Crowded House

Crowded House last performed in Wellington in 2021 in a concert delayed by pandemia, after reforming a couple of years before (checks notes) back in 2019. We went along to see them then. Their second album since reforming, Gravity Stairs, was released earlier this year and they are now touring this album. They’re playing the TSB Arena in Wellington, so of course we got tickets to go see them.

 

Did I say “got tickets”? Therein lies a tale. Normally, the process for getting tickets is: go on ticketbastard, buy tickets, download tickets to Google wallet…job done. But Crowded House have, both this time and last time, issued souvenir tickets for you to stick in your scrapbook or whatever. They look like this: 

All well and good, but on the morning of the gig, I received the customary “important information about your concert” email from Ticketbastard, and I thought I’d better download my tickets, forgetting that they were sent by mail. I found this out as I checked my account. And, on the morning of the gig, no sign of any tickets! Contacting Ticketbastard is necessarily hard, as they don’t want you bothering them once they’ve got your money, but I persisted with their dreadful hold music until I got through to someone. They assured me that the tickets had been sent, and that they would email me a copy anyway, and if that didn’t arrive in time I’d be able to pick up ordinary tickets at the box office at TSB Arena by giving them my receipt number. OK then.

Here’s what actually happened: the email never arrived. The tickets did, in the Saturday morning post, which is cutting it a bit fine if you ask me, given the reliability of NZ Post. Anway, we had tickets.

I’d booked dinner at Bin44 as I’d been a bit remiss about booking things early. It’s an OK pub-grub style diner, with burgers and the like. I had a Korean chicken burger and Nicola went for the prawn risotto.

Across Queen’s Wharf to get to the TSB Arena and we arrived in time to watch the support act, Mel Parsons. She’s actually been around for quite a while, releasing six albums in the process. She performed a half hour set to sporadic polite applause.

Then on came the main event, preceded by Bowie’s Five Years over the speakers…because they reformed in 2019? Maybe. The set list contained quite a lot from the new album, naturally, and also some from albums I don’t have so there was a bit of unfamiliar material in there as well. But they soon got down to the classics and gave us all the old faves as well. 

And, as ever, when they came back on for an encore, they gave us a proper encore – five songs in total, four classic crowd-pleasers and one from the new album, and of course finishing up with the inevitable Better Be Home Soon. This may have been due to the fact that they’d deviated from the original set list when they started playing requests from the crowd towards the end of their performance, as some of those encore songs were probably scheduled before the break. The set list in full can be found here.

 

The Big Foody

For the past five years (yes!) I’ve been taking guided tours at Zealandia. At the end of last year, another opportunity was presented to me…taking guided tours around Wellington, to various foody establishments. The company, The Big Foody, is setting up in Wellington (they’re based in Auckland) and need guides for its tours. Sounds like my kind of deal, right?

In December, I accompanied the other Wellington guide, once on a training tour and once on what is known in the trade as a ”famil” -  a familiarisation tour for people who will recommend us – journalists, industry professionals, tourism companies etc. Then on Sunday, I took my first tour with actual members of the public, from the cruise ship Azamara Journey. There were supposed to be two ships in Wellington on that day, so the Big Cheese, Elle, had come down from Auckland to take the other…but it turns out that Grand Princess couldn’t dock in Wellington due to the high winds. Azamara Journey is a much smaller, boutique cruise liner, so didn’t suffer from the problems that affect the larger ships: their high-sidedness effectively turns the side of a ship into a giant sail, and they are unable to control docking in high winds.

