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.

Tainted Love

We went to Te Papa for a talk about shore birds, and particularly bar-tailed godwits, and their migration to North Korea, on Monday. Sounds like an odd subject, but there are compelling reasons why the tiny New Zealand Pūkorokoro Shorebird Centre should be influencing North Korea’s government policy.

Afterwards, we went for lunch at nearby Fork & Brewer – the venue I’d been trying to get to last Friday. On a Monday, and past the normal office lunch hour, it was almost deserted…but, importantly, still open, and serving food. We settled in for their Burger Wellington offering, The Tainted Love.

It’s described on the WOAP site like this: Randwick Meats Wagyu and pork patty, with a Fork & Brewer Tainted Love juniper and passionfruit sour glaze, cabbage and daikon slaw, Kewpie mayonnaise, shichimi togarashi and tamarind infused tomato sauce, in a La Linda sesame milk bun, with crispy onion rings.

It looks like this: 

And how was it? Tasty! The patty was OK, despite being well-done. There is a conundrum here: if you include pork mince in your patty you need to cook it well, but the pork and the wagyu ensure that the burger doesn’t dry out and become chewy. Also, the coleslaw makes for a slippy-slideyness to the burger as whole, so I didn’t even attempt to pick this one up, it was straight in with the knife and fork. I couldn’t really notice the additional flavours of the ketchup, they’re lost in the overall mix.

The Garage Project beer match is again The Devil’s Lettuce, and this time, I tried it. The devil’s lettuce is a slang term for marijuana, and, sure enough, the ingredients listed contain terpenes, which are the type of compounds found in Mary Jane that give it it’s effects. It doesn’t specifically say it’s made with cannabis, because (I guess) laws and shit. Anyway, it was a pleasant enough IPA.

This was better than the souvlaki burger, and I quite liked this one, so I’m scoring it 8/10.

 

Dirty Work

Indian Ink, aka Jacob Rajan and Justin Lewis, are back with a new show. We’ve seen them a few times before, with The Pickle King, Mrs Krishnan’s Party and Paradise, or The Impermanence Of Ice Cream. We picked a matinee show on Sunday afternoon at Te Papa’s Soundings Theatre, to go and see the new show, Dirty Work – An Ode To Joy.

 

The show is set in an office, and the main characters are Joy, the office cleaner; Neil, the office manager; and Zara, his assistant. The office workers are members of a local choir, and a different choir is used for each performance. The choir haven’t read the script, so have no idea what’s going to be happening. They’ve just been asked to learn some songs, and the cues for when to sing them. Sounds fun!

It’s a big day in the office, and as cleaner Joy is doing her rounds, she’s interrupted by the staff arriving very early to complete the papers for a board meeting later that day. Unfortunately, they quickly discover that their computers aren’t just down…they’re out! Yes, all the PCs have been removed, supposedly for an upgrade. They’ll have to calculate all the accounts by hand. The big boss of the company, based in India, Zooms them to find out where the papers are; Neil, the office manager, says he doesn’t have the authority to do the work, so he is immediately promoted to CFO. Problem solved!

The drama and music continue as problems arise, and are resolved. There’s also a birthday party woven into the plot, which of course give rise to more singing and dancing. There’s social commentary and critique of how economics and work traps people in different roles.

A trademark of Indian Ink’s work is that at least one character will be wearing a prosthetic of some kind. In this case, it’s Joy, and she has a massive set of false teeth to contend with…although she seems to manage, and talk and sing her way past them without any problems.

It’s another jolly romp from Indian Ink, a contrast to the serious plot of Paradise. But, as ever, thought-provoking. The New Zealand tour is just winding up, but their work is being increasingly seen overseas as they tour festivals in Australia, the US and Europe. If they come anywhere near you, take the chance to go and see them!

 

Surrealist Art

Te Papa are holding an exhibition of Surrealist art at the moment. This is likely to be very popular, so we decided that a Tuesday morning would be a good time to go along as it wouldn’t be as crowded as at the weekend. Our best-laid plan included breakfast at The Larder, then we headed into town and parked at Te Papa. 

As expected, there weren’t many people there, and we were able to make our way through the exhibition, spending as much time as we wanted. The exhibition documents the Surrealist movement, how it grew out of the Dadaist movement, which itself was a response to the horrors of trench warfare in World War One. They had many significant paintings and other works on loan from around the world, including several by Salvador Dali, the best-known proponent of Surrealism. There were also some sculptures, books and films, and a display which recreates the painting Not To Be Reproduced by Rene Magritte:

 

There was also this famous sofa: 

So if you want some serious art, go see this exhibition.

