “earthquake risk” buildings were his opportunity to remodel Wellington on a grand scale, and breathe new life into a city that had stagnated under Kitts. A wave of demolitions commenced, with heart-breaking losses including the ANZ Bank and the Art Deco Colonial Mutual Building. Also on the chopping block was the much-loved Midland Hotel. Damaged in the Inangahua shake, it was purchased by the City Council in 1979 and levelled to create a park at the Lambton Quay end of Waring Taylor and Johnston streets. The Midland Hotel (completed in 1915) was designed by Henry Eli White, regarded as the leading designer of theatres and public spaces in Australasia. White’s legacy in Wellington includes the high Edwardian St James Theatre. The Midland’s Spanish Mission style was an outlier on Lambton Quay, with rounded window arches and huge cornices that hung metres over the pavement; its seven storeys (two added in 1923) made it a dominant presence in the city’s heart.

It was regarded as a smart hotel, offering silver service tea and coffee with linen napkins. Fowler’s dynamic leadership and architectural vision skipped over council processes, particularly as growth in the civil service meant a chronic shortage of public space in the city centre, where the waterfront was still part of a working port. The Mayor had the votes. Demolition started in late 1981, despite unsuccessful last-minute efforts to halt work by the Historic Places Trust and others, brushed off by Fowler as “eleventh-hour Charlies”. The new park was designed by City Council architect Ron Flook, a South African recently arrived in New Zealand. It opened in 1983: a plaza in 1960s American style featured lawns and concrete, a four-metre waterfall wall, and plentiful sunlight, in line with Flook’s design ethos of space for “rest, comfort and enjoyable observation”. Midland Park quickly became a popular spot for escaping the office for coffee or lunch. Fowler was keen to press on with his next project: a green space on the site of the old BNZ building. But the loss of the Midland Hotel led to the creation of the Wellington Civic Trust in 1981, bringing new vigour to the urban conservation movement, and the City Council’s new Conservation Committee vetoed the proposal. Midland Park was sympathetically remodelled in 1995 as part of a new 25-storey tower at 157 Lambton Quay. The fountain wall was replaced by Silvia Salgado’s water sculpture Ngā kōrerorero (the ongoing dialogue), but the curved canopies and lighting, trees, and overall feel of Flook’s design remain. Fowler’s modernist space, more popular than his eponymous concert hall, is a fitting legacy for a mayor the Dominion Post said was arguably “the most influential the capital has had over the past 100 years”.

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The Hutt Valley Guide

Commonsense We are a values-based business providing fresh organic food and groceries based on principles of environmental sustainability and fair trade. commonsenseorganics.co.nz

Salem + Co Sustainable salon offering all hairdressing and beauty services, including nails, eyelash extensions and cosmetic tattooing. Locally owned and operated. salem.co.nz

Buzzing with culture, art, shopping, and foodie delights (and always a few degrees warmer than Wellington) the Hutt is the place to be this summer. Deep in the valley you’ll discover talented makers and creators, splendid treats to tickle your tastebuds, a bunch of things to see and do, and even some wild animals. Check out these Hutt wonders and enjoy. 50

Staglands Wildlife Reserve Staglands Wildlife Reserve offers visitors the unique and exciting opportunity to connect with nature in a beautiful natural environment. staglands.co.nz

S P O N S O R E D

Miss Momajo Hair Salon An intimate salon overlooking the eastern hills. We are very accommodating when it comes to working around busy schedules. instagram.com/miss_momajo

Bellbird Eatery Licenced daytime eatery serving an eclectic selection of classic and contemporary dishes, using ingredients that are in season and local. bellbirdeatery.co.nz

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Repeats The best thrift shop in the Hutt! Sell your preloved clothes and accessories, or find a new outfit the eco-friendly way. repeats.co.nz

Cupcake Sweeties Offering cupcakes, cookies, macarons, and other sweet treats, as well as the best cake decorating supplies in Wellington! cupcakesweeties.co.nz

Dough Bakery

Hot Yoga Lower Hutt

A modern take on the classic bakery, Dough are creators of ‘all things dough’ – fresh breads, doughnuts and scrolls.

Welcoming space for beginners and seasoned yogis alike. Central location with a range of classes, from relaxation to energetic movement. hotyogawellington.co.nz

doughbakery.co.nz

GBO/Groundbreakers Outdoors & Interiors Wellington’s tropical interior and exterior design store. Find quality furniture and unique feature pieces for your home and garden! gbo.co.nz

Coffee Cave We’re a small, vibrant espresso bar on a mission to bring Wellington standards of coffee to the Hutt. instagram.com/coffeecavelh

California Home & Garden More than just plants – at California you’ll find lots of gardening inspiration and perfect pieces for the home. californiagarden.co.nz

Summer at Circa Theatre

Pinocchio The Pantomime - The Return!

Adventure continues in Wellywoodington! By Simon Leary & Gavin Rutherford Directed by Gavin Rutherford Music Arranged and Directed by Michael Nicholas Williams Proudly sponsored by Te Papa Presented by arrangement by Playmarket $18–$54 $126 Family Pass (2 Adults + 2 Children)

3–14 Jan

Summer fun continues with a reprise season of Pinocchio: The Pantomime! Jump inside a fantastical storybook adventure with Pinocchio and pals as they make their way through a web of lies and porky pies to discover what it means to be a real person. Photo: Roc Torio | Graphic Design: Rebekah De Roo

Big J: A New Legacy “I am the future” Jacob Dombroski Rose Kirkup Rowan Pierce Everybody Cool Lives Here $15–$55

18–28 Jan

Following his rise to prime time celebrity status on Shortland Street, Jacob returns to the stage with his revolutionised award-winning solo. Opening up his life and heart, Jacob Dombroski invites you to step inside his whare, champion those around you, and rewrite your destiny to share the love. This is a story about strength, whānau and dreams. Photo: Philip Merry

‘BIRDHOUSE’ The Birdmann and Egg

Fun can save the world! By Trent H Baumann Composition & Sound Design by Sachie Mikawa Directed by Sachie Mikawa & Trent Baumann Company: Monfu General admission $15

Eccentric Austrian composer meets live string quartet. By Dave Armstrong Directed by Conrad Newport Musical Director: Donald Armstrong (Associate concertmaster NZSO) With music by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Lehar, Schoenberg and more Company: Armstrong Creative Presented by arrangement by Playmarket

18–29 Jan

25 Feb–18 Mar

Fly to the future in a live cartoon-action comedy adventure from Australia and Japan! The Birdmann and Egg perform world-class stunts, defeat the destructive Regurgitator and save the planet in a full-on fun for the whole family spectacular. From high up in their treehouse, ‘BIRDHOUSE’ is a wondrous experience about exploring the sense of place we call home. Photo: Tom Noble Creative

Shows daily Tues–Sun 1 Taranaki St Wellington 04 801 7992 I circa.co.nz

In Bed with Schoenberg

Starring Andrew Laing (Wonderful, Gifted), In Bed with Schoenberg is a delicious Viennese pastry filled with comedy, drama and exquisite live classical music. Selfconfessed genius Arnold Schoenberg has taken to his bed in 1951 Los Angeles believing that this will be his last day alive. The clock is ticking toward midnight. His numerology is never wrong. Developed from an original commission by Chamber Music New Zealand. Photo: Andi Crown Photography

ART GALLERY | FREE ADMISSION

Women’s Art Initiative Standing In My Own Light – E tū ana i tōku ake marama, a powerful and breathtaking exhibition by WAI the Women’s Art Initiative. This exhibition marks WAI’s 10 years as an arts activist initiative for women who have experienced violence and abuse. Visit the art gallery and take in this remarkable collection of works by local wāhine.

8 OCT – JAN 2023

OPEN DAILY | 326 MAIN ST PALMERSTON NORTH 10am-5pm | Free General Admission 0800-4-A-MUSEUM | www.temanawa.nz | @temanawanz

O P I N I O N

From singing monks to kapa haka Muso Dan Poynton pencils in some of the live performances in the NZSO's 2023 programme.

“I

hate Jazz!” I heard someone say recently. But did they mean Delta blues, Miles Davis, or even Kenny G? Jazz is a century’s worth of the most diverse music. And even its young cousin Rock is getting on for 70. But with Western classical music, we’re talking over a thousand years. So when someone says they don’t like classical music, that’s a lot of music not to like. European classical music originated when the chanting of monks started mixing it up with folk and courtly troubadour music. This eventually produced the unique Western harmonic system, which is indispensable to just about any pop music in the world today, from Ariana Grande to guitars strumming in a kapa haka group. There’s something for everyone in classical music – from the pumping glory of a Bach mass to the frothy pop of Strauss waltzes. And then there’s a whole lot of music consigned to the dustbin of history, some of it so bad it makes Justin Bieber look deep. Classical music is the history of Western life itself. Only 300 years of this music is being celebrated in NZSO’s 2023 program, but that’s still plenty. It will “embrace Fantasy, Escapism, Exploration and Transformation from Mahler to the music of movie legend John Williams.”