We’d arranged to meet up 15 minutes before the tour began at the Old Government Buildings. When I arrived, they were already there! I welcomed them all, and explained that as it was Sunday, all the businesses around this end of town were closed, so we had a little bit of a walk to our first destination. Just to complicate matters, Sunday was also the day of the Wellington leg of the New Zealand Pro Classic cycle race. This is normally run in various legs around the Wairarapa, but this year they decided to do the final leg on an urban course on the Golden Mile in Wellington. Which is slap bang in the middle of the route we usually take through the city! We had to divert down Featherston Street. Normally we’d head to Pravda for cheese scones, but they’re shut on Sundays, so we went to our alternate venue, Pickle & Pie. Both are Wellington institutions, with Pravda being world-famous in New Zealand for its cheese scones. During Wellington On A Plate they run scone-making courses, and these are usually a sell-out. Pickle & Pie’s approach is slightly different, in that they cram as much cheese into the scone as possible, and then toast it and serve it with…you guessed…pickles! We also tasted some of their Pie Of The Day – brisket with cheese.

Next, we backtracked a little to Willis Lane, to try beer, charcuterie and cheeses at Churly’s . This is a venue owned by Behemoth, an Auckland craft brewery, but it’s inclusion on the Wellington tour is due to (a) having a strong connection to the owner, and (b) the unique charcuterie from A Lady Butcher. As the sun is over the yardarm by this stage, a couple of beers (tasting size only!) are included.

Out into the sunshine and Wellington wind again – we were certainly giving our group the full Wellington experience! – and across Jervois Quay to the waterfront, our next stop was Karaka café. Sited next to the wharewaka function centre, this café is owned and operated by the Retimanu whānau, of Māori & Pacifica descent. The food is reflective of this heritage, and they work with Māori and Pacifica providers as much as possible. The offering here is a hāngī-style potato and kumara cake, topped with a pork and watercress sausage, washed down with a Taha tonic, flavoured with kawakawa.

Our final stop on this tour is at Wellington Chocolate Factory. WCF is no ordinary chocolate maker – they go above and beyond to produce the finest chocolate possible. This includes going way further than the rubber-stamp Fair Trade that other ethically-produced chocolate manufacturers boast of – they actually visit the chocolate growers themselves, and increasingly source their beans from Pacific producers, notably in Vanuatu. They sort the beans and roast them all themselves, and then mix them into various types of chocolate – dark, milk, vegan (with coconut milk), and some flavoured bars as well. Naturally, it’s more expensive than Cadbury’s and even Whittaker's, but it is as good as chocolate can get. They have recently introduced chocolate “tea”, made with the husks of the cacao beans (which are usually discarded) – a light and refreshing alternative to hot chocolate, but with all the health benefits associated with theobromine.

Elle had to dash away early to catch her plane back to Auckland, so I escorted the group back to the pick-up point where we’d started the tour. It’s a bit of a hike around Wellington, so you get a chance to work up an appetite, and then walk off the calories afterwards. But no-one left hungry!

For the rest of the summer I'll be combining my Zealandia tours with Big Foody tours, which helps to break up my work and provide some variety.

Geology

As members of the Friends of Te Papa, we are often invited to participate in talks or other events arranged by FoTP as part of their fundraising efforts. Occasionally, we even accept! 

This tour was to explore the geology of Wellington city, and was led by Hamish Campbell, formerly of GNS. We were advised to bring outdoor and waterproof clothing as we would be going outside on what turned out to be a cold, windy, somewhat drizzly day.

We arrived at Te Papa to board our coach at 9:45, and set off around Wellington’s coast – i.e. the route we usually drive to and from Wellington! – with commentary from Hamish. He distributed maps of the city, oriented such that the edge of the map was parallel with the Wellington Fault and the whole of the harbour could be included. There was lots of stuff about faults, and subduction, and plates. The rock in the Wellington region is uniformly greywacke base rock, a type of sandstone.  Our route took us around the bays and along Shelly Bay road – the first time we’d been up that way since the fire in June this year. All those lovely heritage buildings destroyed. So sad.

Our first stop was at the Wahine Memorial in Seatoun. The memorial itself is built from greywacke of various different colours – fifty shades of greywacke! The different colours reflect the fine-ness of the particles that made up the original sedimentary layer, and also the amount of carbon included – the more carbon, the darker it appears. Hamish also asked us to consider where the pebbles on the beach had come from – not the sea, as it happens, but almost exclusively delivered by man.

