Troubled Bridge Over Waters

Waka Kotahi, New Zealand Transport Agency, is becoming a bit of a dirty phrase around Hawke’s Bay of late.

When it looks like the region is slowly being cut off by road from the rest of New Zealand it’s no wonder.

In recent months we have seen:

Slowing access to our region from the south, north and west (approaching from the east you would likely flood the carburetor.. and the rest of the car.. in the Pacific Ocean.)

Then on the afternoon of Wednesday 24 August it was suddenly announced that travel across the 81 year old Esk River bridge, part of State Highway 2, just north of Bay View, Napier would be reduced to 30km/h from the following Monday (Aug 29) stating the bridge:

“Wasn’t designed to carry the frequency and weights of modern-day trucks and other heavy transport”

Well, naturally!

81 years ago (1941, for those playing at home) we didn’t have multi-wheeled, thousand-horsepower, 60-tonne trucks hauling cargo across the country.

But in more recent decades we DID have a New Zealand Transport Agency whose job it was to monitor issues like the integrity of state highway bridges and fix them before they became an issue.

From Transmission Gully, to the Waikato Expressway and rebuilding the highway along the Kaikōura coast after the 2016 earthquake there have been lots of roading improvements and developments all around New Zealand.

All except Hawke’s Bay it seems.

The “temporary” limit will be put in place on Monday and apply until further notice”.” the release said.

Quotation marks around “temporary” give a sense of insincerity, and the fact it’s “until further notice”, with no indication of how long that could actually be don’t fill you with confidence for a quick resolution, or one at all.

Because other wording in the release was quite concerning:

“”While we understand this will be an inconvenience for road users, it is critical everyone complies with the temporary 30km/h speed limit to keep vibrations to a minimum to reduce the impact on the bridge structure and prevent further deterioration.””

30km/h is very slow, considering this is a 100km/hr zone, but it is standard practice and a safer speed for vehicles passing sites where road workers are active.

But saying it’s critical for the hundreds of light and heavy vehicles that travel across the Esk River bridge every day to slow down by over half the regular speed limit there to “reduce the impact on the bridge structure and prevent further deterioration“?

This makes it sound like this bridge, which has done a great, solid, bridgey job over the last 81 years, could now suddenly give way at any minute – Which is extremely concerning!

A Vital Link

It’s concerning because a kilometer or so up the road is one of Hawke’s Bay’s biggest industries, Pan Pac Forest Products, also one of the region’s largest employers, which relies on a fleet of around 100 trucks of different configurations (mainly logging trucks) each crossing the Esk River bridge several times a day carrying thousands of tonnes of products vital for the mill’s operations, as well as the mill site’s staff, who number in the hundreds, commuting to work each day.

But more importantly the bridge is the only sealed route north of Napier towards Wairoa, popular holiday spot Māhia (home of Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1) and Gisborne with a combined population in excess of 60,000.

For the most part if you want to get to Wairoa and Gisborne you have to get there via Napier, SH2 and this bridge.

The North Island’s East Coast region, north of Gisborne is accessible by road from south eastern Bay of Plenty, but it would be a hell of a detour to get to Wairoa that way.

A Long-Standing Problem

Issues with his section of road aren’t new.

For decades the intersection of State Highways 2 and 5 just south of the Esk River has been considered a dangerous spot.

An angled approach for those coming from Taupò limits clear visibility for crossing onto SH2 continuing south towards Napier.

A sandstone hill on the right limits views of north-bound traffic, while the heightened, curved Esk Railway Bridge, which leads onto the troubled river bridge cuts visibility to the northeast to less than 50 meters. Far from ideal when 50 tonne logging trucks stream over it towards the intersection.

There have been numerous crashes at the intersection but, apparently, not enough serious crashes to warrant drastic remediation by Waka Kotahi.

The rail bridge climbs quickly to get over the East Coast railway line and Esk River stopbanks and it is curved – nerve-wracking at the best of times, let alone when you are trying to share the narrow curved bridge with fully loaded 18 wheelers coming the other way.

The bridges are even less than ideal when you are not driving over them.

Cycling over these bridges is dangerous enough sharing the narrow concrete walled spaces with cars and trucks, but especially so just after dawn when crossing the river bridge north-bound faces drivers straight into the rising sun all but cutting off visibility at times.

Walking over the bridges doesn’t even bear thinking about.

This section of road has been like this for decades and successive transport agencies have known about it for decades, but chosen not to fix it.

Now it may be too late.

A Civil Engineering Emergency

Mid-morning on March 8 2018 all non-operstional staff at Pan Pac Forest Products’ Whirinaki site were told to leave as a storm had flooded the neighboring Esk River valley and the water level was getting dangerously high. It was decided that staff should leave before high tide, as the river getting any higher could threaten travel across the Esk River bridge.

Flash forward four years and who will now feel safe or secure crossing this potentially structurally compromised bridge the next time there is significant rainfall in the nearby hills?

Recent severe weather events have proven that Napier’s infrastructure is not up to handling even current standards. It’s not too surprising sadly though, given years of successive council administrations being hell-bent on keeping rates down at the expense of repairing and replacing their beloved city “assets”, turned major liabilities.

But when it comes to roads Hawke’s Bay pays its’ share.

Fuel tax, income tax, Goods and Services Tax.

Hawke’s Bay truck owners pay Road User Charges.

So why doesn’t Hawke’s Bay get a fair return on our regional roading infrastructure for the taxes and charges we pay for using it?

The numerous drop-outs on our under-invested high country regional highways is bad enough. Losing such a crucial bridge will literally be the straw that breaks State Highway 2.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

A few years ago there was word that the SH5/2 intersection was going to get a massive upgrade and redevelopment.

It never occurred.

With such a dire situation now upon this section of road why not revisit those plans and make then a reality now?

Roads of National Significance” were a big deal under the last National government when the Waikato Expressway section of State Highway 1 was redeveloped.

Surely State Highway 2 must be the nation’s second most significant road by numerical order at the very least.

I believe the canceled concept involved an over/under pass for access to / from SH 5 and one big bridge spanning both the rail line and Esk River, rather than the current two inferior smaller bridges.

Lining this new, longer bridge up with matching bends that already exist north and south of the river would make the section of road straighter and give motorists better, safer vision along this area.

The slight change of angle would also lessen the chance of sunstrike for those traveling north across the bridge as the sun rises.

This realignment could be well timed, as a section of land on the seaward side of the current bridge, where this new bigger bridge would ideally go happens to currently be for sale!

Pedestrian / cycling lanes on this new bridge would also be extremely advantageous.

Having a bigger, better, newer bridge will also go some way to future proofing this section of road to imminent climate change, sea level rise (Hawke Bay is only few hundred meters downstream of the current bridge) and the ever-present threat of flooding from upstream and the Hikurangi Subduction Zone off the east coast of the North Island

As it currently (barely, according to Waka Kotahi) stands the Esk River bridge won’t withstand too many more trucks going faster than the suburban speed limit over it.

That is simply not good enough.

Rebuild the Bridge and Get Over It

I am a passionate advocate for all things Hawke’s Bay.

I’ve seen my region ignored and undermined for years and I’ve been writing about it, trying to get these inequalities fixed for almost ten years now.

This is no different.

Despite forecasts of doom, gloom and constant belittling Hawke’s Bay has surged ahead, launched itself into space and prospered in recent years to become the fastest growing and happiest region in New Zealand.

It’s just so sad that a government agency like Waka Kotahi lags so far behind in recognizing regions like Hawke’s Bay need far better roads and transport infrastructure than what they have.

If it really is critical that traffic traversing the Esk River bridge must now travel over it at 30km per hour to prevent further deterioration of the structure as Waka Kotahi said in their statement, then we can assume it’s too late and the bridge is doomed.

State Highway 2 is a nationally significant road.

To allow such a major, important structural part of it to degrade to this level is inexcusable.

This is a Civil Engineering Emergency.

Hawke’s Bay deserves better!

Footnote (Nov 2022):

Since writing this piece Waka Kotahi has limited the speed and weight limits on YET ANOTHER Hawke’s Bay State Highway bridge!