The sublime to the ridiculous might be putting it too strongly, but getting legendary German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter all the way out here just to play Star Wars tunes seems a bit like getting Jamie Oliver to make your morning toast. You’d certainly get a near perfect vegemite/butter ratio, but your mum would do it just fine. Then again, when I was a kid Han Solo was my biggest hero, and I saw Star Wars six times. That Star Wars theme music always gets me going, even if it’s obviously a rip-off of Brahms’ second piano concerto. Gustav Mahler’s third symphony, conducted by New Zealander Gemma New in March, is as epic and profound as any music there is. BTW Gemma has just been made the NZSO’s Principal Conductor – the first woman to hold the position in the orchestra’s 75-year history. Beethoven is about the biggest cliché in classical music, and for good reason. His mix of esoteric transcendence and funky Germanic earthiness embraces the whole human experience. English pianist Paul Lewis will solo in his perennially amazing fifth concerto in May. Russia has made few friends lately, but don’t let President Putin put you off Alexader Scriabin, one of classical music’s best

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kept and most ravishingly beautiful secrets. Scriabin thought he was the Messiah and aimed to unite humanity in a grand mystical ritual combining all the arts in the Himalayas. This project was never realised before his early death from blood poisoning, but his Poem of Ecstasy lives up to its name. This concert will also feature a piece by New Zealander Ken Young. It’s always good to see home-grown classical music played by the orchestra, although in our post-modern era it’s hard to pin down what “classical” actually means. With its highbrow connotations there’s a serious snob factor to this label; but what do you call orchestral music being written today, so remote from the world of Mozart? Some have called it “serious music” – ouch! Or – wait for it – “art music”! Whoops, so Radiohead and Rob Ruha aren’t serious? Or art? One composer, with supreme gallows humour, suggested “unpopular music”. Anyway, the term is seriously lacking, especially with cross-over concepts often being embraced by orchestras. Recently the NZSO has collaborated with players of Māori taonga pūoro and next year they’ll feature a commission by young Māori composer David Mason. In July they’ll perform jazz legend Wynton Marsalis’ Blues Symphony and music by Bryce Dessner, frontman for indie rock band The National. More Kiwi sounds will feature, from seasoned composers Eve de Castro-Robinson and Ross Harris. Younger musicians will be having their say in the NZSO’s National Youth Orchestra

concert in June. Along with Elgar’s No.1 hit, Enigma Variations, they will play a new work by young NZ gun Nathaniel Otley. His previous pieces have names such as biosphere degradation and detritus, so his music is likely to tackle contemporary hot-button issues. Antonio Salieri, maligned in the movie Amadeus as Mozart’s nemesis, will be teamed up with the Viennese wunderkind in a type of late 18th century maestro make-up session. Salieri is an example of a really excellent composer whose music just couldn’t cut it historically, it was so overshadowed by contemporary giants Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. That’s some tough competition, so he deserves another listen. Just a couple more highlights: Burgeoning superstar pianist Joyce Yang will play in the rarely heard masterpiece The Age of Anxiety by Leonard Bernstein (you can also hear the orchestra accompanying the original movie of his West Side Story in February). And then there’s world renowned Korean composer Unsuk Chin. Cross-over conductor sensation André de Ridder considers Chin’s work worthy of sharing the bill with Beethoven’s Fifth, so she might be worth checking out. With leading performers and composers from all over – and substantial ventures into jazz and rock – the NZSO will explore the breadth, depth and diversity of music we mostly call classical for lack of a name big enough to cover it.

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YOUR PERFECT TARANAKI ADVENTURE AWAITS With the most sunshine hours recorded for the past two years and a stacked summer events line-up, now is the time to plan your ultimate escape to Taranaki. Come for the arts, culture or beaches, and stay for the picture-perfect scenery, decadent dining and tasty brews, and epic surf. Start planning your escape to Taranaki today – find more inspiration for things to see and do at taranaki.co.nz/visit or follow the Taranaki Like No Other Facebook page and Instagram.

AN INITIATIVE OF VENTURE TARANAKI

Make a weekend of it! taranaki.co.nz/visit

B U G

M E

Velvet worms BY M E LO DY T H O M A S

Name: Velvet worms, or peripatus

South Island and Rakiura/Stewart Island, and many offshore islands. They can also be found in scrub, gardens, and the occasional pasture or park.

Māori name: Ngaokeoke, from ngaoki, which means to crawl Scientific name: Phylum: Onychopra, Genus: Peripatus

Look/listen: Look for them in and beneath logs and leaf litter in damp forest environments, where they hang out during the day, seeking cool shade so their permanently open pores don’t lead them to dry out. If you see one out at night it’s probably hunting: keep your eye on it, and you might see it shoot a jet of sticky fluid to catch its prey, then dissolve the poor creature’s insides with its saliva before sucking out the partially digested juice that remains.

Status: Insufficient information Description: Peripatus are stumpy-legged, velvety invertebrates that look like caterpillars but aren’t (nor are they worms or insects, but their own in-between thing – more on this below). They range from 2 to 15 cm in length and can have 13 to 16 pairs of legs. At least nine species in Aotearoa have been described, but it’s believed there are 20 to 30 more waiting to be described, partly because different species can look very similar, and members of the same species can look very different to each other. Still, if you’ve always wanted to name a species, peripatus are among your best bets!

Tell me a story: Peripatus was historically referred to as a ‘‘missing link” species, due to their similarity to both worms and insects, and as ‘‘living fossils”, because they’ve changed so little in the last 500 million years. Female ngaokeoke also have two uteri and can carry embryos at different stages of development at the same time, resulting in two sets of different-age offspring!

Habitat: It’s thought the ancestor of peripatus came to New Zealand with the land that broke away from eastern Australia 85 million years ago. These days, ngaokeoke are found in most forested parts of Aotearoa, on the North Island,

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TOP OF THE CHOCS Wairarapa’s own Johnty Tatham has been crowned NZ Chocolate Awards 2022 Supreme Winner. His port chocolate bar beat 150 chocolates from 31 Aotearoa chocolatiers. Johnty founded his bean to bar chocolate business, Lucid Chocolatier, in 2020, working from his parents’ sheep and beef farm. The 25-year-old has learnt from the best, having worked alongside Nico Bonnaud from Honest Chocolat who won the same award in 2017. He was later encouraged to start his own business by 2020 Supreme Winner, Foundry Chocolate’s David Herrick.

WAKE-UP CALL

BETTER BREWS

JOE ON THE GO

Havana Coffee has recently released cold brew coffee in two flavours. In handy 240ml cans, the classic Super Deluxe Long Black and the Five Star Flat White with Oat Milk offer the perfect on-the-go wake-up call. Havana is the first Kiwi brand to introduce oat milk into its cold brew, as the milk alternative becomes an increasingly popular choice. Available in a four-pack.

Brewers Garage Project have invested in carbon capture technology to improve their sustainability ratings. It is the method employed to give beer its fizz, by reusing the natural carbon dioxide emitted during the fermentation process. They hope the new system will provide about 80% of the 40 tonnes of carbon used each year. The company has also switched from road to rail for distribution and is trialling plant, and water-based inks on their packaging.

Siobhan Oldale and Tom Cappleman during lockdown decided there was a gap in the market for a design-led outdoors store, catering not only to expert hikers, but to the average nature lover. Filling that gap, the pair have opened Coffee Outdoors on Marion Street, stocking equipment for tramping, camping, and all the gear to make a great brew while out in the bush. Customers can sip filter coffee while in-store.

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BA NQU E T TRIBUTE Don’t sample anything from Bev Moon’s yum-cha feast at Whirinaki in Upper Hutt, because everything’s made of knitted wool. Showing until 23 January, the exhibition/ artwork Fortune is the artist’s tribute to her mother and grandmother, forced by New Zealand’s prohibitive poll tax to endure many years in China without their husband/father, finally joining him as refugees during WWII. “They were excellent cooks and knitters,” Bev says. “Fortune is displayed as a banquet on a table with a rotating Lazy Susan, framed family photos, and notebooks with my mother’s handwritten recipes.”

DIVE IN

CLUCK YEAH

HUNGER HEROS

With music booming from a jukebox, funky red, black and white décor and a bunch of interesting cocktails on the menu, Humdinger is Wellington’s newest dive bar. Found on the corner of Ghuznee and Victoria Street, the bar is the latest creation of Sean Golding, Shepherd Elliot, and Hannah Wells who are behind other hospitality joints around the city. The bar’s restaurant has its own name, turnspit, and serves kebabs, flatbreads and Spam nuggets.