From here we drove along the south coast towards Red Rocks. The tarmac road runs out after passing Owhiro Bay, so from there we went on foot to admire some of the rock formations in what used to be a quarry. The fault lines are clearly visible in the rock, and the shift between the layers of strata show the subduction and bending of the rock under extremely high temperatures deep underground, which have now been brought up to the surface. 

This is all your fault

We ate our packed lunches on the coach at this point, it being generally too cold, windy and rainy to eat outside. From there we drove up to Karori, with the intention of getting up to Wright’s Hill to see the whole of the Wellington fault from the vantage point. But the weather was against us by this time, and we scratched the idea after a cup of coffee, as there would have been nothing to see under these conditions. We therefore drove on to the final stop on the tour – a church built in the 1960s, the Futuna Chapel. This is included because it contains three unusual types of stone: an altar made of red South African granite, serpentinite in the floor, and the marble used for altars around the rest of the chapel. Hamish told us about serpentinite and the difference between it and pounamu (greenstone or jade); and also about his adventures in finding pounamu, and the research which eventually led to a unique way of identifying pounamu using radio isotope dating, which is the only reliable way to positively say where a piece of stone has originated; strontium/lead decay is the method used.

That about concluded our tour, and we drove back to the city centre. They asked us where wanted to be dropped off (as the route was going past some people’s homes), so I hopefully raised my hand and said Miramar, but they weren’t going for that, and we alit at the bus station to complete our journey on the No. 24 bus.

Bryan Ferry

Bryan Ferry, erstwhile singer of Roxy Music and long-time solo artist, is touring the antipodes at the moment. Unlike many an artist, upon whose heads I metaphorically heap copious amounts of ordure, he has noticed that Wellington is part of New Zealand, and has created a tour schedule accordingly. Yes, he came to Wellington.

We drove into town, having uncharacteristically failed to pre-book a dinner venue. “We’ll be able to pick something up easily on a Tuesday night” I thought. First, we tried Crab Shack. The maître-d’ was taking phone numbers to call people when their tables would be ready. “No matter, we’ll pop next door – Shed 5 didn’t look as busy.” Nope, fully booked. “Let’s try Foxglove then.” The restaurant was fully booked, “…but you can have food from the bar snacks menu.” We had a quick look at that, spotted that burgers were a key component of said menu, and ordered.

What’s going on? Well, you have to think of the Bryan Ferry concert-going demographic. Mostly our age, or older, and generally people of wealth and taste, who’d already spaffed a three-figure sum on tickets. And what do such people do before a gig? Why, take in a leisurely dinner. The barman at Foxglove was equally puzzled as to why the average age of his customers had suddenly skyrocketed. “Is there a concert on?” he asked. “Yes, Bryan Ferry”, I replied. “Who?” “Bryan Ferry. You know, from Roxy Music.” “Who?” Bless him, he wasn’t even a twinkle in his parents’ eyes when Roxy Music were in their heyday. His granddad was probably in the audience. And, when we looked around the crowd during the interval between sets, there weren’t many faces under forty to be seen.

Having consumed our burgers, we walked over to the TSB Arena, and staked our place at the Row E, seat 56 and 57 bar. The support act, who appeared to have been drafted in at very short notice, were The Miltones. Actually The Mil, or possibly The Nes, as there were only two of the five band members. They performed their songs competently enough, but in a rather one-dimensional way as they were missing most of their instrumentation.

