Nathan Weathington
-
So amped right now
Harry Dawson’s Nixie amps have a heart of glass. SOMETIMES FUNCTIONALITY TRUMPS BEAUTY. SOMETIMES HISTORY DOES TOO. BUT SOMETIMES BEAUTY WINS. EXHIBIT A: THE VALVE AMPLIFIER. The garage-slash-workshop in Harry Dawson’s garage is, in square meterage, as big as his house. It has two spaces: a “dirty room” and a “clean room”. Much of the…
-
All our favorite New Zealand Lord of the Rings filming locations listed
The Lord of the Rings trilogy really put Aotearoa New Zealand on the film-making map. It spawned both a thriving locally-based special effects industry in the form of the Oscar-winning Weta Workshop (in New Zealand’s capital city of Wellington), as a whole new tourism draw: New Zealand Lord of the Rings filming locations. According to…
-
Review: AllTrails Hiking App
I was introduced to the AllTrails app while travelling for work. I was in unfamiliar settings, and wanted to escape my hotel room and go for a short hike. AllTrails had the answer. The app features more than 400,000 curated trails and a global community of over 45 million users. The largest collection of digital…
-
The tree tops! Our five favourite New Zealand trees
Aotearoa New Zealand has some exceptional trees. It’s a lush, green place, with more than 10 million hectares of its land mass covered in native and exotic forests. Prior to humans arriving, more than 80% of the country was forested, and what cool forests they were. Today it’s less that 40%. And while some native…
-
Rationalise this
Because we’re nothing but a cross between Caligula and monkeys wearing pants. THESE DAYS, EVERYONE’S AN ENVIRONMENTALIST. TO BE OTHERWISE IS TO RISK BECOMING A SOCIAL EXILE OR HAVING YOUR BUSINESS BOYCOTTED. OUR SOCIAL CHANNELS MAKE US ALL SEEM LIKE THE LOVE CHILDREN OF JANE GOODALL AND DAVID ATTENBOROUGH. MESSAGING CORRECT, BRANDING ON POINT. It…
-
The 1964 guide to the small town cinemas of the South Island
Where going to the movies is as it should be. WAS A TIME, MOVIEGOING WAS AN EVENT. GOING TO THE CINEMA WAS AN EXPERIENCE, ONE YOU MIGHT DRESS UP FOR, SAVE FOR, BOOK IN ADVANCE. THOSE WERE THE DAYS. WHICH SOUNDS CURMUDGEONLY, BUT ALSO, MULTIPLEXES ARE TRASH. Fortunately, despite industry turbulence caused first by the…
-
Anytime Cornbread Recipe
It’s bread, but not as you know it. Cornbread is easy, fast, delicious, healthy(ish), and with a slight change of ingredients can be a tasty addition to almost any meal. For dinner, it can be served with soups, Mexican or as a side for your meat and veg. For lunch, use it as the bun…
-
All roads lead to snow
The 1964 guide to the ski roads of the South Island. WE HAVE TO DRIVE TO THE SNOWLINE HERE, UNLIKE IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD, AND THE ROAD UP TO ANY NEW ZEALAND SKI FIELD IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF ITS FOUNDING STORY. Early paths carved by bulldozers, winches and good keen humans opened…
-
Book review: Fine Line – Twelve Environmental Sculptures Encircle the Earth
By Martin Hill & Philippa Jones (Bateman Books) Fine Line is a global environmental art / science project, which draws a symbolic fine line around the earth and connects 12 ephemeral sculptures. Each work was created in situ using the natural materials available at each site, such as snow, as featured in the cover photograph…