Nashville-Style, Korean fried, Karaage – fried chicken of all shapes and sizes will be flying into Waitangi Park for the 2023 Fried Chicken Fest. It’ll be the festival’s third year. Three sessions will take place over 24 and 25 February, when some of the capital’s top fried chicken vendors will come together alongside winemakers and craft beers brewers.

Kiwi Community Assistance (KCA) has been named Supreme Award winners at the 2022 Wellington Airport Regional Community Awards. Formed by Tawa couple Phil Davies and Tracy Wellington in 2011, the charity rescues on average 1.3 tonnes of surplus food a day from stores and markets and redistributes it to foodbanks and people in need. It has been a very successful few months for the charity which was also acknowledged as a Kiwibank Local Hero Medallist 2023 for the Wellington region.

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Hook line & sinker Top up on vitamin sea and omega three. We deep dive into small and large scale fishing in the region, and discover all the swell stuff the ocean has to offer. 63

Field notes

Seafood fregola

Summertime!

69-71 Miramar Avenue, Miramar, Wellington 04 388 8435 www.palmers.co.nz miramar@palmers.net.nz

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Field notes: Something fishy P H OTO G R A P H Y BY R I C KY S I T U

We sent experienced chef Jackie Lee Morrison on a journey across uncharted seas to explore the capital’s fishing secrets. She took a dip into the world below the waves with expert hobbyists, passionate chefs, and the suppliers making a splash. She shares her findings from dry land.

Jackie Lee Morrison is a British-Chinese former pastry chef and owner of Lashings. She lives in Wellington. After over a decade in hospo, she has hung up her whites, and now spends her days as a writer and editor. When she is not writing, you can find her eating all the noods and petting all the dogs.

confess that as a pastry chef and business owner, I didn’t have much to do with fish, and the wackiest I ever got with desserts was using Jerusalem artichokes in ice cream, or sticking Vegemite in a brownie. Smoked fish in a brownie? Er, maybe not. So being sent to learn all about fish was an adventure. And all the people I met were fascinating and, of course, really, really into fish. Come dive in with me and meet the spear fisherman, the restaurateur, and the suppliers.

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The spear fisherman

meet Ricky Situ, amateur spear fisherman, in a car park just off Wahine Memorial Park. It feels like a very New Zealand experience – meeting some guy you don’t know, who texted a Google Maps location at 7am, to see some fish in a chiller in the back of his car. Ricky produces a butterfish, kina the size of a dinner plate, and a blue moki as long as my arm, which he estimates to weigh 3kg. “I’ll probably get a week’s worth of dinners out of this one,” he tells me. “I’ll do fried fish, some katsu bowls, make stock from the bones.” He caught all of this in two hours. But Ricky’s hardly a novice; fishing is in his blood. A keen hobbyist, Ricky’s

father spent most of his free time fishing, with his son by his side. He died when Ricky was in his early teens, and Ricky carried on fishing as a way to honour and remember him. Watching people coming in and out of the water in wetsuits, he got curious about what they were up to, asked, and learned about free diving. He bought his first wetsuit at The Warehouse and headed to the rocks by the airport, where he’d heard you could find paua. “I didn’t know what I was doing—I didn’t have a weightbelt and just kept bobbing back up.” Eventually, a friend introduced him to spearfishing, and Ricky was instantly hooked. “I mean, spearfishing — that sounds pretty badass.”

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These days, he heads out into the water at least once or twice a week, and whatever he catches he eats or distributes amongst friends and family. While there’s an element of money-saving involved, Ricky loves being in the water; it “feels like home.” He’s one half of Zhū Creative, a photography and videography business, and the visual appeal of the water is part of the attraction for him. He talks excitedly about the way the light hits the water, and how the fish swim up to check him out, and shows me a video of an octopus sitting on his hand. We sit on the beach. He pulls out his knife and cracks open the kina. He digs out a piece of coral as

long as his palm, washes it off in the sea, and gives it to me. After the initial briny taste, the flavour is sweet and creamy. I’m not usually a fan (I’ve had some truly terrible kina in my time), but this is fresh and excellent. The gathering of seafood ought to be approached always with respect, says Ricky. To his understanding of Māori and Pasifika attitudes he adds his own as a first-generation New Zealand-born Chinese. Seafood is very highly regarded in Chinese culture, he explains. “In Chinese culture our parents don’t really show love outwardly, but when I bring paua or some crayfish I caught to my mum, I can tell she’s really stoked.”

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The suppliers T

he owners of Awatoru, Scott and Maaike McNeill, live and run their business in Kapiti, which is pretty much the dream. On the morning I head out to Waikanae to meet them, it’s a “you can’t beat Wellington on a good day” kind of day. As we sit on the deck chatting, two dogs and a cat lying around us, it’s not hard to see why they moved here 13 years ago. The couple moved so Scott, a former builder, could indulge his love of diving and fishing. Instead, he bought a small fishing boat. The way they tell it, neither of them really planned it (classic hospo story), but that’s how Awatoru was born. Initially they ran a small fishing business dealing with paddle crabs. When the crabs disappeared, they

expanded into specialised fishing off the coast, hunting venison around the Tararuas, and the Kahurangi and Fiordland National parks, and sourcing various other specialist products. The Awatoru product list is small but that’s intentional, and they’re passionate about it all. Just ask Scott about seaweed and watch his face light up. Wholesaling to the fish markets was a tough game, so to improve the margin they approached local restaurants; that’s when things really took off. Their Wellington client list is a who’s who of the hospo scene: Shepherd, Rita, Logan Brown, Graze Wine Bar, Loretta — they’re all there among others. From New Year to April is their tuna season. Scott heads out on the boat to troll for fish (not to be

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confused with trawl fishing — this is trailing a baited line, a slower and much more sustainable practice), which he despatches as soon as he catches them, using the Japanese ikejime method. He spikes the brain, cuts down the spinal cord, bleeds and guts the fish, then puts it straight into an ice slurry in a chiller. I’m familiar with this method from watching YouTube videos of Japanese chefs killing eels. “The old rule is every hour the fish is in the chiller equates to one day less of shelf life,” Scott says. “But the slurry helps preserve them. There was a lot of trial and error.” I ask if he taught himself and he gives me a lopsided smile.

“Well, I got some tips from other fishermen. But also, like you, I watched YouTube.” On a typical day in their busy season, they’ll take orders from clients, then head to their cold store in Ōtaki where they hand-pack and ship everything. During the summer they spend every moment either fishing or packing – “It gets really crazy,” Maaike says. Sustainability and conservation are important to them; so is educating the chefs they work with about nature of the work they do. “It’s really important to us that they get in touch with where their food comes from. Sometimes they’ll spend eight hours on the boat and catch nothing; it isn’t instant.”

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The restaurateur I

t’s 10am at Ortega Fish Shack and there are a couple of chefs in the cupboard-like kitchen, prepping the day’s catch for evening service. Sous Chef Eunan is on the mussels, cleaning and steaming them, while Ben is portioning snapper, frowning over a set of scales. Over an hour and a half while I chat with Davey McDonald, coowner and maître d’, the rest of the brigade filter in, and pack elbow-to-elbow. There are pots and pans crammed onto the stove top and steam drifting out of the kitchen towards the bar. Seeing the boys greeting each other with “Chef,” a nod, and a grin, takes me back to the tight teams I’ve been a part of.

And, here at Ortega, they are tight. It’s a small familyrun business, 13 years strong in Wellington, and many of their staff in for the long haul—Head Chef Teresa Pert has been with Davey since 2003, when they met working just next door. “Real simple seafood is one of life’s treasures,” Davey tells me. It’s part of their ethos, reflected in not only how they cook the food – fresh, showcasing the product, and based on whatever catch comes in that day – but also how they source it. They won’t serve anything farmed, and trust their suppliers to guide them. Also important for Davey are the regulars.

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“We want it to feel like a home away from home. We have regulars who want food we haven’t served for years, but we’ll make it for them.” While the menu changes daily – sometimes even twice a day, depending on demand – some dishes will never leave the menu: the French toast fish sandwich, the ceviche, the pan-fried prawn tails, and the octopus (and yes, I know how they make it so tender, but have been sworn to secrecy). Also on the menu are the famous beef fillet, and corn-fed duck liver pâté: hangovers from Ortega’s past life as the much-loved Café Bastille. The steak is one of the best in the city – if you know, you know. Davey admits he is old school. He hates emails, takes bookings by phone with a pencil, and grudgingly has a mid-range steamer oven in

the kitchen. It’s the fanciest bit of equipment in the whole joint and, even with the new tech, he still prefers to use their ancient steamer baskets, stacked on top of the kitchen cupboards. It’s not how most restaurants these days run things but, frankly, Ortega is not most restaurants; it’s a little something special. As we’re chatting, the door opens and an older gentleman strolls in. The restaurant is closed at the moment, but he’d like to make a booking. He’d also like a copy of the 20+ page wine menu, because he doesn’t have time to decide when he’s here for dinner; and are there any scallops available? I ask Davey if this is how he does things – leaves the door open and people just walk in to make bookings? He grins. “Well, that guy did.”