The 70-year-old State Highway 50 bridge that crosses the Ngaruroro River at Fernhill, Hastings, like the Esk River bridge, suddenly now no longer has the capacity to maintain current heavy traffic demands.

This really is ludicrous!

Ra Whanau Ki a Koe, Breakfast!

Next week on August 11 TVNZ’s Breakfast show turns 25 – a quarter of a century on air!

Prior to 1997 live weekday morning news television in New Zealand was pretty much non-existent. We were aware places like America and Australia had it, but it wasn’t on the NZ public, or media radar.

The only similar programme I can think of in terms of live production in the mornings with such a long legacy is What Now! which has been going on Sunday mornings (originally on Saturdays) for almost 40 years.

1997 was long before the 24 hour news cycle, the spread of the internet (we still had dial-up at our house until the late 2000s) and social media, so if there was live television on New Zealand televisions in the morning it was either an All Blacks game / the Olympics on the other side of the world, or something very bad had happened locally.

Today breakfast news often sets the televisual tone and topic for the day – Covering what has happened at home and overseas during the night, outlining important events that are expected to occur locally that day and interviewing those involved. The lunchtime bulletin at midday acts as a progress report and the traditional 6pm news – the pinnacle of New Zealand’s news landscape for generations almost acting more as a roundup and post-mortem of the day’s events.

Breakfast’s first of many hosts in 1997 were Mike Hosking and Susan Wood.

Breakfast felt cool and new. It was off the cuff, like local breakfast radio, but larger, more dynamic and on screen. Live filming made it feel more genuine, original and informal than the polished, rehearsed news bulletins.

This was also before Hosking’s career and ego made the Fourth Circle of Dante’s Inferno look like broad daylight. He was more down to earth and even, dare I say it, “cool”(?) then, to the point where he was (good naturedly) parodied on What Now and the local comedy skit shows of the time.

I had dreamed of being part of TVNZ, or just TV IN NZ, ever since I was a kid growing up watching What Now, After School, Telethon, Town & Around, Children of the Dog Star and the plethora of fantastic, locally produced shows that were created in that golden era of NZ television production – the 1980s.

Watching Breakfast brought this dream into adulthood. I remember seeing a Christmas “Behind the scenes” segment at the end of the first or second season that made me want to get into television again (and develop a brief televisual crush on a bespeckled reporter named Pippa).

I’d been working in radio only a year or two before and this looked like the next logical, aspirational goal.

I never got near that goal.

I did, however, soon get a job that would see me doing breakfast television hours, just without the cameras, fame, or fortune for the next 18 years.

And now as a parent the chances of watching Breakfast much on my mornings off are few and far between, as my daughter usually wields the remote and The Moe Show, Bluey, or more recently YouTube and Disney+ rule our sole television screen, so I seldom get to see much of the show past 7am.

Missing out on a large chunk of Breakfast’s mid to late 2000s and 2010s wasn’t all bad – I did miss out the majority of the supernovaing of Hosking and Henry as hosts and their cults of “(TV) personality”.

But Breakfast did at least go where many other TV shows had never gone before – Regional New Zealand!

On the Road

With it’s early morning hours Breakfast is unlike many NZ television shows, and unlike most New Zealand media networks simulcasting across New Zealand, it actually gets out there amongst the locals and different locations across the country on a regular basis.

Breakfast has made it to Napier on a couple of occasions, broadcasting live from the Soundshell on Marine Parade, showing off our region and stunning live sunrises over Hawke Bay.

TVNZ Breakfast broadcasting live from Napier’s Sound Shell February 2020

These shows usually had one of their cast inevitably be dressed up in Art Deco attire, or some similar interactive performative element. It’s certainly something associated with the city due to the architectural style at the time of rebuilding after the 1931 earthquake, but for us locals it began to feel a bit forced, twee and repetitive, after a couple decades of being ever-present and ever-pushed by the city council’s promoters, Art Deco devotees and local tourism organizations.

Their roving reporters and weather people often get out and about, too.

The morning after the deluge of Napier’s November 2020 floods Breakfast’s Matty McLean was reporting live from a semi-submerged Whitmore Park in Marewa – the suburb hardest hit by the flooding as well as visiting and interviewing those whose homes were effected or damaged by the flooding.

This provides an important, tangible connection with viewers as it proves (at least some of) “these Auckland media people” are actually real, and not just some disembodied and disenfranchised voice or face that only exist in the form of broadcast media.

During the nation-wide Covid 19 lockdown of 2020 the show helped provide a steady stream of news, information and, most importantly, personal connection at a time when we were all quarantined at home.

During that period Breakfast even had viewers Zoom, or Skype in to be “guest weather presenters” and do the forecasts for the show.

My Twitter friend, and fellow tall, hairy Andrew F, Andrew Feldon, who runs Mouthwater Coffee in Palmerston North was one of these Sky Soothsaying Skypers. It was like l’d almost fulfilled my dream vicariously!

The Dream Team

I had a recurring dream last year in which I got to meet John Campbell in person. I’ve interacted with him on social media several times, but never “IRL” (“In Real Life”, #Hashtag, YOLO GST, PhD etc…)

In the dream I meet John on set or behind the scenes at Breakfast and he promises to get me on television, either Breakfast, or my own show. It’s unclear how, or why as the dream ends about this point and the details disappear with conciousness.

Many in TVNZ’s news and current affairs talent pool have gotten their big television break, or at least worked on Breakfast at some stage in the past quarter century.

From fame to infamy and, in some cases later on in their lives or careers, being enabled to be purposefully inflammatory and even outright conspiracy misinformationy a number of people have presented and been involved in the show, but my favorite core presenters over the last 25 years has been the most recent lineup of Indira Stewart, Jenny-May Clarkson, Matty McLean, Melissa Stokes and John Campbell.

They were almost certainly the most diverse group to host the show and together represented a wider cross-section of New Zealand than ever before.

When he left the show to pursue more in-depth journalism with TVNZ, John gave a marvelous parting monologue pointing out the diversity of the show and his fellow presenters – Te Reo now being an integral part of the show’s vocabulary, the advancement of LGBTQI+ rights, recognizing the wrongs of racial discrimination and actions like the dawn raids of the 70s, and the importance of inclusiveness and multiculturalism to modern New Zealand society and media.

The more readily outraged out there would call this “woke”, or “PC gone mad!”.

It’s not.

It’s recognizing injustice. It’s being sympathetic, empathetic and supportive. It’s shining a light into dark places that need illumination for the wrongs there to be exposed and righted.

It’s human, it’s New Zealand, and it’s beautiful.

Not a dry eye in the house.

Love your work, team!

NZ’s Next Top Breakfast Presenter

The presenter they brought in to fill John Campbell’s immense shoes (and incredibly stylie socks) didn’t last long and the fallout of that is still ongoing.

Other media networks gleefully trumpeted imminent doom for Breakfast on the eve of it’s anniversary, but that was simply never going to happen.

One fewer host does not a Breakfast show un-make.

It may be worth remembering that the stars of some of these networks had significant roles on Breakfast or with TVNZ in the past, which aided them getting where they are today. Crying “nepotism!” now may not be the stable moral high ground they think they are on.

But it did expose something that had been quite obvious to outsiders for a while now: That, like other NZ media networks, TVNZ’s talent selection processes, in this case at least, had been less than open or diverse.

The chances of Andrew from Palmy and/or Andrew from Napier getting any full-time job in television despite their best weather presenting, writing, or Tweeting efforts are microscopic compared to a favored few who somehow seem to get multiple hosting rolls across multiple networks and multiple media formats without the amateur meteorological, journalistic and social media skills, or talent.

Here’s to Another 25 Years!

Here are my suggestions for how Breakfast can keep going for another 25 years:

1/ Keep Broadening the Talent Pool:

The show has proven how reflecting a wide cross-section of New Zealand society and cultures is an important part of a truly representative media.

We constantly hear the term “a plurality of voice” bandied about in terms of goals for New Zealand media.

To me that means voices (plural) from all walks of life, from all across New Zealand on the airwaves.

To media executives in recent decades it means the same few voices simulcast across the country on a plurality of stations and frequencies who used to have their own individual voices, or the same people who host a nationally broadcast radio show in the morning being given another platform on national television in the evening, or vice versa.