Some of The Miltones

And then, Bryan Ferry. Now, we’ve been rather spoilt lately by David Byrne’s recent performance, so the idea of a band, playing their songs, whilst standing on a stage, seems almost quaint. And yet, that is what they did. Mr Ferry sometimes stood, sometimes sat at a keyboard, and was assisted by a band of eight, including Chris Spedding on guitar, a musician who has had a long-standing association with Ferry and RM since the seventies. Yes, that Chris Spedding. He also had a viola player, sax, keyboardist, bass, drummer, and backing singers. They belted out a selection of songs old and new – mostly old, in fact, with a good choice of RM tunes, most of which I was unfamiliar with. Unlike certain bands I could mention, he wasn’t just playing golden oldies hits, but choosing with care from his extensive back catalogue. He mixed in the occasional big hit to keep us interested, then finished up with Jealous Guy. They didn’t do the usual encore routine whereby the band leave the stage, there’s much whooping and whistling, and then they reappear – Ferry had left whilst the band finished up the long instrumental outro, then reappeared to perform a belting version of Let’s Stick Together. The house lights came up immediately after that, indicating that there was no more to come.

The Island

It was a warm sunny day, so we decided to take the ferry over to Matiu/Somes island for a picnic and see if we could spot any wildlife there. As a predator-free island, it is home to tuatara, weta and also has a thriving population of kakariki. We climbed up to the gun emplacements at the top of the island and organised our picnic there.

Afterwards we went for a walk around the island tracks, spotting some kakariki, but they didn't land so I was unable to snap them. No sign of any tuatara, and the weta are nocturnal, so I had to make do with seagulls and skinks instead.

The following week, I was back on the island, this time with work colleagues: my employer gives us one day per year to take as volunteer leave, and we had decided to use this to help out the DoC work on the island. There are no permanent staff on the island - they rely entirely on volunteer groups and individuals to get everything done, with one island ranger, Jo, who organises the volunteers. On arrival, we were given two tasks for the morning: transporting a load of gravel from the dock up to the Visitor Centre, where it was to be used for a new building project, and sorting the chopped-down branches from some recent tree clearing into sizes suitable for logs or woodchippings, removing shoots and twigs so that they would go into the machine. It was again a hot day, and by the time lunchtime came round we were ready for a rest and sit in the shade.

After lunch, we had a gentler time of it, clearing overhanging and encroaching foliage from the Western track. As we went along, our DoC organiser pointed out a tuatara on the slopes down from the track. Unfortunately I'd forgotten the ABC rule (Always Bring Camera) so was unable to get a picture of it. As we were clearing the pathway, Jo was also checking the bait boxes for signs of mice and rats, to ensure the island stays pest-free. Inside one box, she found a baby Giant Cook Strait weta - about an inch long. In the next box, there was a fully-grown individual of the same species. These grow to about 2 inches long, and are big, fat creatures. I held this one in my hand, and you can feel the weight of them - an unusual experience when holding an insect! She was carefully replaced in the box.

Whilst we were working, Andy had commented that there were a bunch of people in the water swimming on the far coast - we thought no more of it. But when we came to another gap in the trees, we saw that they weren't people, but dolphins...and a lot of them! There were around 100 dolphins in the pod, swimming into Wellington Harbour.

We finished up our work and waited around for the ferry back to Queen's Wharf. Whilst aboard the ferry, the captain announced that he was going to take a detour into Oriental Bay, because this was where the dolphins now were. Fortunately one of our gang had a proper camera with him and was able to get some decent shots of the dolphins, whilst my cameraphone pictures were a bit rubbish.

photo: Angus Veitch

photo: Angus Veitch

photo: Angus Veitch

photo: Angus Veitch

Hertz Wellington Sevens

Last weekend the annual Hertz Wellington Sevens competition came to town. This is the fourth leg of the IRB Rugby Sevens competition, which is played in Gold Coast Queensland, Dubai and Port Elizabeth (RSA) before heading to New Zealand. It then goes on to Las Vegas, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, before finishing up in Glasgow and London.

The unique aspect of the Seven competition in Wellington is that the audience get dressed up in fancy dress, and the event turns into a giant party throughout the city. Whilst the rugby is played at the Westpac stadium, many bars in town host their own parties and many people get dressed up despite the fact that they have no tickets to the actual event. The partying goes on long into the night.