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Seafood fregola BY M I C H E L E B E N I G N A

Michele Benigna is a visual effects artist by day, drummer by night, and loves to cook whenever he can. Born and raised in Northern Italy, he has an extensive knowledge of Italian cuisine and in Aotearoa has started a boutique pizza project called Flour and Gold. He competed in MasterChef NZ 2022.

ellington’s seafood industry has a rich Italian history, particularly in Island Bay which has been dubbed “Little Italy.” In the 1890s people migrating from Italy, particularly from Massa Lubrense and Stromboli, formed a fishing settlement there. Since 1933 Island Bay’s Italian community have celebrated their fishing history with the Blessing of the Boats ceremony each February.

Ingredients

10–15 green clams 7 green-lipped mussels 1 fillet of gurnard (no skin) 1 glass of white wine 250 grams of Fregola Sarda (Sardinian pasta) 2 medium-size courgettes 8 cherry tomatoes 1 eggplant 1 clove of garlic 1 red chilli (optional) Italian parsley (stalks and leaves) thyme olive oil

For the stock

500ml water 1 carrot, roughly chopped 1 onion, roughly chopped 1 stalk of celery, roughly chopped 10 grams of salt

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

10. 11. 12. 13.

Clergy and onlookers wish the vessels a plentiful catch. This dish blends Michele’s Italian heritage with the local produce of Wellington. “Fregola is a great way to bring all these different elements together,” says Michele. “Summer vegetables like eggplants and courgettes, and of course the beautiful local seafood we have available here in Wellington. It celebrates summer in a beautiful way.”

Make a light vegetable stock by putting cold water in a pan, with the salt, carrot, celery and onion. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 mins. In the meantime open the mussels and the clams: heat olive oil, parsley stalks and garlic in a pan until sizzling, then add the seafood and cover immediately with a lid. After a minute, add the wine and cover again, letting the steam from the wine do its job. Keep an eye on the clams and mussels. They won't open all at once, so remove from the pan as they open, otherwise you will end up with some rubbery and some undercooked ones. Set the opened seafood aside. Cut the courgettes and eggplants into little cubes and the cherry tomatoes into quarters. In a casserole, sweat the chilli and a clove of garlic in a good glug of olive oil, then add the eggplant, courgette, and cherry tomatoes. When the eggplant mixture starts to soften, add the fregola with a pinch of salt. It’s important to season step by step, building layers of flavours. Let the fregola soak up flavour from the vegetables and then add the stock. Add roughly 250 ml to start with, then keep adding it as the fregola cooks and absorbs the liquid. Cover with a lid, and let it lightly simmer for about 15 mins. When the fregola starts to soften but still has some bite, add the open mussels and clams (take most out of their shells, leaving just 2 or 3 in shells for decoration). Add the chopped parsley leaves and mix in. Take the fillet of gurnard and lay it on top of everything. It will cook with the heat from the fregola. Cover with the lid. After five mins turn the heat off; keep the lid on and let it rest for 5 more mins off the heat. Serve with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

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Days of wine and rosés BY J O H N SA K E R

ou ask the sommelier what she thinks might be the best dancing partner for the ceviche you’ve ordered. Her recommendation: one of the three rosés on the wine list. Is that a bottle of rosé that opening bowler Bruce has brought to the post-match barbie? “Thanks Bruce – pop it in the chiller with the others.” You look around the garden bar. On every table, like scatterings of petals, are rosé-tinted glasses. Rosé is everywhere. It has become a big, very big, part of the New Zealand wine scene over several years. No-one should be surprised. As a wine style it was going nuts in many parts of the world for a long time before the blossoming of our own pink moment. What’s surprising is that it took us as long as it did. Holding New Zealand back was the quality of the local product. So much of the rosé we made for so long was simply awful. I was on a judging panel 12 years ago when we sat down to assess 60 Kiwi rosés. None were awarded five stars. Four received four stars. The vast majority were in the “no award” bin and of those, more than a few you wished you had never put in your mouth. At that time, rosé was easily the worst performing category we judged. Few producers, if any, took rosé seriously. It was an afterthought, a bit of a giggle, regarded as half wine, half alcopop. Which explains the kind of wine that used to pass for rosé in this country – mostly loose, floppy, soft, luridly coloured sweet stuff. When you go on holiday somewhere gorgeous, you often fall for the local wine. A wine

tends to have a special effect when imbibed at or near its place of origin, where it’s the frequent companion to the local food, the weather conditions, and so forth. It seems so right. As a result it becomes an important part of your sensory memory of that time. Many New Zealanders who spent time in southern France in years gone by were introduced to Provençal rosé. It was the colour of onionskin, dry, crisp, refreshing, and everyone seemed to be drinking it. Alongside a bouillabaisse at a seaside bistro in St Raphael or Le Lavandou, it was perfection. It became the go-to drop at every picnic or sit-down meal. Alas, these travellers soon discovered that New Zealand rosé was not going to trip off any Provence flashbacks. So many of them went looking for the real deal, creating a demand that several importers were quick to meet. Most decent bottle stores here still stock a good selection of Côtes de Provence rosés during our summer months. Eventually, New Zealand wineries started to up their rosé game. Making the early running was Marlborough’s Two Rivers. Proprietor/winemaker Dave Clouston had worked vintages in Corsica where he learned a lot about making rosé. Like all wines, if rosé is to sing it has to receive the right kind of TLC in the vineyard. Clouston selected those plots of his Marlborough pinot noir vines he thought would be most suited to rosé and tended them accordingly, harvesting the grapes before optimal ripeness to ensure high levels of the fresh

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acidity so important to rosé. Clouston’s Two Rivers Isle of Beauty (the name a nod to Corsica) rosé is very much in the Provence mould – pale in colour, dry, with fruit that whispers rather than shouts. Since it hit the shelves and became popular, many have followed its lead. As well as the upsurge in demand, there’s also a supply factor at play. When vintage conditions make it tough to produce quality red grapes, the answer is often to turn much of it into rosé. 2022 was such a vintage. It’s difficult now to find a local producer that doesn’t make a rosé. “Over the past several Toast Martinborough events, it has been our biggest-selling wine style,” reports the festival’s general manager Ariel Codde. “In 2022 every participating venue provided rosé and it accounted for 50% of all the wine consumed on the day. It’s a great match for the weather and much of the food.” While most of the rosés on the shelves belong to the new lean and dry style, you can still find fruitier, sweet pink wines as well. As a general rule, the darker hued rosés belong to the sweeter end of the spectrum, the pale ones tend to be dry. T WO LO CA LS TO T RY

Palliser Estate Rosé 2022 Pale salmon in colour with luscious berryfruit scents and a touch of smokiness. In the mouth it is dry and runs tight lines, red cherry and watermelon flavours well framed by the acidity and a touch of funky reduction. $32 (though Moore Wilson sells it for $27.95). Poppies Martinborough Rosé 2022 Former Dry River winemaker Poppy Hammond quickly made a name for her rosé when she and husband Shane opened Poppies, their tasting/ grazing haven in Martinborough. This dry copper/ salmon tinted wine with its fresh cherry, citrus peel and attractive herbal notes hits the palate with a bracing, tangy fortissimo. $45 – go to poppiesmartinborough.co.nz

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Sprig + Fern Petone

Opening hours Mon: 2pm–10pm Tues: 12pm–10pm Wed–Sat: 12pm–11pm Sun: 12pm–10pm @sprigandfernpetone

We were lucky to be in the right place at the right time, taking over Sprig + Fern Petone in December 2017. I manage the tavern and Annette works at the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce. Our daughter Elodie has just turned three and keeps us on our toes. She’s a strong, independent little girl who loves to be at the Sprig with Dad and on those occasions is often the centre of attention. Annette and Elodie come in when they can and love to catch up with regulars and staff on the weekend between swimming class and play dates. Family time is squeezed in, often on a Sunday with Ian’s mum. Q. What excites you about coming to work each day? A. Petone is a fantastic community to be part of and we’ve worked to make sure the tavern fits with that vibe. We love the diversity of people who come through the door. It’s important to us that patrons can relax and use the space as a extension of their living rooms – whether for meetings, family catch-ups, socialising or a quick stop while out walking the dog. Regulars quickly become part of the “Sprig family’’, and there’s never a day that passes without seeing one of them.