This isn’t a true “plurality of voice”, and it certainly isn’t fair on all the voices we don’t get to hear.

2/ Keep Getting Out There!

The world is a much smaller place than it used to be.

Television shows that “had” to be produced in Auckland no longer do. Providing you have a good internet or satellite connection you can record and broadcast from anywhere – Even Hawke’s Bay!

Imagine getting your morning news fix with this as the live background!

Spreading assets across the country also means less chance of disruption if unforeseen circumstances cause one centralized studio to be out of action.

Despite their slogan in a recent ad campaign this is one assumption TVNZ got badly wrong.

The rapid advancement of technology also means it is far cheaper to run and maintain small-scale broadcast facilities in multiple locations. Imagine what a difference to our viewing and listening landscape reinstating teams of TVNZ and RNZ reporters across the country (not just in the main centers) would make to the diversity of news coverage!

These ideas are particularly relevant given the upcoming merger of Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand has a strong emphasis on public broadcasting and Public Interest Journalism. There is more impetus than ever before for more NZ media to spread their wings like Breakfast has done and rove across the country telling locals’ stories.

If they need someone extra in Napier I know a guy… Even if he has a voice for television and a face for radio…

So happy 25th birthday, TVNZ Breakfast!

Here’s to another 25 years of informing, entertaining and exploring Aotearoa!

Bay in May

Two months ago Biodiversity Hawke’s Bay promoted an initiative to get the region’s population out and about, interacting with, and enjoying, their region’s natural features called #BayinMay.

It was a great idea, and one that our family took part in on multiple occasions across the month, often several times on weekends!

It helped that the first of May was a sunny, warm Sunday, so we headed up to Marine Parade, just along the beach from the National Aquarium of New Zealand to start ticking off tasks.

For our first task we decided to get creative, making a driftwood sculpture.

We gathered armfuls of driftwood, kelp and shells, setting a dining table suitable for Tangaroa!

While we were within arms-reach of a more than plentiful supply of greywacke (for those who are unaware, Napier’s Marine Parade beach is notoriously un-sandy) we made stone sculptures, too – I managed to get mine to defy gravity long enough to get photographic proof – With a triangular base it was more Stone-Hinge than Stonehenge.

We were on a roll(ing stone?)!

Next we went around the other side of Mataruahou – Napier Hill to Hardinge Road, Ahuriri, known locally as “Rocky Shore” because it’s a shore that’s, well, rocky:

There we studied the tidal pools and all the aquatic creatures that exist within, spotting chitons, crabs and sea slugs.

Throughout the following weeks we went from the heights of Taradale’s Sugarloaf hill to watch the sun set:

To walking around Hawke’s Bay Trails like that around Pandora Pond (Ahuriri Lagoon):

Some tasks were closer to home, like admiring “tree corridors” in places like Marewa’s Tom Parker Avenue.

Even just playing in autumnal leaves:

On a couple of occasions we went for walks up Dolbel Reserve, also in Taradale – It’s Kauri Trail is full of newly planted and established native flora.

It was a fantastic way for our family to spend our weekends together, while also learning more about nature and getting to appreciate the little local details that are so often overlooked.

And just because it was called “Bay in May” doesn’t mean you have missed your chance to experience some environmentally friendly and diverse parts of Hawke’s Bay – these are things that can be done any time of the year!

So get out and enjoy our region’s bio diversity and natural surroundings!

12 Days of Hawke’s Bay Takeaways!

As you know, each year the Frame family have a tradition of making a 12 day menu plan mirroring the traditional and Kiwi 12 days of Christmas, but with added deliciousness!

I have joked that the traditional version contains enough birdlife (partridges, turtle doves, french hens, calling birds..) that it could almost warrant a “Twelve Days of KFC”.

That gave me an idea:

Hawke’s Bay is blessed with some of the finest food producers and hospitality venues in New Zealand. The regularity with which we win big national and international awards give a general idea of just how great they are.

In recent years the number and range of these businesses has exploded. Gone are the days of Fish & Chips being the sole variety of takeaways available in the region – A multicultural smorgasbord is now available in your city, your suburb, or just at the tips of your fingers care of apps and smart devices ordering online.

So I thought, “Hey, why not do a “12 Days of HB Takeaways” and try and see just how much of a range of pre-prepared food can be sourced in the region?!”.

Now, I am based in Napier, as my brand suggests, so the majority of these will likely be Napier-based, simply because these are the takeaways I am most familiar with / have already brought from.

This isn’t sponsored content.

None of the companies listed have paid or given me free food to do this – It’s just something that I thought would be a cool idea and I thought they would be the most appropriate fit for their day / theme.

I believe in local Hawke’s Bay businesses and love seeing them succeed!

While it was intended to be a “12 Days of Christmas” list (did you know the 12 Days traditionally starts on Christmas Day, and isn’t actually a countdown to Christmas?) our regular annual “12 Days” list had a few hiccups and ran late, and with public holidays and different opening hours post-Christmas many of the places on my list weren’t open on some of the 12 Days after, so while I’m keeping the Christmas listing format, It’s essentially a 12 Days of Hawke’s Bay HOLIDAY Takeaways.

I have mixed up the Traditional and Kiwi 12 days of Christmas themes to give some variety, make it a bit easier, and diverse. There’s a good chance I may expand the list as other options arise, so come back and check it again at some later time.

So let’s take it away, with 12 Days of Hawke’s Bay Takeaways:

A Partridge in a Pear Tree / A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree = Hapi

In our usual “12 Days” menus day one almost always involves some for of vegetation or foliage – just like the Pear, or Ponga Tree.

Hapī Clean Kai Co-op is Napier’s award winning, premiere venue when it comes to healthy and vegetarian food.

Recently relocated from their original takeaway bar site down the road to Chantal’s shop on Hastings Street in Napier Hapī has gone from strength to strength and continues to gain in popularity with locals and visitors alike.

With healthy juices, vegetarian and vegan sandwiches and dishes, as well as sweet slices and, of course, coffee Hapī has become a go-to with those who want local “green” cuisine.

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Two Turtle Doves / Two Kumera = Mamacita

A visit to Mamacita, located on Havelock Road in Havelock North and Tennyson Street, Napier on the second day of the week will be auspicious, as it’s Taco Tuesday (*Available for Dine-In Only)!

Coming in hard and soft shell forms (like turtles) tacos are just one of the many options available from these favorite Hawke’s Bay’s Mexican restaurants.

Nachos, Quesadillas (“Quesadilla Thursday” is also available only for Dine-in), vegetarian and carnivore options with Ceviche, Camarones and Calamares seafood dishes available on their “Small Bites” menu.

Three French Hens / Three Flax Kete = Rock My Belly

“Chicken and Waffles” was something I had heard of repeatedly (mainly in American movies), but never tried. That was until we went to Rock My Belly, upstairs on the northern side of upper Emerson Street, Napier.

We are able to tick both theme boxes here with the French Hens AND the latticed Kete basket look of the waffles!

Southern Fried Chicken Waffles are a hit with Miss in Frame and I love the Chicken Curry Waffles.

The waffles themselves aren’t as sweet as regular dessert waffles, the thought of which was initially a bit of a put-off, making a nice flavor and texture mix overall.

Rock My Belly’s focus on great “comfort food” like this has proved very popular in the short time they have been open.

The chef’s name is Andrew, too, so you know it must be good! 😉

Four Calling Birds / Four Huhu grubs = Tu Meke Don

Again with the poultry!

Tu Meke Don, in Napier’s Ocean Boulevard (between upper Emerson and Dickens Streets) is run by Tim, Junko and their son Tane. It has been our go-to for Sushi for a number of years and a favorite for inner city workers and shoppers.

Their Karage Chicken in sushi, donburi, curries and just straight out fried is a personal favorite.

Five Gold Rings / Five Big Fat Pigs = Donut Robot

If five gold rings is what you’re after you can’t go past the delicious, crispy on the outside, soft in the middle, chocolate or berry-iced, custard filled, or just cinamon sugar dusted American-style donuts made fresh by Steve in his little “Toy Caravan”!