I went down to the Chicago Bar on the waterfront and snapped a few of the costumes:

The competition was interesting as the traditional strong teams are now being challenged by some of the lesser countries, as rugby sevens is going to become an Olympic sport in Rio in2016. Countries such as USA are ramping up their ability, and there are some surprise contenders in this year’s competition, including Spain and Portugal. But the real surprise at the tournament was the Kenyan team, who were narrowly defeated by England in the final. New Zealand finished 3^rd, which was a disappointing result for them, having been knocked out by Kenya in the semi-final.

In the past, Sevens was seen in New Zealand as a route through to the senior All Blacks team. However the sport is evolving and the old assumptions that countries with a strong RU side will automatically be in the top echelon is no longer the case, as more specialist Sevens players are now making their way. Let’s see what happens at the next leg in Las Vegas.

Pencarrow Head

I want to ride my bicycle

I  want to ride it where I like

We'd previously walked from Muritai along the coast track to Pencarrow Head, but had turned back as it's quite a long walk (4 hours) and we'd set out quite late in the day and weren't really prepared for a long walk. "We should hire some bicycles and do this" we said, and as we left the car park we spotted the cycle hire shed that had eluded us when we set out.

On Sunday we returned to Muritai, parked up and rented a couple of bikes. We'd packed a picnic in a cool bag, so redistributed that between two rucksacks - along with all the other requirements that we usually forget when we go out exploring and which are written on every map we see when we get to the park or reserve in question: Plan your trip, tell someone of your plans, wear proper shoes, take waterproof/warm clothing, take water and food with you. Normally when we set out we joke about how we would need to be rescued as we were wearing inappropriate footwear, no warm clothing, no food or water, hadn't told anyone, didn't know where we were going etc. But this time we done it proper, like.

I've not been on a bike for about 30 years, so I was a little unsteady to begin with. Also, the concept of gears on bikes was largely foreign to me, so I had to figure out what I was doing with those as well. Fortunately, your modern mountain bike is fairly intuitive in this, so I got the hang of it pretty quickly.

Christ on a bike! Well, me, actually

We set off down the gravel track towards Pencarrow Head, stopping along the way to admire the scenery and the lighthouse - New Zealand's first, which was manned, or womanned, by  New Zealand's only woman lighthouse keeper, Mary Jane Bennett.

We headed off the beaten track onto a more rustic one by Lake Kohangapiripiri, and sat down by the track to have our picnic.

The return journey was substantially more arduous as we were heading into the wind, which had picked up quite significantly. Also we were a bit saddle-sore by this point, so we stopped for a breather several times on the way back.

The overall trip is not a long one by cycling standards - I think it was about 8km each way. But it felt longer on the way back.

Hic Sunt Dracones

Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny, and we headed towards Wellington’s waterfront for the second day of the Dragon Boat Festival. On the way down Cuba Street we were accosted by a chap with a camera who told us he was photographing people at the bucket fountain for use in a university project. He emailed me the picture:

By the bucket fountain

We then continued down to the harbour. Sunday was the schools’ competition day; we found seats in the grandstand at the finishing line, and watched a couple of the races. As we had no particular affiliation, we didn’t stay long, and when they broke for lunch before the finals, we decided to do likewise, and headed for Mac’s Brewbar for a refreshing beer, then wandered along to Capitol, our favourite café of the moment, for a spot of lunch accompanied by a Tuatara beer.

After lunch we took the cable car up to the Botanical Gardens:

We didn’t want to do the whole Botanical Gardens tour, as it's quite steep in places, and any hills that you go down have to be ascended again to get out. So we set off down the road back to The Terrace, which is downhill all the way.