Paintvine

Paintvine is an activity company that provides people with an outlet for their creativity. And wine. Wine is an important part of it. They organise events where you drink wine , then paint a picture. Our evening was organised through the Friends of Te Papa, and took place inside the museum, after hours.

We started off with a glass of wine and some nibbles, and then learned about the picture that we were going to paint, from curator Rebecca Rice. This is one of many colour paintings done by John Gerrard Keulemans for Buller’s Birds of New Zealand – the first definitive book of New Zealand’s birds, published in the early 1870s. The first edition of the original books were produced to order – you had to pay in advance, as they were all hand-painted over lithograph prints. The bird selected for us is the kākāpō, New Zealand’s rare, flightless parrot.

Before beginning, Debbie Anderson (the artist in charge) gave us some helpful tips about how to draw, what colours to use, how to mix colours (we were using watercolours, but other events use different media), and generally make sure we knew what we were doing. No experience is necessary, and all the materials are provided for you. Importantly, they also clear up after you! We donned aprons and set about recreating Keulemans’ masterpiece.

 First, outline of the bird. We used a grid system to make sure we were getting the proportions right. 

Second, complete the details: 

Finally, apply paint.

 

This is my effort...

...and Nicola's interpretation

I know, I know. Indistinguishable from the original!

We took the paintings home and are now considering framing options.

 

 

Gisborne

The Friends of Te Papa is an organisation devoted to providing artworks and other support to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (usually shortened to Te Papa). Among their many activities are organised trips to the provinces to talk to their regional museums and cultural groups, as it is a museum for all of New Zealand, not just Wellington. They organised a trip to Gisborne, which we signed up for.

Gisborne is quite a way from Wellington, and many of the group were flying there. We decided, however, to drive, and stayed the first night in Napier.  After a dinner at Napier’s premier Indian restaurant, Indigo, we headed up to Gisborne the following day. We’d booked the night at the Emerald Hotel, in order to be there ready and early for the first item on the agenda at 10:00 on Thursday.

This was a visit to Pultron, a manufacturer of FGRP (that’s fibre glass reinforced plastic to you), an unlikely candidate for us, but an important employer in the area and also with an international presence. They make the rods that are the key component of all-enclosed trampolines, amongst other things. We learned more than we could ever possibly want to about the process and uses of FGRP. No pictures, as we had to sign non-disclosure and secrecy agreements about it to ensure we weren’t spying for their competitors.

In the evening we went to dinner at the Bushmere Arms, a country garden, restaurant and function venue, run by Robin Pierson who singlehandedly maintains the gardens and chefs the kitchen. We toured the gardens which included a lot of produce, which would end up on our plates. Hors d’oeuvres were provided, then dinner was a choice of beef fillet or hāpuku (I had the beef, Nicola had the fish), both very good.

After dinner we were bussed back to our hotel. Tomorrow morning: Art and museums.

Citizenship

At 6:00pm on a rainy Monday evening, I made my way to the Soundings Theatre at Te Papa, the museum of New Zealand in Wellington. It’s here that the Department of Internal Affairs holds its monthly citizenship ceremonies, and after qualifying for citizenship in August this year, I have finally been invited to take part in a ceremony, the final stage of obtaining New Zealand citizenship.

The ceremony involves swearing allegiance to the Queen of New Zealand, who is the same person as the Queen of the United Kingdom. In my 50 or so years on the planet so far I’ve not been required to swear allegiance to her before – I guess it’s taken as read if you’re a British citizen. But swear I must, so I did. They offer you a religious or non-religious option (you can leave out “so help me God” at the end). I’d considered taking a religious tome along with me – the gospel of the flying spaghetti monster – but I figured they may not take it in quite the spirit intended, so just took the atheist text.

After everyone had finished, we all sang the national anthem, and then exited. We went for a celebratory dinner at Whitebait restaurant in Oriental Bay, one of Wellington’s top feeding stations.