Donut Robot has been regularly stationed in the car park of St Paul’s Church on the corner of Tennyson and Dalton Streets, Napier for a number of years and has garnered quite a cult status and large fan base. Not only a master donut slinger, Steve is also good for a chat about the day’s local and inter/national events.

The pic above is actually of some Gua Bao I tried on a visit to Auckland a few years ago, but I intend to go to Funbuns VERY soon!

Six Geese a-Laying / Six Poi a-Twirling = Funbuns Pork Buns

A few years ago in our family 12 Days of Christmas Deliciousness we featured Tu Meke Don’s Rice Balls as Poi a-Twirling, on a similar Asian food theme here I’m nominating Gua Bao (Steamed Buns) from Funbuns to represent the Poi on this list.

Funbuns, on the corner of Heretaunga Street East and Warren Street Hastings, is a place I have yet to get to, but really want to, as I have heard lots of great stuff about!

“Can recommend pretty much everything on the menu (cocktails are frisky-fresh too). Barman is a multi award winner at HB Hospo awards. Their 12hr beef shin sharing plate & Chinese fried chicken with black tea mayo are yum!” Yvonne Lorkin c/o Twitter

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Seven Swans / Eels a-Swimming = Thai Lotus

Thai Lotus can be found right in the centre of the Taradale Shopping Centre. The building used to house the Taradale Library many years ago. Now it is home to delicious Thai cuisine!

With a wide range of stir fries, curries, satay, soups and more you’re sure to find the perfect dish – it might even be eel-like noodles swimming in a delicious curry or cashew sauce!

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Eight maids a-Milking / Eight Plants of Puha = Lick This

One of the best ways to cool down on a hot Hawke’s Bay day is with something Maids a-Milking can directly contribute to: Ice cream!

Lick This, in the old Marineland grandstand building makes their own ice cream on site in a massive, regularly changing range of flavors. From standards like Chocolate and Hokey Pokey, to seasonal and special flavors like Christmas Cake, Unicorn and Bacon, Banana and Maple.

They also sell gelato and, local legends, Rush Munro ice cream.

Nine Ladies Dancing / Nine Sacks of Pipis = Six Sisters

There aren’t quite nine of them, but they are all girls – Six Sisters Coffee House is in one Napier’s most iconic non-Art Deco buildings on Marine Parade, just towards the hill from Lick This.

The story goes Napier’s Harbor Master had six daughters, whom he had houses built next to each other for between Albion and Vautier Steets. These half dozen, two storey weather board buildings have become known as “The Six Sisters” and Napier’s best Bacon, Egg and Pesto Bagels (in my humble opinion) can be found at the sister second from the left when looking at the houses from the sea side.

Lucy and her team of lovely ladies (there’s about six of them all up, but they’re not sisters) serve bagels, Napier’s best coffee (again IMHO), scones, slices, biscuits, and smoothies looking out across Marine Parade to the stunning vista of Hawke Bay!

Ten Lords a-Leaping / Ten Juicy Fish Heads = Fish & Chips

It wouldn’t be a list of Kiwi takeaways without featuring Fish and Chips! (I prefer fish fillets to fish heads, personally, but won’t judge).

Napier is certainly not bereft of choice on this front, as I can think of at least three options within walking distance of my house alone!

Thank God its Fryday is my local in Marewa, but others like The Pirimai Chippy, Frying Dutchman and Charles Street Takeaway all have loyal followings.

Eleven Pipers Piping / Eleven Haka Lessons = Brave Brewing

It’s not Highland bagpipes and single malt whisky, but Brave’ Brewing’s iconic trumpet does involve pipe work!

Fast becoming one of Hawke’s Bay’s preferred craft breweries, Brave Brewing opened their new tap room and beer bar in the former Herald Tribune newspaper precinct site on Queen Street East, Hastings in 2020, after the nationwide Covid lockdown to promote and compliment their onsite brewing operation.

During 2020 and 2021’s Level 4 lockdowns Brave also took the initiative of delivering their beer direct to their customers around Hawke’s Bay and New Zealand (as you can see in the pic above). Cheers for that!


Twelve Drummers Drumming / Twelve Piupius Swinging = Vinci’s Pizza

One of Napier’s newer, and certainly most popular takeaway joints is Vinci’s Pizza at the cathedral / hill end of Hastings Street along from Hapi and Chantal.

What has made it so popular is that you can buy a single hot slice of their fantastic pizzas he perfect size for a snack or lunch, or buy a whole pizza which is about the size of a large snare drum! You can even mix it up and get a whole pizza’s worth of individual slices

Each pizza is hand-made by Vincent and his team 9nsite and, as with the personal touch of the other hospitality providers on this list, the range regularly changes with seasonal specialty pizzas along with the traditional stylea of Margherita and Quatro Fromagio.

Just before Santa went on his rounds last week I bought a slice of Christmas Glazed Ham pizza -It was fantastic!

So there you go – just a slice of the potential ideas to take away from 12 Days of Hawke’s Bay Takeaways – enjoy!

Perhaps it could be a New Year resolution to try thelist in the early days of 2022?!

If there are any local takeaways I have egregiously forgotten that fit into the 12 Days categories, please let me know and I can add them in.

Happy New Year!

AF

A Visitor From Hawke’s Bay: Part Three

If it seems like years ago since I was last in Auckland, that’s probably because it was!

In 2019 I drove and flew to New Zealand’s largest city several times for sinus surgery and related pre and post-operative appointments.

When Covid 19 landed in New Zealand last year I was due to go for my final appointment, but I was too busy working solo, so it was delayed. Until the first week of the country’s month-long lockdown! Unsurprisingly that didn’t happen, either.

Earlier this year I finally got a call for that appointment again, so early one morning I once again got in my car (our new one, this time, as you will remember the previous vehicle had issues when I got to Auckland, which led to us trading it in last year) and heading north long before the sun had stretched, yawned and scratched.

Once again I hit thick fog (or cloud in some places) from the Rangitaiki Plains all the way to Tokoroa, which made driving just that bit more nerve-wracking, but made it safely and smoothly to Auckland by morning tea time.

My first stop was Mount Eden, which I had intended to climb (after summiting Mount Victoria and Maungakiakia (One Tree Hill) in respective previous visits. However, the fog had followed me and I was met with a very muggy, humid day and limited visibility from the summit and crater rim.

I fuddled around Mount Eden Village before meeting a Facebook contact who was buying some of my vintage toys – primarily my old GI Joe Tomahawk helicopter and completing the deal, which have me some spending money for the trip.

After that it was time to check into my motel for the night and walk next door to Greenlane Hospital for my appointment.

The check-up went fine, I got the all clear,  though the doctor chose to snip a bit of scar tissue inside my nose there and then which involved some sharp objects going where they usually don’t go on Monday afternoons.

After a bit of recovery time I ventured out again to investigate more of Auckland than I had been able to previously. My new car’s GPS proving invaluable in guiding me around the suburban streets.

I visited and had coffee with Jeremy Dillon, creator of The Moe Show, that I have written of previously. Jeremy showed me his company’s latest iideas and nnovations. It really is a cool company with a real “Muppet” spirit.

After that I headed out to St Luke’s Mall – somewhere I haven’t been for 30+ years to get a gift for my daughter and some clothes on special for myself (I am apparently now old enough to rank this as a genuine trip highlight?!).

After sourcing dinner via Twitter recommendations from a Thai restaurant near Potter’s Park, and its giant Wally, I headed back to my motel, via an elongated and delayed route care of Auckland’s “rush hour” (a truly oxymoronic term in Auckland, as the mass of vehicular congestion prevents anyone from rushing anywhere) traffic.

With a near-constsnt stream of traffic outside my accommodation I decided that was it for the day and stayed in, staying up surprisingly late, given the level of exertion I had exerted that day.

I woke just as early the next morning as I had the previous and, rather than face more congestion hit the highway heading south, skirting Hamilton and Waikato University  due to the fact I had missed a turn on State Highway 1B in the darkness.