We run weekly quiz nights and live music from local artists and DJ’s, and a monthly vinyl club. Pizza and snacks are on offer or, if you fancy something different, you’re welcome to bring takeout from any of the fab Petone eateries.

Q. Describe the Sprig + Fern Petone experience. A. A relaxed, welcoming space where people can be themselves and take time out with others, or by themselves.

Q. Are you planning any special events? A. We’re looking forward to some of our regular muso’s bringing full bands to play in the the beer garden in January.

Q. What’s your current fave beer on tap? A. Sailor’s Warning Red IPA was my go to through the colder months, rich and malty. Now it’s getting warmer I’m looking forward to the limited Hazy releases over summer.

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Try this

Bostock Brothers and Garage Project Pickle Collab Chicken and pickle! Bostock Brothers and Garage Project have teamed up to create the perfect pairing this summer. Organic pickle-marinated chicken perfectly matched to Garage Project Pickle Beer. Garage Project Pickle Beer is a clean, refreshing sour beer inspired by the dill pickle. Naturally kettle-soured and infused with cucumber, dill, and pickle spice. This quirky refreshing beer is the perfect playmate for Bostock Brothers pickle, lemon and garlic marinated chicken. A great combo for summer BBQs. Chicken in store from our Fresh Departments. Beer available from Tory Street, Porirua and Masterton Wine, Beer and Spirits departments and online.

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Moore Wilson’s began life in Wellington as a general wholesale merchant in 1918. We continue to champion quality and origin with our hand-picked range, supplying quality brands at everyday low prices. Below you will see a curated collection of summer goodies that can be found instore. Non-chilled/non-frozen lines also available online.

Pétillant Naturel Pétillant-Naturel (natural sparkling) is sparkling wine made in the méthode ancestrale. The wine is bottled before primary fermentation is finished, without the additions of yeast and secondary sugars. We have a range of Petillant Naturel’s available from our Wine, Beer and Spirits departments. Mount Edward Ted Pet Nat Rose - organic and natural; a fun wine, perfect for the summer Christmas table. Hunters Off Shoot Sauvignon Blanc PétillantNaturel - a vibrant and fresh palate with passionfruit and pear notes. Chill (in your Stanley Cooler), let settle, open, and enjoy. Both these wines can be found in our Wine, Beer and Spirits departments and online.

‘73 Citrus ‘73 Citrus has been growing award-winning oranges since, well, 1973! Now, a generation on, they bring that attention to quality and taste direct to you with every sip. ‘73 Citrus Sparkling Orange and ‘73 Citrus Lemon Lime and Betters (yes, Betters!) are the perfect non-alcoholic drinks for summer. Sparkling Orange is made with their homegrown Gisborne Valencias, whilst Lemon, Lime and Betters is full of citrus tang and sweetened with just the right amount of Gisborne apple juice. Both flavours contain a mighty immunity boosting punch with 1000mg of Liposomal Vitamin C in every can. ‘73 Citrus drinks can be purchased from our Tory Street, Porirua, Masterton, and Lower Hutt Stores and online.

Stanley Adventure Cooler Polars & Water Jug Polar Long weekends and epic road trips have met their match. The Stanley Adventure Cooler Polar 28-litre can keep your food and drinks cold for four days, even under sweltering conditions. With a durable, leak-free design and extra height to accommodate 2-litre bottles, longnecks, and magnums, everything fits comfortably and stays protected. Close it up and use the top as a table, step stool, or seat. The Stanley Adventure Water Jug Polar keeps drinks cool for up to 13 hours. A sturdy handle on top lets you carry with confidence. Holds 7.5 litres. The Stanley range can be found at our Tory Street, Porirua, and Masterton Kitchenware departments and online.

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Appleby Farms Frozen Yoghurt Appleby Farms is dedicated to creating great ice cream and keeping it deliciously local. Flying off the shelves is Appleby Farms brand new Frozen Yoghurt. Creamy New Zealand dairy milk from their family farms is blended with the finest natural ingredients to create an explosion of flavour and goodness that will delight your tastebuds and have you coming back for more! This frozen yoghurt range has been carefully formulated to achieve a 5-star health rating - the perfect summer treat. Available in Passionfruit, Strawberry Swirl, and Vanilla. Find in freezers at Tory Street, Porirua and Masterton.

Little Biddy Summer Gin The Summer experience begins with a celebration of fresh, juicy New Zealand oranges and lemons, which embodies the essence of the summer sun. A smooth palate of juniper, citrus and ginger delivers a light and refreshing gin with a sweet smooth finish from the addition of local Rãtã honey. The combination of botanicals provides a delicate flavour profile, with the depth to shine through in your favourite summer cocktail. This limited release Little Biddy Summer Gin can be purchased from our Wine Beer, and Spirits departments and online.

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State of Play Zero* Alcohol Beer State of Play is championing zero alcohol beers in New Zealand, giving beer lovers a refreshing alcohol-free alternative. Their flagship IPA is brewed with New Zealand hops and Canterbury malts, in sunny Hawkes Bay. Their latest release, Nectaron Unfiltered Pale Ale, is a collaboration with NZ Hops Ltd and is very fresh, fun and fruity. State Of Play brew zero alcohol beer that tastes like beer should — full of flavour. *State of Play has less than 0.5% alcohol by volume. Find State of Play Beer in our Wine, Beer and Spirits departments and online.

Six Barrel Soda Six Barrel Soda has been making delicious real fruit syrups for 10 years, and now they’ve got a sleek soda machine to go along with them! Available in black or cream, the Sparkler Soda Maker enables you to make fresh sparkling water at home all summer long – it’s as easy as pressing a button. The Sparkler and Six Barrel Soda Syrups can be purchased from our Tory Street, Porirua and Masterton Kitchenware departments and online. Six Barrel Soda syrups and ready to drink sodas also available in our Fresh Markets.

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Greywacke BY B E N N J E F F R I E S P H OTO G R A P H Y BY L I A M G R A N DY

Benn is a Wellingtonborn writer. In 2004, he was awarded a little plastic trophy for the most improved player in his under 9’s rugby team. He now lives in New York where he teaches at Columbia University.

gone to the funeral out at the farm. I was the boy’s godfather but I never really knew what that meant. A few years back, I’d taught him how to cast a fly line on this same stretch of river. It seemed odd to me that that memory only belonged to me now. It was a halved, broken memory and it spoiled the murmur of the river. Kupe came and settled beside me and I stroked his swollen crayfish belly. The last of the light went. Night birds called. We became river stones.

Trigger warning: This story deals with difficult themes and may be upsetting for some readers. Discretion advised.

attle stops and gravel – dust leaked into the cab and showed in the mandarin light that crept over the Tararuas. I came to the end of the paper road and made camp beside the Ruamahanga river. Swallows danced above the water, feeding on the moths and flies that roused at dusk. The greywacke around my neck is from this river. I always wanted a piece of pounamu when I was a kid but you have to be gifted pounamu. My Grandma was the one who raised me and she sure as hell wasn’t gifting me shit. When I was eleven, I went out and found this piece of greywacke and it’s been around my neck ever since. It always warms up when I’m near the river. I’m sure that means something to someone; people have a habit of attaching meaning where it isn’t needed. With a fire going, I cooked a couple of crayfish tails. Kupe began to whine so I gave him one, which he ate outer shell and all. I lay down beside the fire and counted out my money; two hundred bucks in twenties. It would be just enough for two boxes of 12-gauge ammo, fuel to get to East Wairarapa, and beer to last the opening weekend of duck shooting. I’ve hunted with the same four guys for nearly twenty years. We’re only all together once a year and that’s for duck shooting. Paul lives in Wellington and wears a suit, Marti is a builder out of Carterton, Hemi is a farm manager in the Manawatū and Steve owns and works the farm we shoot on. This year was the first year in history we’d all been together outside of duck shooting. Steve’s boy had died in one of the back paddocks in March and we’d all

At dawn, I pulled on my waders to fish the morning rise. Kupe watched me for a while then disappeared into the bush, bored by my fruitless casting. It had been raining in the hills and the water was the colour of a bruise. Still, I worked it methodically and finally landed a good brown trout from a run of pocket water. The fish was more bronze than brown, with golden gill plates and an oceangreen colour around its eyes. Black speckled its skin and formed little constellations. I broke its neck and gutted it. Back at camp, I found Kupe with blood all around his mouth. I’d given him bird aversion training but he was old like me and needed reminding now and then. I was about to give him an earfull when I saw possum fur stuck in his teeth. A possum was reason to celebrate so we sat down and halved the trout which pleased him heaps. I reached the farm in East Wairarapa by mid-afternoon. Steve’s sheepdogs barked from their kennels. Kupe followed close by my heels with his tail between his legs which only pissed the working dogs off more. The others were already there and had started boozing. Before things got too carried away we shot some clay birds off Steve’s front deck which cheered Kupe up. He would run out and retrieve the broken bits of orange pottery, but only the ones I had shot. For dinner, Paul reheated a lasagne his wife had made. We all huddled around and ate directly from the baking dish, then focused on drinking. Port wine and Ranfurly. Marti got so drunk he took all his clothes off and threw them in the fire. I wanted to join him but I don’t make enough money to do something like that. Steve wasn’t impressed for some reason and slunk off to his bed. The rest of us settled on the living-room floor bedside the smouldering fire. I could hear the house