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

Erm, right here in Wellington, actually. Yes, Jason has broken his Wellington duck and come over from the West Island for a visit in the coolest little capital in the world last weekend, staying from Friday to Monday. So we decided to take him on a gastronomic tour of Wellington. After picking him up at the airport (an adventure in itself, as they are changing all the roads, lanes and car park access there to increase capacity), we first went for a drive around the Miramar peninsular, finishing up with a  coffee at Coco at The Roxy. Wellington was laying on its best weather for the weekend – cold, rainy, windy.

In the evening we headed into town to have drinks and dinner at Matterhorn. They’ve changed their set-up a bit since we last went there, and now offer “sharing plates” rather than a traditional dinner. We ordered a selection of starters and mains, including the slow-roasted beef, which was excellent, and too much of everything else. All washed down with some startlingly good pinot noir from Otago.

On Saturday, the weather had improved somewhat. The wind had dropped and whilst it remained cloudy, the sun was trying to come through. We drove round the bays to get into town, then took the cable car up to the Botanical Gardens to take a walk whilst the weather was still dry. We saw the inevitable tuis, and also a bird of prey which may have been a New Zealand falcon (v. rare, but there are known to be some nesting in Zealandia), or an Australasian harrier, which whilst common, are rarely seen in the city. We then took the cable car back down to the city, and after a quick tour round the cornucopia of delights that is Moore Wilson, we went home for some lunch.

Falcon or harrier? You decide!

An inevitable tui

These two followed me around all day

In the afternoon the weather turned rainy and windy again, so we decided to go and see the Warhol exhibition currently at Te Papa. They had some early drawings, the big famous ones, and also a silver balloon room, which Warhol made when he gave up painting for the first time.

In the evening we went to Logan Brown, one of Wellington’s top restaurants, which Jason had previously expressed a desire to visit. On Saturday nights they do away with the à la carte menu and serve only the dégustation menu.

So far, so tasty…but the next day snow was forecast.

Farmer's Market

Having been a little disappointed by the market at Hill Street last weekend, we set out to the market at Te Papa http://www.harboursidemarket.co.nz/ to see if it was any better…and it is! Much larger, with lots of stalls selling the usual array of fruit and vegetables, as well as some stalls selling other types of produce. Fish was available fresh off the boat as well.

We need to organise our food buying a bit better to take advantage of this, as it’s only a short walk away from where we live. As it is, we bought some herbs (Vietnamese mint, kaffir lime leaves, galangal and coriander) to use with the groper I’d bought a couple of days ago.

Whilst we were in the area, we also popped into Te Papa to see and read about the colossal squid on display there (insert your own joke about calamari here).

Yes, those are people in the tank where it was being defrosted. 

They Do Things Differently Here

It’s the season for sales here in Wellington, and a number of shops are advertising on television. One thing that I noticed was that some shops were selling “Manchester”. At first, I took this to be a brand name, but it kept cropping up. “Blimey, Manchester must be a popular brand – all the shops are selling it!” I thought. But it’s not.

A prize of 100 internets to the first person who can tell me what Manchester is.

The Bledisloe Cup

Today’s exploration was down to the harbour, where the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa, is located. As Wellington’s, and indeed New Zealand’s, main museum, it is enormous and contains loads of interesting stuff. We managed to get through about half a floor’s worth of interesting artifacts before we started to suffer from museum fatigue, and retired to a harbourside bar, Mac’s Brewery http://www.macs.co.nz/home/ for a bit of lunch. I sampled the Mac’s Black beer, a dark beer but without the head you normally get on Guinness or similar. I suspect that I’ll be back to try all the other beers on offer – purely in the interests of research, you understand!

In the afternoon, we headed down to Cuba and Courtenay Place to explore further and familiarise ourselves with the area, as they will be just around the corner when we move back into our flat on The Terrace. Around the corner and down a bloody steep hill…which is all well and good when you’re going there, but somewhat daunting when you’re coming home. Ah well, the exercise will do us good.

The Bledisloe Cup

Or the Bledisloe Clup as I keep calling it, kicked off last night in Melbourne. An 8 o’clock kickoff meant 10pm here, so we stayed up to watch it. The All Blacks stuffed the Wallabies fairly comprehensively 49-28, continuing a run of 8 games unbeaten now. It was a good game, with lots of tries and open play. Quite frightening to watch, having seen England play in the last 6 Nations tournament – frankly I don’t think they’d stand a chance against an All Blacks (or indeed Wallabies) team playing like they did last night. The next match is on home turf in Christchurch, next Saturday.