I stopped for breakfast in Taupo, mainly because my concentration was starting to lag, went for a walk along the lakefront and found two model kits I was after in a hobby shop to recreate a particular favorite movie scene of mine:

The final stage back over SH5, the Napier-Taupo road was much easier in daylight and I was back home before lunch.

In total I had traveled a little over 1,000km in around 30 hours. An I would he travelling even more that week, as we had a family weekend back in Taupo the following Saturday – quite a paradoxically exhausting experience for me overall.

It was fun and interesting to be able to get out and see more of Auckland than on previous trips. It was also a bit odd, as the city was just coming out of a localized Covid lockdown, and perhaps a bit of nervousness or paranoia accompanied the journey – scanning and sanitizing were common practices on the trip.

Hopefully I might get to take my family back there on a holiday that doesn’t involve poking, prodding, or doctors sometime soon as, while Napier is a fantastic place and our home, it’s good to be a Visitor From Hawke’s Bay every once in a while!

From “All of Us” to “Us vs. Them”?

It’s America’s Cup time in New Zealand, but I’m just not feeling it.Aside from all the global pandemic problems taking focus and fans away it’s just not the same any more.

Whether it’s simply that these sailing boats no longer “sail”, but rather “fly” on hydrofoils;

Or that the billions of dollars involved in a single competitor’s campaign would make any Auckland real estate agent’s commission look like loose change;

Or that Team New Zealand’s funding was allegedly caught up in some sort of online scam (Do charming Nigerian princes even sail?).

Or the childish squabbling between billionaire backers makes school-yard squabbles look civil and mature.

It’s just not what it used to be.

Set Sail for Nostalgia!

Cast your mind back to 1986-87 in Freemantle, Western Australia and how it seemed our entire nation got behind KZ7, made of fiberglass & Kiwi innovation – “The Plastic Fantastic”!

“Dirty” Dennis Conner saying “You’re a loser, now get off the stage” to NZ designer Bruce Farr.

Conner storming off the set of the first ever episode of “Holmes” – A set up, sure, but what drama! “Dirty Dennis”, a vaudeville villain of international sailing if ever there was one!

In the vein of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and USA for Africa’s “We are the World” New Zealand icons, TV and music stars even came together under the name “All of Us” to sing “Sailing Away” (I still have the vinyl record) – The only true New Zealand America’s Cup song. Listening to it 35 years later still brings a bit of a proud tear to the eye.

The New York Yacht Squadron could stick their Manhattan millionaires where the sun didn’t shine – We’ve had Barry bloody Crump SINGING A SONG!!

(Special musical mention goes to Dave Dobbyn’s “Loyal” for the 2003 America’s Cup campaign but, from memory, I think it got hijacked into a Lotto advert, sadly).

Even I got into the spirit of things – I would put my bike upside down on the deck of our trailer in the back yard.

The front wheel, turned side on, was KZ7’s steering wheel; The up-turned pedals were the grinders’ cranks.

The trailer’s triangular draw bar was the bow and the jockey wheel handle at its end cranked the sails up and down.

I raced for nautical miles and miles never leaving our grassy backyard in suburban Napier.

KZ7, of course, didn’t win.

Core samples, cries of bad sportsmanship and a yacht race that became billionaire backers racing lawyers.

Then came big boats, catamarans and bow sprits. The yachts may have floated on top of the water, but the tactics and mood would have given Davy Jones vertigo.

Fast forward to Peter Blake on NZL32, “Black Magic”

A nation of feet in red socks! 

The America’s Cup, is now NEW ZEALAND’S Cup!“, and three years later “The America’s Cup, is STILL New Zealand’s Cup!”
Great, patriotic times (even if still today most New Zealanders couldn’t tell their spinnaker from their forestay and think that a “Grinder” is a dating app on their phone)!

 

 

“All of Us” to “Us vs. Them”?

 

New Zealand last won The America’s Cup in 2017 after snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in San Francisco in 2013. But something just didn’t feel the same.

The races were held in Bermuda, and the coverage and time difference meant it wasn’t as wall-to-wall as it had been in previous years.

There were even indications that our team, Team New Zealand, the ingenious kiwi battlers of the 80s were becoming.more and more like the rest of the syndicates and focused on money and power.

So was it becoming a case of “All of Us” becoming “Us vs. Them”? 

Perhaps.

In times of Global Financial Crisis and austerity the NZ government and Auckland City Council together granted the 2021 America’s Cup tournament around $250 million in funding.

In a time when the country was facing up to profound levels of inequality and housing unaffordability so much being spent on something so unrelatable to average New Zealanders, or seemingly frivolous given the overarching societal circumstances rankled with lots of people.

Even the fact the race seemed preordained to be hosted in Auckland no matter what riled a few.

Imagine the benefits it could have had for regional centers like Tauranga, or Napier – both sea-side cities with strong marine cultures and industry. 

But no. Like everything else over the past 20+ years it was sucked in by Auckaland’s grandiose gravitational pull.

Shame.

Imagine America’s Cup races on Hawke Bay, with the starting signal being a Rocket Lab launch from Mahia!

Possibly the greatest indication of how distant we are from those heady days of KZ7 and “All of Us” (history showed us that perhaps Barry Crump probably wasn’t such a heroic icon after all) rather than remix, or revitalize “Sailing Away”, or create another nationally-backed sailing anthem 2021 America’s Cup organizers are apparently atrenpting to target the “Boomer” market by streaming in Rod Stewart in some demented attempt at a nation-wide karaoke sing-along of his hit “Sailing” to somehow support Team New Zealand?

This isn’t the bloody Mission Concert, people!

Like so many of New Zealand’s sports since the dawn of professionalism, it has become far more about the money than the mana. And that really sucks.

I haven’t seen any of the races in this years competition and don’t plan to.

I don’t really care if the billionaires go Sailing Away with Rod Stewart, or the America’s Cup.

I’d much prefer to watch youngsters learning to sail Optimist Class yachts on Napier’s Ahuriri Estuary.

It actually looks like sailing and is far more relatable – something for “All of Us”!

2020: A Pain in the Annus!

2020 – It’s been a year and ah half, hasn’t it?

From plagues, to floods it has been an interesting 12 months. For me it’s been tiring and painful, but we’ve made it and I still feel like I have some fuel left in the tank, unlike 2019 which couldn’t have gone on for a week longer.

The year started off simply enough: Jokes about “2020 vision”, looking forward to an extra day tagged onto the end of February thanks to it being a leap year, Oh and Australian bush fire smoke turning our skies all shades of yellow and brown and almost blotting out the summer sun!

(We really should have taken than as an indicator!)

Over the space of one January weekend our neighbor and I drastically changed the landscaping of our properties’ border, cutting down several trees and clearing a ton of dirt and green waste in anticipation of building a new border fence (due to 2020 in general we hope to get around to STARTING this fence in January 2021..).

It was one of those very hard, manual jobs that you sit back and admire once completed with a real sense of satisfaction of a job well done!

When not using big, brutal tools, I also made a couple of delicate 1/72 scale models that had been sitting in my garage for too long: A Bristol Beaufighter and a North American Sabre. I had only built one kit in 2019, almost as an after-thought and really fancied making more, as my stash of kits was surpassing “sizeable” and heading into “hoarding” territory, so decided I’d better keep building while the flame was lit (possibly not the best metaphor for a hobby that involves flammable paints and glue..).

I commentated double-header Supersmash T20 games at McLean Park on the second of January – The Central Hinds and Central Stags played the Otago Sparks and Volts respectively in back-to-back matches. I got to go out to the central block and watch the coin toss for the Stags’ game – a bit of a dream come true.

As I’ve written before, I enjoyed the commentating – It was a great new, unexpected broadcasting opportunity that arose for me. Then it sadly evaporated even more quickly when, a month or so later, NZ Cricket announced it was not continuing with Radiosport as its radio broadcast partner and then, as if to plunge the dagger in even further NZME closed down Radiosport altogether as the wider effects of Covid 19 took their toll on gatherings, including team sports.

This wouldn’t be my only media let-down of the year.

After being invited onto Radio New Zealand National’s The Panel three times each year in 2018 and 2019 I didn’t get invited on at all in 2020.