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creaking. The room smelt of manuka smoke. I matched my breath to the man’s beside me. At five, an alarm woke us. We pulled on our hunting gear and covered our faces in camouflage paint the colour of bull kelp. Hemi asked me to take a photo of him on my phone but my phone didn’t have a camera so he did it himself. Hemi reckons he’s connected to the world now. I don’t know about that but he is happier than I can remember him being in years so I figure the internet can’t be such a bad thing for a lonely old farmer. After a coffee, we all piled into Paul’s ute and drove down to the maimai. Paul has the flashiest truck out of all of us despite working in the city. I told him I was going to report him to the UteSPCA for keeping the thing cooped up most of the year. He got embarrassed and I felt bad so I offered him a cigarette which I knew his wife didn’t let him have. The sky was still black when we parked on the roadside. We had to make our way through a long paddock to get to the maimai which sat down in a perfect valley that funnelled the birds right to us. As we jumped the fence, Steve remembered the paddock had a couple of bulls in it that hadn’t seen a lot of humans before. It was hard to see the animals in the dark but I felt their nervousness, and the ground shake as they quickly flanked us. One of the bigger bulls started bellowing and stamping the ground. Our head torches showed the steam rising off its back and the saliva dripping from its mouth. Paul thought it was funny and bellowed back until Steve snapped at him. ‘I’ve been meaning to send that one to the meatworks,’ he said. I don’t know if the bull understood English but right as he said that, it charged me. The paddock was muddy and I didn’t stand a hope in hell of outrunning the thing. Luckily Hemi had a shell up his breach and fired a shot at the bull’s feet. Its thunder scared the thing enough for us to make it to the other side of the paddock and leap over the electric fence. The sky was paling when we reaching the maimai. The walls were a strong gust away from collapse but we settled on its mud floor and started calling to the silhouettes that flew over us. A flurry of mallards banked and descended to the dam. We peppered them with steel and in the dawn light the fire from our barrels showed. It was a slow morning after that. Marti cooked a feed of bacon and eggs on a Coleman cooker and the duck calls became less. By eleven we only had twenty odd ducks. Last year we shot well over a hundred, but none of us thought it mattered much. On the walk back to the truck, we loaded our guns but the bulls were all huddled around a hare carcass. That explained things a bit – the smell of blood makes bulls angry. I had the most wonderful nap on a top bunk that afternoon. Kupe settled on the bottom bunk and I whispered to him about rivers I’d seen over the years until I could hear his breathing slow. The bunk beds were next to a window covered with thin teak blinds. Light leaked through and dyed my dreams amber.

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When I woke, no one else was up so I walked around the farmhouse inspecting things. Cobwebs clouded all the windows and the smell of mud had settled over everything. I picked up a thin book that sat on the coffee table and took it out into the sun to read. In the front of the book I saw there was a handwritten note to Steve that said some nice things about his son and the farm. At the funeral, I’d heard people say it was because of the farm that he was gone. A lot of pressure goes on the kids of family farms. You can’t blame a youngster for wanting a life beyond the boundary fence but you sure as hell shouldn’t underestimate a decision like that. That’s something I don’t know too much about though. I’ve never had land enough to feel tied to it. I looked up from the book and saw Steve watching me. I thought he was going to say something but he just pursed his lips and turned away. The paddock where his boy died backed onto native bush. Steve had shown us when we’d all come out for the funeral. It had been a winter feed paddock then and only magpies and putangitungi had been around. I wondered what the bulls might have thought had they been there when it had happened. I wondered if all blood smelt the same to them. That afternoon we plucked the ducks and I collected a few iridescent feathers to make trout flies with. Normally we shot Sunday morning too but somehow, we’d all silently agreed it would only be the Saturday this year. After torching the ducks with a flame gun, we stood around in the driveway with our hands in our pockets. You get lots of poplar trees in East Wairarapa and during May all the leaves fall off. People think it makes the landscape look pretty but I’m not so sure. I watched the leaves swirl around my feet and thought about Steve’s boy and how no one had said a thing about him. Marti cleared his throat and started shaking hands. Next thing I knew, we were all driving off in our separate trucks. I drove further east instead of back west. I knew of an estuary on the coast where I could camp and watch the dotterels and stilts. The fact that Steve’s boy hadn’t come up made me want nothing to do with people. I wondered if something gains gravity when it isn’t mentioned or if it’s simply forgotten. Before I reached the coast, I spotted a swamp harrier feeding on a white-faced heron carcass in a paddock. I pulled over and trudged through the grass to get a better look. The harrier had only just arrived and I could see the heron it had been plucking had been killed by a shotgun. I stared at it for a while then took my knife from my belt and cut its head off. I left the body for the harrier and slipped the head into my pocket. I figured I’d bury it for a month or so until the worms cleaned it down to the bone, then I’d dig it up and keep its skull. I got no idea what I want with a heron skull but something like that deserves to have meaning attached to it. Something like that deserves to be thought about and talked about. I’ll have that skull for the rest of my life. Maybe I’ll only look at it now and then, but when I do, I’ll remember that bird and that year we only hunted the Saturday of opening weekend because Steve’s boy shot himself in the head that year.

SELWYN MURU: A LIFE'S WORK 17 November – 12 February 2023 FREE ENTRY New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata Shed 11, Queens Wharf, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington, 6011 Selwyn Muru, Te Whiti with the Sacred Birds of Taranaki, 2003. Private collection, Auckland

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SIMON S AY S Wellingtonian Simon Devitt, a world-renowned architectural photographer and award-winning photo-book author, has had work featured in international magazines including Vogue and Dwell, and has tens of thousands of Instagram followers. His new book Cape to Bluff is his “slow walk” down Aotearoa, photographing the country’s most ingenious and forward-thinking residential architecture. “Because my other books are quite niche,” Simon says, “I was curious about making a more commercially-minded book than my others, without losing artistic appeal. I hope it will be around a while, rather than being just another coffee-table book.”

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It’s not often writers get handed $60,000. Wellington historian Vincent O’Malley has won one of three Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement. “This feels very special,” he tells us, “because it’s recognition not just for a single work but acknowledging my entire career as a writer and historian devoted to ensuring the history of Aotearoa New Zealand is acknowledged and remembered”. Vincent and the other winners (fiction writer Stephanie Johnson, and poet James Norcliffe) will lunch with the PM in March.

Kāpiti Coast poet Helen Heath is this year off to the Michael King Writers’ Centre in the Signalman’s House on Takuranga Mt Victoria in Devonport, Auckland. In 2023 the centre is offering 18 residencies, to 10 established and eight emerging writers. Helen will work on a memoir of her life and ancestors, drawing on diaries, letters, written and other texts, memory, artefacts, and research.

If you’ve walked along Wellington’s waterfront, you’ve probably noticed some of the 23 quotations from New Zealand writers scattered from Kumutoto stream around to Oriental Bay, in the form of concrete plaques, or inlaid metal text on wooden “benchmarks”. Stumbling upon them adds interest to a harbour walk, and the Wellington Writers Walk has a new mobilefriendly website with an interactive map, telling you about each excerpt and author – for example, that the Denis Glover quotation comes from “Wellington Harbour is a Laundry”, from his collection Come High Water. The plaque is adjacent to Frank Kitts Park and the Wahine memorial.