Name And Shame

In the evening, we went down into the CBD to get some dinner. Unfortunately the restaurant that we planned to go to wasn’t open on Sunday (should’ve checked before leaving) so we went round the corner onto the harbour front and ended up in Foxglove, one of the better establishments in that part of town. On the way we had to fight through hordes of people queuing outside the TSB Arena, waiting to see a Lionel Ritchie concert. Foxglove, I’m afraid to say, has joined the far-too-long list of good restaurants in Wellington who can’t seem to get things right; in this case bringing three main courses out, and the fourth ten minutes later. They did, however, take it off the bill…but you’ve got to get these things right, surely?

Anyway, that was pretty much the end of Ma & Pa’s brief sojourn in Wellington. On Monday, they packed up and left and flew to Melbourne in the afternoon, for a well-deserved rest.

Island Life

Yesterday, Ma & Pa Wilsher arrived in Wellington for a short 4-night visit. Last night we dined simply chez moi, and today we went out on a pre-arranged tour called “Ships & Chips”. This involved turning up at the Wellington Museum at 11am, to be given a guided tour of the museum by an entertaining and enthusiastic member of the staff. The Wellington Museum is spread over three floors, and you could spend a day or longer going round all the exhibits. He gave us an edited highlights tour, concentrating on three very important parts of the museum, and giving us a lot of info on Maori legends at the same time. The tour also included magic, where we sat down and watched a presentation of the Maori legend of the creation of New Zealand and Wellington Harbour. Turned out it was all done with smoke and mirrors (the presentation, not the creation of New Zealand and Wellington Harbour).

At around midday the tour finished, and we went outside to catch the ferry to Matiu/Somes Island (“MSI”). It gets its name from the English name given to the island in the 18^th century, and the Maori name for the island. There was some disagreement about what to call the island, and in 1997 a decision was made to call it by both names, which is how it is known today.

On arrival at the ferry, we collected our fish’n’chips lunch, to eat on the way – all part of the deal. The ferry dropped us off at the jetty, and we were informed that the next boat back was in 20 minutes, and the one after that in three hours. As it was a nice day, we decided to stay for the three hours.

The first thing you do when you arrive at MSI is go to the Rat House. This isn’t some German Parliament building – it does exactly what it says on the tin. MSI is a predator-free island, and they want it to stay that way, so the first order of the day on arrival is to ensure that you haven’t brought any unwanted visitors with you. This includes seeds of mainland plants – they’re trying to restore the flora to native species only, and the mainland positively abounds with introduced European plants, so soles of shoes are vigorously inspected for mud. Once they’re satisfied that you’re pest-free, they release you to tour the island.

At the top of the island is an anti-aircraft gun emplacement. Early on in the Second World War, Japanese planes from aircraft carriers had been seen from New Zealand, and it was decided that air defences were needed for the capital. As it turned out, the US rooted the Japanese out from the region fairly early on (the battle of the Coral Sea) so by the time the battery was operational it was redundant, and no shots were ever fired in anger. The concrete emplacements are still mostly visible, although the trench system has since gone, and the weapons themselves have been removed.

The island has also been used extensively as a quarantine station for animals (livestock) arriving in New Zealand for farm breeding, as an internment camp during both world wars, as a leper colony (as the unfortunate story of Kim Lee testifies), and as a fortress by the Maoris before Europeans even arrived in Wellington. Nowadays it is used as a predator-free nature reserve, and is one of an increasing number of places to have a tuatara population.

We went about the island in a fairly haphazard way, but covered pretty well all of it in our allotted time period. We were searching for tuatara, but didn’t see any. We saw plenty of common skinks,

and also red-crowned parakeets

and fantails (as usual, they wouldn't stay still long enough for me to photograph them), and the occasional North Island robin. The giant wetas failed to turn up as well – there were various boxes placed in the undergrowth where wetas were supposed to hide out, as they like the dark, but none of the ones we looked in contained any sign of life. Oh well, I’m sure we’ll see them another time.

After that, it was back to the ferry, and the mainland again. After a hard day’s walking around the island in lovely autumn sunshine, we needed a rest before going out in the evening.