I don’t know what I did, or didn’t do, to deserve this snub, as they never replied to my tweets enquiring why. But given they had Michelle Boag on three times in almost as many months in the early part of the year (and look how that ended up) it might have been a bullet best dodged after all.

I played my one and only game of cricket for the 2019/20 season in February and took two catches – A new personal best!

Then along came Covid 19

There had been stories in the news since late 2019 about a respiratory disease that had started spreading across the globe after ravaging China, Iran, Italy and a number of other countries. With the nature of international travel it was only a matter of time before it reached us here. On March 26th New Zealand went into a nation-wide isolation Lockdown.

The lead-up to Lockdown, for me, was madness.

For the last sixteen years I have worked in the same office as my father-in-law, splitting 5am starts between the two of us on alternating weeks. But my FiL has chronic asthma issues and has been sick off and on for elongated periods over recent years. He had gotten sick after returning from a trip to Australia in February (non-Covid related despite it involving a cruise too!), So I was on early starts, working solo for almost a month at the start of the year. 

I was still tired and worn out from 2019 and covering this February holiday when the Covid lockdown levels were announced. With his health issues putting him in one of the at-risk categories, he had to work from home from level 3, which meant I was working solo then, too. But with the added impending doom of a looming pandemic, in a job that involved interacting with hundreds of people each day (either personally, or via documents others had handled, so having to wear masks and gloves) I ended up having what turned out to be an anxiety attack one evening (I only realised this the next day when, using a work bathroom, a aptly-placed mental well being poster just happened to list all the things I had felt the night before).

The stress of getting everything ready for lockdown didn’t abate until the lockdown itself took effect. I wasn’t given a work computer or phone, so couldn’t work from home giving me, essentially, an enforced four week holiday.      

For the month of Marpril 2020 (yes, I do consider that a viable month) New Zealand stayed at home, in our bubbles.

We shopped sparingly for food, keeping personal distances at all times. Our children learned via the internet and “Zoom”, while adults primarily used the internet for social media and ordering alcohol for home delivery.

While I would have loved to have written more during lockdown I only managed to write one thing:

A Tale of Two Countdowns

Explaining the mystery of why Napier has two Countdown supermarkets across the road from each other.

Amazingly it has had over 4,000 views since then – By far the most viewed thing I have written on Napier in Frame!

Otherwise, we read lots, played games with our family, tweeted lots, I made some more models and, as a nation, we made a metric $hit-tonne of sourdough and other baked goods (because those 20kg bags of flour that were the only available purchasing option weren’t going to bake themselves!).

Personally, I got to sleep in more often than I ever had in the past decade and a half, and have more concurrent time with my family (and snuggles with my daughter) than in a long, long time.

By and large we survived!

I describe my lockdown as “the eye of the storm”.

Just like tropical hurricanes in the Caribbean the storm builds and builds, until you get to the “Eye Wall” – where the wind and rain are at their strongest and the worst.

Then you get into “the eye of the storm”. The sky is clear – often blue, calm and sunny. But with the worst part still on every horizon.

That is what lockdown was like for our family. The weather was warm and summery (despite it being Autumn) and things were quiet and calm, yet we knew there was danger all around.

Then, as the country went down to level three, I went back to work (still sans father in law), and the other side of the hurricane’s eye wall hit in the OPPOSITE direction as we played catch-up.

All up I worked solo for about three whole months this year. It pretty well buggered me. It took up lots of my time that would otherwise have been “spare” and, when I did have “spare time” I didn’t have the energy, or the motivation to do anything!

The day after it was announced we were going down to level two and I could relax a bit with father in law and others returning to work I got a call from the hospital asking to operate on me.

Late last year I had been in for a check-up on my BCCs (Basal Cell Carcinomas) and they had identified some more that needed removal. Covid and the lockdown had put any work on hold, so at the first opportunity I was one of the first people they called and a week later I was in getting seven BCCs removed in one fell swoop (more than on my previous trips down to Lower Hutt) at the Napier Health Centre.

Maybe it was the sheer scale of the procedure (I ended up with at least one significant scar from where one BCC which hadn’t been fully removed the first time years ago had grown back and needed removing again), or the overarching stress of the year, but my recovery was longer, and felt more physically and psychologically painful than any of those that preceded this year’s surgery and a few minor complications did not help matters.

I had only just recovered from the first round when a second lot of surgery removed some more BCCs a month later.

I felt ugly.

That didn’t seem like a regular thing for a kiwi guy to say or think, but I did. And I was annoyed at myself for feeling like that.

It was what had done so much psychological damage to my mum after her surgery over a decade ago and I had sworn to never fall into that trap myself.

I didn’t hide away like she did, but I still felt it.

Fortunately around the same time, as we headed into winter, I managed to get some new clothes, either on sale, or from vouchers I had earned from online Nielsen surveys and the like.

After months of nothing but fluro hi-viz, polar fleece and bandages I was able to treat myself to new jeans, a new shirt and a merino jersey. I felt like I looked better and at least one of my sartorial superheroes agreed.

After lockdown and surgery issues had abated I had some time to write, which was good, because Bay Buzz magazine would end up commissioning me to write three 1,500+ word pieces this year – another personal best!

One of the things I love about writing (other than getting paid occasionally) is all the new stuff you get to learn. This year I learned about Hawke’s Bay’s tourism sector recovery, council online communications, and those lesser known companies who help produce, provide and present our local foods to HB, New Zealand, and the world. All of which makes me even prouder of my home!

Rocket Lab’s continued launches from Mahia provided a regular reminder of how awesome our region can be.

Also making me proud of Hawke’s Bay was our local NPC team the Hawke’s Bay Magpies!

After last holding the Ranfurly Shield six years ago they beat Otago to reclaim it again this year, and successfully defended it throughout the rest of the season, with Hawke’s Bay now holding it over the summer months (and almost every single person in the region who hasn’t already had their photo taken with it pretty well guaranteed of the opportunity now)!

The Magpies also won the Championship title to cap off a great season.

There’s Something About those Magpies. It’s not just a rugby thing, either. When Hawke’s Bay’s rugby team do well it seems to lift the mood and spirit of the region.

We needed to recover from the lockdown economically, commercially, and socially and by most indications it looks like Hawke’s Bay is recovering better than other regions. It just so happened to be at the same time as the Magpies were collecting all the silverware!

I know.. “correlation does not imply causation blah, blah, blah…” but it’s worked for us so far, so there!

Although, perhaps it was more “pride coming before a fall”, because just before the end of the rugby season 2020 had another go at us.

On the 9th of November Napier, and in particular the city’s CBD and suburb of Marewa suffered significant flooding and related rain damage after one of the longest, most contunually persistent downpours in an afternoon than most locals had ever experienced.

We were caught on the edge of events, getting drenched picking our daughter up from school, then coming home via main roads that would soon be impassable to watch our front and back yards get slowly inundated with rainfall and yanking out our downpipes from the roof gutters as they had begun to overflow.

We stood at the window watching the creek we live across the road from rise and rise (about 15 meters across for every one meter up, just to give you an idea of just how much water this event involved.) The next day a “high tide mark” of leaves, sticks and so on would reveal the creek was a mere meter away from breaching its bank opposite us and overflowing into the street!

A kilometer or so down the same road from us people were not so lucky. Streets, and almost the entirety of Whitmore Park (the big, rectangular lake in the aerial shots of the area) were inundated, houses flooded, possessions lost and people displaced. Many have still yet to return to their homes, which still require repair as I write this on New Year’s Eve.

I must thank Alex Braae for giving an article I wrote about Napier’s drainage problems the last time we had similar issues a few years ago a boost when reviewing the November downpour. Getting a shout-out in The Spinoff was another unexpected turn that 2020 took!

With all the craziness going on, perhaps the best move for 2020 might have been taking the advice of David Slack, who wrote about stoicism on Stuff in early January:

“Concentrate on what is within your power to do. Disregard the hysteria and wrongness around you. Preoccupy yourself with doing what is in your power to be done.”

It’s just what David did, too, as Stuff (still under Australian ownership at the time) let him and several other womderful wordsmiths go around the same time other NZ media were being closed down or severely cut back by their owners in the face of Covid’s financial fallout.