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Poetry slam Poetry is having a renaissance in the capital. Poet Laureate Chris Tse explores Wellington’s thriving poetry scene and glimpses into the genre’s glittering future.

lthough I was introduced to poetry at a young age in school, until I started attending open mics and other poetry events I hadn’t realised there’s more to poetry than landscapes and war. Among the events I attended in the 2000s while I was at university was the monthly Poets Pub series at the Angus Inn in Lower Hutt. There I took the leap and first shared my writing with strangers and other aspiring poets from all walks of life. It was a chaotic place to read – I remember having to compete with the sing-song pokie machines in the room next door and the clatter of glasses being loaded into the dishwasher. Yet I found this environment thrilling – so removed from analysing the works of long-dead poets in a classroom or lecture theatre. It’s where I learned that poetry can have a very different life beyond the page, and that there is a community out there that embraces poetry with open arms. Open mic nights and other regular poetry events are the cornerstone of local poetry communities, giving poets of all calibres countrywide the opportunity to share their work in supportive environments. Wellington has a thriving poetry scene with a seemingly endless parade of poets. You’ll find their books displayed in bookstores and you’ll find them in person gracing our stages and venues with their powerful words. Some, such as Ash Davida Jane, Rebecca Hawkes, and Tayi Tibble have earned acclaim and devoted fans here while also making inroads internationally, picking up awards and publishing deals overseas, and appearing at literary festivals in Australia and North America. Many have said that 2022 has been the best year in New Zealand poetry in a long time. I agree – and not just because I must in my role as the Poet Laureate! Not only have fantastic poetry collections been published by local poets (I implore you to seek out the latest by Oscar Upperton, Joanna Cho, Anahera Gildea and Nick Ascroft, to name but a few), but we’ve seen the slow and cautious return of book launches and events after two years of Covid-19 restrictions. There’s a new iteration of Show Ponies, which pairs poets with dancers and musicians for an explosive pop-concert-style extravaganza, among events blending poetry with music and visual arts. The energy at many

such events over the past year has been electrifying, as audiences get their live poetry fix once again. Editor of new online literary journal bad apple gay Damien Levi has spent the year getting to know Wellington’s live poetry scene after moving here to complete a graduate diploma in publishing at Whitireia. He admits that although he reads a lot of poetry submissions for the journal, he still struggles to connect with some poetry on the page. However, going to live events and hearing poetry performed in all its forms has helped him to deepen his appreciation and understanding of the form. He’s been impressed by the diversity and popularity of events on the Wellington scene – the turnout has “really opened my eyes to the number of people who are out there living and breathing poetry, and want to support it.” Wellington’s poetry scene is made possible by many poets who moonlight as event producers on top of day jobs and their own creative work. Local poet Nicole Titihuia Hawkins, who won Best First Book of Poetry at the 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, created the open mic series Poetry with Brownies for P.O.C. poets, after becoming exasperated by events with all-white line-ups. Poetry with Brownies has held a number of in-person and online events over several years, participating in Verb 2022. A regular reading series at Pegasus Books in Left Bank is currently organised by Rebecca Hawkes, who took over from poet Therese Lloyd. The prolific Creatif Kate produces and hosts various events in Wellington with poets alongside comedians, musicians, and burlesque and drag performers. Her regular events include the Wellington Feminist Creative Community poetry nights and Sexy Sunday Shenanigans. “I try to include poets and poetry in every cabaret show I produce. It's really cool to introduce people to poetry when they're at a cabaret! A lot of people still view poetry as pretentious and inaccessible when it is far from that. There are so many talented poets in Wellington and I love giving them a platform for their voices to be heard.” One of the longest-running fixtures in Wellington’s poetry calendar is Poetry in Motion, on the first Thursday of each month at Fringe Bar. Each night begins with an open

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mic, before a featured poet takes the stage for an extended set. Featured poets have included local and international luminaries such as Apirana Taylor, Mohamed Hassan, and Hera Lindsay Bird. The seeds of PIM were planted in 2011, when local poet Ali Jacs organised an event at Happy Bar to host visiting American poets Ken Arkind and Carrie Rudzinski. Travis Cottreau had never been to a spoken word event before, but agreed to give it a go after watching Ken online performing his poem “Maggie”. The success of that 2011 event led to PIM, which started as a monthly evening at Heaven Pizza on Cuba Street and then Fringe Bar, where it’s been based since 2018. As well as showcasing local and international poetry stars, PIM has provided a supportive training ground for newcomers to poetry as an creative outlet, and those wanting to test their material for poetry slams. Over a decade, Travis has seen many regular open mic readers blossom and go on to win regional and national slam competitions. “It’s a space for everyone,” he says. “I know people who are incredibly shy who really come out of their cage on stage.” Travis recalls in PIM’s early days often having to turn away people at capacity limits. Audience numbers have declined in recent years and regulars have come and gone, but Travis is still surprised by those who brave the open mic: “There’s always something new – it’s not like you see the same show.” Travis is the last remaining founding PIM member. He produces the monthly series with the assistance of volunteers, and the generosity of venues like Fringe Bar. PIM also now has the support of Motif Poetry, a charitable organisation that produces events and works with schools. Ben Fagan and Sara Hirsch established Motif after returning to Wellington from London where they were both actively involved with the spoken word and slam scene (Sara is a former UK Slam Champion). They saw the need for an organisation to support and promote slam events in Aotearoa. Wellington-born and Hawke’s Bay-raised Ben entered the spoken word world after supporting a friend at a PIM open mic in 2012. He quickly became enamoured with the local poetry scene, seeing poets being given permission to be funny and take poetry in unexpected directions. “I remember going home after that very first event and typing ‘poetry slam’ into YouTube and being like, ‘holey moley, look at this’, and seeing the wide variety.” Ben was involved in the performing arts but hadn’t yet quite found his people; the poetry community was full of kindred spirits and was a great “sandbox” to develop and try stuff. For Ben, what sets spoken word and poetry apart from other performing arts is the impact and immediacy of watching someone perform their own words. Ben was exposed to the expansive spoken word scene in the UK, and worked for Apples and Snakes, a national

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organisation for performance poetry and spoken word. Although spoken word has a long history as an underground art form with roots in punk and cabaret, Ben thinks that having a professional organisation backing poets with access to funding and touring opportunities was integral to the growth and health of the UK’s spoken word scene. He and Sara set up Motif with this model in mind, adapted for an Aotearoa context. Since 2018, they’ve helped to establish and support spoken word and slam events in Wellington, Hawke’s Bay, and Tauranga, held workshops for young people, and toured local and international poets. Motif is always looking for new ways to promote poetry and poets: a queer poets showcase for Wellington Pride, a team slam event, and the popular anti-slam, where poets deliberately write and perform terrible poems and respectfully send up spoken-word tropes. Motif has also produced short poetry films featuring Wellington poets such as Tarns Hood, Ronia Ibrahim, and Nadia Freeman. Nadia is a spoken word artist, musician, and theatre maker who performs under the stage name Miss Leading. After five years living and performing abroad, Nadia returned to Wellington and reacquainted herself with the poetry scene. She noticed the effect of Covid-19 on the live arts scene’s audience numbers, but also saw the diversity of Wellington’s poetry scene and its adaptation to the pandemic. In March 2022, her poetry show Another Universe was included in the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts’ digital programme, and later staged in Auckland at the Basement Theatre. Using poetry as a vehicle for telling stories drives a lot of Nadia’s creative projects. She is interested in broadening the ways of integrating poetry into other art forms like theatre and music. One of Nadia’s frequent collaborators is Wellington poet and illustrator Rose Northey, who has represented Wellington at the National Slam Championship on multiple occasions. She and Rose have worked on many projects presenting poetry to audiences in innovative and unexpected ways to challenge preconceived notions. For example, the multimedia show Writing Home was a blend of poetry, comedy, live drawing, and live music; and at the Poetry Bistro, an installation-cum-performance piece, “diners” ordered a poem off a menu to be performed at their table. Nadia said the response to both was overwhelmingly positive, to the surprise of many audience members who had not experienced poetry since school, or did not engage with the arts in general. Nadia says that for a lot of people the “penny-drop” moment is when they realise that poetry can be funny and deeply personal, and that poets write about more than just nature. “Come to a night where there’s going to be a mix of new poets and professionals so you can see the spread of different poets and what poetry can be. Poetry’s not what it was in high school – it can be much more than that.”

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Bijou Boardwalk beauty P H OTO G R A P H Y BY A N N A B R I G GS

Our cool little capital has a way of pulling people back. The Dunhams tell Sharon Greally why they swapped Hollywood for Wellywood after 20 years, and show us around their Seatoun home.

ellington has been described as a cross between Hawaii and San Francisco, and Don Dunham agrees. “San Francisco has wind and changeable weather – exhilarating there too, like here. On these fine days it’s extraordinary. Some days it can be a little bit challenging because of the weather, but it still has an energy about it.” Don is one half of an

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American couple who have transplanted themselves from the USA to New Zealand. Don, an architect by training, has worked in museum exhibitions for the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and had a long academic career at Jefferson university. Annette, a Harvard Classics graduate, is a writer, especially about the place of plants and their place in antiquity, religion, cuisine, and medicine. She loves the New Zealand native bush, where “everything is used for something.” The couple, both originally from Los Angeles, met at the Getty, where they were both working. In 1992, Don was offered a job at Te Papa, which was too exciting to turn down. They came to New Zealand for work and adventure, and it straight away felt like home. They loved living in an Ian Athfield house in Palliser Road. It was “in pretty bad shape.” Initially they considered making changes, but over time “I realised the genius that it was.” They invited Athfield to visit the house, which he had not been in for over 20 years, and he too suggested changes. “But we just wanted to clean it up, preserve it, restore it back to the way it was. It was fun putting the house back together.” They were loving life in Wellington, but in 1996 the Getty called them back. The Getty Center in Los Angeles was being built – another offer they couldn’t turn down. “It was awful to leave,” says Annette, but family, including ageing parents, was also calling them back. They had become New Zealand citizens, but were not to return for 20 years.

