Tourism Central Otago
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Freezing for fun
The cold never bothered me anyway. “Take off your clothes,” the Italian woman says. She’s speaking in English, into a loudspeaker. The crowd lining the poolside and balcony go quiet. “Get into the water.” Eight of us shuffle to the edge of the pool. There is one ladder for two lanes. The competitor in lane…
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War and peace: The 1964 guide to the memorial halls of the South Island
Commemoration meets community. There might be a playgroup one day, indoor bowls the next, or a tangi, a Euchre night, a wedding, a roller derby, a cabaret, a community board meeting, a life drawing class, a gig. Almost every small town in Aotearoa has one: a town hall. They are often called the heart of…
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A plague on both our islands
The 1964 guide to pest control in Aotearoa. The American at the dinner table is telling us about coming across a woman, who from the sounds of it was a West Coaster, in the act of dispatching a possum. I won’t get into it, but a rock was involved. He goes a bit pale as…
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Shelter from the storm
Viv Head explores a hidden hut on the Old Man Range. A short climb through the tussocks and we were there: the ‘Skiers’ Hut’. Its existence is known to some, its location to only a few. Central Otago’s Old Man Range stretches for about 40 kilometres, 24 of which look down on the Roxburgh Gorge…
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Absolutely fabulous
Liz Breslin revisits a hypercoloured Central Otago cinematic classic. There might be 50 ways of saying fabulous, but at letterboxd.com someone called Robino gave the film of the same name two and a half stars and said, “they only said it 17 times.” It’s streaming on TVNZ+ at the moment so I tried to keep…
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Natural Born Campervanners
May 2020. First week out of lockdown. We were trucking along nicely when my wife made an announcement: “I’ve done something. I’ve booked us a campervan for ten days!” I had many thoughts, largely circling around the theme of whether or not she had paid any attention AT ALL in the 24 and three-quarter years…
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Above par: The 1964 guide to Aotearoa’s best rural golf courses
Our resident golf writer Phil Hamilton tours the nation’s village greens. Golf is big in Aotearoa. By some metrics, we have the second-most courses per capita after Scotland, the birthplace of the sport. Flash resort courses continue to be built at pace and to suck up overseas attention, but the heart of golf in this…
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That’s the spirit
Liz Breslin goes ghostbusting in two of the South Island’s haunted hotels. We are not Kesha in popular reality TV series Conjuring Kesha, who says, in the trailer, “a lot of things have happened that are weird, but I’m like, give us more.” We are not the beloved Ghostbusters men or the flopped Ghostbusters women.…
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The cutting edge
Zambonis and the business of smoothing the ice in Aotearoa. THE HILLS OF THE CROWN RANGE ARE ALIVE WITH SECRET CARS. THEIR MAKES AND MODELS ARE HIDDEN UNDER DARK CLOAKS, LIKE NUNS’ HABITS. THESE ARE THE CARS OF THE FUTURE (HENCE THE SECRECY), SENT HERE BY INTERNATIONAL AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURERS TO HAVE THEIR ICE HANDLING PUT…