David “preoccupied himself with what was in his power to be done” and started his own page “More Than a Feilding“. It has gone gangbusters!

He is a lovely, literarly inspirational man!

I needed stoicism for one of my new ventures this year, too: I became a Hawke’s Bay Cricket Umpire!

After about 15 years of playing and player-umpiring I was invited to join and have spent the first half of this season umpiring T20 matches, including two weekends of HB’s famous Kilbirnie T20 tournament.

It’s a lot easier and more enjoyable than player-umpiring I must say. As, rather than having to worry about what the score is, who is batting next and do I need to go and pad up, all I have to be concerned with is counting to six and deciding if the ball that just hit the batsman on the pads would have hit the stumps if their leg wasn’t there. Plus you occasionally get lunch and beer!

It has been a tough year. Lots of ups and downs, with lots of unexpected twists and turns, but we’ve survived!

For now.

New Zealand’s “Tyranny of Distance” turned out to be quite beneficial in some respects. But it will also provide lots of challenges in the coming months – just look at the backlog of cargo ships waiting to unload out off most of New Zealand’s ports right now.

I am, as always, thankful for my friends (online and real life) and family this year.

I am grateful for the opportunities I have been given this year (does that mean I get to be UNgrateful for those I wasn’t given?).

And I am most inspired, humbled and amazed by my wife, and my daughter who turned seven this year and completing her second year at primary school.

The care, compassion, intelligence and love she shows continually amazes me.

On her end of year school report her teacher closed it out with the phrase:

I had to Google what that line was and I have to say I teared up a bit because:

I hope your 2020 wasn’t too disturbed, wet, or worrisome and your 2021 will be steadier and more illuminated.

As always, thanks for reading and all the best for next year!

AF

Come On, The Bay!

The Ranfurly Shield is the Hawke’s Bay Magpies’ for the summer again!

It really seems that when our provincial rugby team do well (especially holding “The Shield”), Hawke’s Bay as a whole do well (and vice versa)!

This is another great boost for our region that is already on the path to great things post Covid 19 lockdown and recovery this year!

I go on about Hawke’s Bay lots, but it’s because I believe in it & it believes in me!

It has been my life-long home, has allowed me to grow, live and raise a family.

It has given me an income, a home, and security in uncertain financial times, and wonderful friends!

It has a gorgeous climate, central location AND ULTRA-FAST BROADBAND!

I’m vocal because I feel we’re often ignored and looked down on because we’re not a cliquey Auckland corporate, or the Wellington “beltway”.

A new news website boss recently said nothing newsworthy happens in regional NZ.

Then his newsroom won an award for a story they did on the Oranga Tamariki child uplifts here in Hastings!

Our horticultural sector is world-leading, our wines, beers and coffees, restaurants and cafes national award winning.

The quality of our produce is only matched by the quality of the people we produce, hence one of our regional taglines: “Great Things Grow Here!

We work well with others:

We launch rockets into space in conjunction with Auckland-based Rocket Lab, which still amazes me 15 launches later:

We provide Tech hub support bases for Kiwibank, Xero and the home of Hawke’s Bay’s own award winning ISP: Now! 

Which is why I think the Magpies are such a great allegory for the region:

We punch way above our weight.

We are in the game for the full 80+ minutes.

If others drop the ball you’d better believe we’ll be there to pick it up and be over the try line before they’ve even noticed!

So please come to Hawke’s Bay!

Visit, stay, relocate!

After the Covid lockdown, even Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s first domestic holiday destination was a #Baycation!

You’ll be amazed at just how diverse & wonderful we are!

With international travel currently off limits I know many social media friends who have only just visited Hawke’s Bay for the first time recently and loved it!

We may even let you have your photo taken with the Ranfurly Shield! 😉

Radio Silence

 

Listen.

Can you hear that?

Its the sound of waves breaking on Napier’s Marine Parade.

And that?

It’s a magpie calling on a fence in Waipukrau.

Then there is the roar as hundreds of cricket fans cheer when Ross Taylor sends the ball soaring over the boundary for six at McLean Park!

These are all familiar sounds to Hawke’s Bay locals, but may not be so well known to those outside the region.

Recently the chances of Hawke’s Bay locals and others further afield hearing Hawke’s Bay over the airwaves became slimmer and slimmer and one of New Zealand’s biggest media organisations, NZME (“New Zealand Media and Entertainment”), was at the centre of both.

One affected me indirectly, while the other had a more personal impact.

I wish this was a new problem, but it has been going on for as long as I’ve been a curmudgeon! 😉

“Larakin Lads? Local’s Loss!”

In February NZME announced plans to potentially replace their “The Hits” network’s remaining regional breakfast shows with the Auckland-based “comedy duo” of Jono and Ben, who they had head-hunted from rival network, Mediaworks, last year.

As I’ve written before there is already, in my opinion, far too little local input and regional relevance in networked stations like “The Hits” where, in 2015 I estimated around “158 announcing positions across the country are covered by the same 8 people in Auckland.”

New Zealand commercial media’s regional markets have been continuously written off and downgraded for years now.

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy – The media outlet cuts back on local content or relevance, so the local market switches off and / or turns to social media, so the media outlet loses money, so they cut back even further…

They just keep doing the same thing again and again while, somehow, expecting a different result!

Hawke’s Bay had been fortunate to retain at least some local content during this time via NZME’s “The Hits” and Mediaworks’ “The Breeze” breakfast shows remaining local, broadcast from Napier and Hastings studios respectively, but this Jono and Ben announcement certainly seemed to threaten that status.

New Zealand media’s talent pool is shallow enough as it is without just swapping the same people around and simulcasting them on yet another network.

We’ve already had that here: The current Breeze Hawke’s Bay breakfast hosts used to do The Hits’ Hawke’s Bay breakfast show, while one of The Hits’ current hosts used to do The Breeze’s breakfast show, and the other used to do The Hit’s local breakfast show in Taranaki, but moved to Napier to take over from the announcer who moved to The Breeze.

Their Taranaki show became simulcast from Auckland soon after they left.

Confused? I can’t blame you!

Imagine how frustrating it must be for new talent wanting to break onto the airwaves in Hawke’s Bay, or whatever region they may hail from!

To be honest, I’m not a big fan of either network’s local breakfast show, but at least they are Hawke’s Bay content on Hawke’s Bay airwaves.

As I write this NZME’s plan had been downgraded to see the Auckland duo replace only Canterbury’s The Hits breakfast show.

For now.

It’s a lucky escape for Hawke’s Bay and the other regions who narrowly avoided yet more locally-irrelivent media content taking over.

Telling staunchly proud and self-sufficient Cantabrians that:

“You’re getting Jono and Ben for Breakfast!”

“But, we don’t want Jono and Ben, we want relevant local content and talent!”

“Too bad, you’re getting Jono and Ben for breakfast!”

Is just dooming their operations there to failure, isn’t it?

When will media management ever learn?

 

“Chew For Chwenty Chew After Chew”

Not long after the Jono and Ben move was revealed NZME’s Radiosport and New Zealand Cricket announced they would be going seperate ways after broadcasting cricket across New Zealand’s airwaves for over 20 years.

NZ Cricket didn’t want to commit to Radiosport’s five year offer, citing advances in technology and a changing media landscape discouraging them from tying themselves into broadcasting on radio for that length of time.

(This opinion apparently failed to take into account that Radiosport has also been broadcasting over NZME’s online streaming service “iHeartRadio” for some time now)

So, from the end of this domestic and international cricket season the dulcet tones of Brian Waddle, Jeremy Coney and their cricket commentating colleagues were out of jobs and will no longer keep summertime gardeners company.

New Zealand Gothic:

Transistor radio playing test cricket,

Freshly mown lawn,

Reel mower quietly pinking in the background.

Ladders, planks & tin of paint set up

For a fresh summer coat on the weatherboards..

Cricket commentary from McLean Park, Bay Oval, Seddon Park, University Oval and all the other grounds around New Zealand will fall silent on the airwaves from April.

Personally, it meant an opportunity I never thought I would have was lost.

Because for three domestic Supersmash T20 cricket matches at my beloved McLean Park, I was one of those Radiosport commentators!