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New Zealand kept calling, and they kept planning a return. “We thought when we left in 1996 that it was the biggest mistake of our lives”, says Annette. Then the pandemic struck. “We decided it’s now or never.” So in 2020 they returned, to live in Seatoun. “We’re so happy. We love the bush, bushwalks, tramping, the water, the flora and fauna, the multi-cultures that exist here, the people.” The Fort Dorset site appeals for its connections to significant European and Māori history. According to tradition, the legendary Polynesian navigator and explorer Kupe was the first human to discover New Zealand, around 924 AD. He is said to have set up camp in Seatoun Harbour, where a striking rock formation is named Te Aroaro-o-Kupe (“the presence of Kupe” or “Kupe’s outlook”; Steeple Rock is its English name). It is here that the inter-island ferry Wahine capsized after striking Barrett Reef in 1968. A shoreline path from the Seatoun beaches up to Point Dorset takes you to a poignant memorial. In the form of an abstracted waka, it marks the site of the seventeenthcentury Oruaiti Pa. It is thought that people would signal from the point across to the Orongorongos, Annette says. The couple now live in one of the Shoreline townhouses on the Boardwalk in Seatoun, which won Jasmax an NZIA award in 2005. Set in Fort Dorset, this bijou property is nestled in native bush, facing north-west across the harbour. Double-glazed sliders frame a picture every way you look, outside or in to the modernist living areas. Don says the compact house is surprisingly narrow, and long, but “really well done,” an “easy place to live.” He analyses the design with an architect’s understanding: “As you walk in the front door, you enter a series of thresholds,” he says. “I think the step down to the living area opens this space up. You feel compressed walking through the kitchen dining area, and then with these doors opening up to the patio the living space follows into the exterior.” The house has three spacious bedrooms, with two bathrooms upstairs. There are

H O M E

skylights along the ceilings above the showers, which cast an ethereal light. The dark floor tiles sit comfortably with wooden cabinetry and white-tiled walls. The bedrooms all have views over the sea and hills. There is a striking black and white poster above the stairs to the bedrooms, from a project, Beyond Beauty: Antiquities as Evidence, they both worked on at the Getty Museum. A stunning painting, Command Module Red, by Sheyne Tuffery, hangs in the hallway and demands your attention. In the master bedroom, an abstract work on paper, Copris II by local artist Rob McLeod, seems to reflect light and movement off the sea outside the window. The galley kitchen and living areas have wooden floors that glow golden. The kitchen is compact, but functional. Annette says they have had many gatherings here, and people flow easily from one area to another. “We love the engagement with the outdoors. It pulls you in and out simultaneously,” she says, in a “dialogue between inside and outside.” “It is a restrained house – we really like the minimalism of it. It does everything really well. It has changing light throughout the day, and provides a real sense of wellbeing. We love living in nature. Everything just falls away. It keeps unfolding. It has a cinematic quality – even though it’s linear, it’s a series of thresholds, of steps that take you through.”

The living area is furnished with a replica Eames circular table and Hans Wegner chairs. Don says he likes the use of plywood in furniture, and draws attention to the Shell chair, designed in 1962: “It’s an effortless chair. It flows easily in spaces, and is nice to sit in too.” The outdoor wicker chairs, from Nood, sit comfortably in the environment. Replica Eames Eiffel chairs grace the dining table, the originals being “super expensive! And the dogs knock everything over, so too much to worry about.” Their two Irish setter, Muna and Kuri, (“sweetheart” and “dog” respectively, in Māori) love the beach and bush. “Mesmerising” is a word often applied to their view to the sea. The meandering pathway to the beach is very private, another clever feat of the design. “No one has ever walked up here by mistake,” says Annette. The site is tucked away, surprisingly protected from the southerly. Native birdsong prevails. Windsurfers can often be seen from the house, flying past and providing endless entertainment. They used to walk their dogs from Breaker Bay in the ’90s, and fell in love with the area. They watched with interest as the building works started, and noted that the “understated modern houses that really engaged with the site in a meaningful way.” Annette enjoys the view from the sun loungers on the deck. “The tuis are really going nuts now because the flaxes are flowering. It’s relaxing. We feel miles away from the CBD, but are just a stone’s throw from all the wonderful energy that Wellington city has to offer.” Don says he’s retired, but still continues to teach architecture online at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. That’s when he’s not “obsessively doodling” in his spare time. “The creative juices are always flowing.” 94

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G O O D

S P O R T

G O L D S TA R Ruby Tui has received a replacement Rugby World Cup medal after gifting the original to a fan at the Black Ferns game against England. The winger had met 11-year-old Lucia Hurst, who had recently recovered from leukaemia, at a fan engagement event the week before and spotted her in the stadium after her side’s 34–31 win. The week after, Ruby was awarded Best Breakthrough 15s Player of the Year at the World Rugby Awards in Monaco, and upon collecting her award was surprised with the replacement medal, presented by Fiao'o Fa'amausili.

IT’S ALL IN THE NAME

MOUNTAIN MAN

ON YOUR BIKE

Kilbirnie’s ASB Sports Centre has a new name – Ākau Tangi. ASB Bank decided not to renew the naming rights, which they’ve held since 2011. Ākau Tangi is made up of Te Ākau, meaning the coast, and Tangi, which means to make sound. The name is intended to convey the power of the wind and waves crashing against the adjacent coastline, and the human movement and energy inside.

Daniel Jones has won the Kepler Challenge for the fifth time. The Kepler is a great walk in the Fiordland mountains, which usually takes walkers three to four days to complete. However the Wellington runner breezed the 60km course in under five hours, beating second place winner Sam McCutcheon by almost half an hour. The month before, 32-year-old Daniel also won both the Auckland and Queenstown marathons.

Bikers across the country are gearing up for the 2023 Aotearoa Bike Challenge. During February registered participants can log their cycling trips and distance travelled online to clock up points. They can sign up as an individual, workplace team, or club/group, and extra points are awarded for encouraging others to ride. This year Kāpiti Coast has partnered with challenge organisers Love to Ride to produce leader boards for the region, so locals can challenge and encourage their neighbours.

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W E L L Y

A N G E L

What would Deirdre do?

NA K E D O N T H E B E AC H I swim often in the sea and always change (discreetly) into my togs, at the beach. Obviously I’m fine with this, but a friend commented recently upon my habit, and others exclaimed that it was indecent to get changed in public. Is it? Speedy stripper, Seatoun

A DV I C E F RO M D E I R D R E TA R R A N T

HO L D T H E BA B Y My mother is an anti-vaxxer, together with several other members of her family. Am I right or wrong to not want her, or them, to be anywhere near my new baby? Over covid, Newlands

If you are happy, that is all that counts. Sounds like you have it sorted, so just carry on and enjoy your swims. I have never mastered changing into togs on the bank of a river – jealous!

My gut reaction is to be concerned and say no, but a rational response more relevant to current conditions is probably to mask up, keep a distance, and be outside if possible. Hard, but covid is very prevalent and a real risk. A new baby is a very precious and vulnerable. No Granny hugs for a while!

YOU N G A N D I N T E N SE I have a young friend who thinks I like poetry and keeps inviting me to attend performances and offering and loaning me books. I don’t care for poetry and know I should have made it clear earlier. How do I now say so and retain the company, which I thoroughly enjoy? Flakey, Island Bay

HA R D T O C O P E We have a family holiday house shared and enjoyed by three generations but managed by us, the owners. How much should be reasonably expected from family members to share in the outside work required to manage the place? Whanau time, Newtown

You do not say how young your friend is but this sounds like a lovely relationship. Try to show interest, in other words, be adventurous and talk about books and writing that you are discovering. Take a journey, and see if broadening the palate is something you can do together. Keep some poetry in there – a bit of magic is always good! Don’t burst the bubble.

This seems a no-brainer. Surely you should share evenly, in terms of either financial contributions or DIY input? Definitely call a meeting, sit down, and agree on a plan. It is not about how much you each use it – it is about maintenance and responsibility. There are many options but agreeing and doing are the key. The users could contribute to a fund or help in a practical way but the owners ultimately have responsibility and need to make the plan. Onto it!

If you’ve got a burning question for Deirdre, email angel@capitalmag.co.nz with Capital Angel in the subject line.

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