Late last year I got a phone call.

I had mentioned on Twitter earlier in the year about wanting to do cricket commentary, or had been doing my usual social media promotion of McLean Park / Napier / Hawke’s Bay, when I got an email from someone at RadioSport asking if I’d like to send in an “audition tape”, as they were looking to expand their regional roster, and Hawke’s Bay was somewhere they felt they were a bit thin on the ground in.

I was taken aback – Knowing what media in NZ is like (see above), this was not just something that comes along every week.

Unlike The Hits, cutting back regional resources, Radiosport was trying to expand – Having local voices at the likes of Hagley Oval and McLean Park.

So I recorded an ad-libbed over of commentary on my phone one evening after my daughter had gone to bed and emailed it off.

I didn’t hear anything back, so thought I must have sucked and forgot about it.

Until I got a call one afternoon in November.

It was Malcolm Jordan from Radiosport. “Did I get back to you about your audition tape?” he asked.

I replied “No.”

“Oh, sorry, we liked it! We’ve got some Supersmash T20 games coming up at McLean Park in December and January, would you like to commentate them?”

And so began what would unfortunately turn out to be one of the shorter careers I have had.

Which is a shame. Because it was great fun!

I love cricket.

I’ve played it for years, and followed it for even longer.

I also love my home town and McLean Park!

This was an opportunity to watch the game I love at a place I love and tell the nation (and anyone else listening online around the world) all about it!

And they paid me to do it!

But the money wasn’t the best part.

The best part was that they BELIEVED IN ME!

The day before my first match Malcolm phoned me and went through some pointers for commentating he had sent me.

“We didn’t pick you for no reason. We know you can do this!” he said (or words to that effect).

Self-belief is something I’ve struggled with for a while now.

Because while I believe I am capable of doing the things I want to do, that doesn’t mean a hell of a lot if no one else does, too.

I’d be a multi-media star broadcasting Hawke’s Bay to the world by now if it did!

It’s not even something I’m used to in my day-to-day, non-writing job of a decade and a half!

So to have someone believe in me, pretty much out of the blue was, well, unbelievable!

The games were played and I think I did a reasonable job for my few times in the commentary box.

A personal highlight was I got to step out onto the pitch block in the centre of McLean Park – the closest I would likely get to playing there!

My short stint was completed, pay was deposited, and I looked forward to possibly doing it again next season.

Except as it currently stands I won’t get to.

I know I’m no Richie Benaud, Ian Smith, Jeremy Coney, or Brian Waddle.

I was never going to be able to chuck in my current job and set off on an international cricket commentating career after a couple of T20 games.

But this was an opportunity – something that doesn’t come along very often.

It was a light at the end of the tunnel that said If I stuck at this and worked on it there was a chance, a possibility, AN OPPORTUNITY that somewhere down the track I MIGHT just be able to make a career of it.

With NZ Cricket and Radiosport parting ways that light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be a freight train coming the other way.

As I wrote in a tweet about the Provincial Growth Fund recently:

“Opportunity really is the thing.

It is hope, it is promise.

Opportunity gives people a chance.

Without opportunity there is no future.”

“There are others out there far worse off than you are.”

I lost an opportunity I never thought I’d have which is a real mind bender on its own.

But that made it a bit harder. Beause it wasn’t just a job gone – it was the opportunity.

An escape.

Gone before it ever really got started.

I saw an interview with Frank Zappa a while ago about how the music industry lost its cool:

 

He talks of “cigar chomping executives” in the 60s taking a chance – Giving something they didn’t understand an opportunity.

Where as the more modern execs had a “we know what’s best for you” opinion.

We’ve seen both of these cases in Hawke’s Bay media already this year.

We need more opportunity for regional media, and the people who can make that happen.

And far less of the Auckland-centric “we know what’s best for you” executive mindset.

There may not be another opportunity for them to change, or fix the current system.

A Glamping Staycation


 

The last time I spent a night in a tent was a high school trip to Kuripapango, (the last stop before you climb the “Gentle Annie” on the Napier-Taihape Road.

It rained pretty much continuously, the teachers got us lost on a tramp and the boys’ bus broke down on the way home and we were stuck on the side of a shingle road for hours, while the girls’ bus carried on home unawares.

Hardly memorable for the right reasons…

Fortunately time heals some mental scars, and it also provides room for development.

In these intervening years the concept of “Glamping” (a portmanteau of “Glamorous Camping”) had been developed.

With bigger tents and more hospitable amenities such as actual beds, couches, and other features (and no teachers to get you lost on walks) Glamping makes for a more refined and relaxed camping experience.

So when, during a period of rather intense issues and times, our Twitter friends Emma & Colin from Meadowood House offered my family a night’s Glamping, in return for making a donation to a local charity we lept at the chance!

Located on Korokipo Road (State Highway 50), fifteen minutes from both Napier and Hastings, Meadowood is far enough from town to be “away from it all”, while still being, well, “close to it all!”

Also within close proximity are several renowned local wineries and right next door is new, award winning Zeffer Cider.

Arriving at Meadowood we were greeted by our host Emma, who showed us to our accommodation for the night – a “Lotus” Glamping tent – kind of like a Mongolian “Yurt“.

With three tents spaced far enough apart amongst a copse of trees to provide a good level of privacy we were also greeted by a number of Piwakawaka – NZ native Fantails!

After settling in to our accommodation for the night we explored the property.

The centrally located house has rooms that can be rented separately, or as the entire house.

The property also has large open spaces and a big, tent-like marquee perfect for events or parties.

Meadowood has been set up so the entire site can be hired out as a whole event and accommodation venue for weddings and the like.

Hosts Emma and Colin live on site with their family, so they can quickly and easily attend to guests’ needs.

Our daughter was quickly playing with theirs’ while the family four-legged food quality controller, the aptly named labrador “Kai” kept an eye on my dinner.

An outside barbecue area features a grill, shade tent with seats and bean bags, a brazier and a spa pool.

Meadowood is far enough away from the light pollution of the twin cities that some amazingly clear star-gazing around the fire, or in the spa is a real possibility during your nights’ stay.

Sadly for us it was overcast overnight, but there were some gorgeous lights close by.

The Art Deco-inspired “Speakeasy” (the house’s converted garage) acts as a bar, a movie theater and a breakfast nook.

Featuring a couches, projector and screen, fridges and the world’s flashest toaster it is a great place to socialise, sample some of the local liquids, or watch some old-time and classic movies.

We wandered back to our tent illuminated by more fantastic fairy lights and settled down for the night.

Our tent was configured with a big, amazingly comfortable and warm queen sized bed for my wife and I, and a single bed for our daughter, along with a comfy couch and storage.

They usually feature just the more intimate queen or king bed for couples, but they can be set up almost however you want.

Far from my last aforementioned experience in a tent this was the warmest, coziest night under canvas I have experienced!

We are woken early the next morning by a mixture of the sun, our daughter and the call of nature (no, not a fantail dawn chorus, the “other” one..)

Meadowood’s glampimg amenities block looks a bit like your typical NZ country longdrop but are far from it.

Flushing toilets and a pristine basin set a more refined tone, while the private, yet OUTDOOR shower proves both stylish and popular.

Over breakfast in the Speakeasy we met some of our fellow guests.

A young ex-pat South African couple were having a tour of NZ’s regions to find somewhere more affordable to move to, while a Mum from author Bill Bryson’s hometown, Des Moines Iowa in the United States and her Auckland-based teacher son were taking a road trip holiday.

While only recently opened Meadowood is indeed proving popular, which explains why they recently won the Hawke’s Bay Tourism “Rising Star” Award!

Hawke’s Bay keeps attracting great people with bright ideas and Emma, Colin and their family.are no exception.

From being friends online to friends “IRL” (In Real Life) it yet again shows how HB’s Twitter community puts the “Social” into Social Media!

Meadowood is well worth a stay if you are visiting Hawke’s Bay or even if, like us, you are locals just needing a break or “staycation”.

Meadowood’s “Glamping” season runs from September through until April (weather permitting). Enquire online for the availability and hours of other aspects of the venue.

Please check them out!