All posts tagged: Wellington

Wakefield St & the Basin Reserve (or, #2 in a series on Wellington places named in honour of problematic white dudes)

Continuing on with my series of Wellington places named after people with extremely…complicated…histories and legacies, today I’m going to talk about William Wakefield, city founder, coloniser*, kidnapper and someone who was totally willing to be a rape accomplice, and his brother Edward, also hugely influential in founding Wellington, even more of a coloniser, even more of a kidnapper, and probably a rapist. The Wakefields in Wellington Unlike the Sir Truby King Gardens, which are quite hidden and which took my years to discover (and some Wellingtonians never do), it’s hard to miss to miss the Wellington places named after William Wakefield and Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Wakefield Street is a main thoroughfare running through the city. If you’re travelling from the airport to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the train station, parliament, or anything government based, you’re almost certainly going to go along Wakefield St. And if you go the other route to get through Wellington, you’ll pass through the Mt Victoria Tunnel**, and come out facing the Basin Reserve, and the Wakefield …

The Great Wellington Craft Crawl – Part 1

Published by The Dreamstress

For the past few months I’ve been part of the Wellington Sewing Bloggers group. I don’t do most of their challenges, because when they make patterns they have names like Tiramisu and Renfrew, and when I make patterns they have names like Excella and Anne Adams. They are wonderful women though, and one challenge/get together I was definitely in for (well, I had to be, it was my idea!) was a Craft Crawl of Wellington’s sewing and crafty goodness, using the wonderful Craft & Textile Lover’s Guide to Wellington that Maryanne of Made on Marion designed as a guide. A Craft Crawl is like a pub crawl but way prettier, in every possible way, and just as with a pub crawl, we crossed off the locations on the map as we did them. On this Saturday we concentrated on the outer-suburb craft locations. There are actually over 20 Wellington Sewing Bloggers, but it was just Zara of Off-Grid Chic (who has a sewing cat almost as delightful as Felicity, and makes amazing detailed garments), …

Waitangi Day

Published by The Dreamstress

Today is Waitangi Day – New Zealand’s version of Nation Day or the 4th of July. As an outsider, I find Waitangi Day a most peculiar holiday, because it isn’t a celebration. It is, at best, a sort of uneasy acknowledgement of the beginnings of New Zealand as a nation. This is my understanding of Waitangi Day: Waitangi Day specifically commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands on 6 Feb 1840. The Treaty of Waitangi is to New Zealand what the Magna Carta is to the UK, or the Declaration of Independence is the US: it’s our founding document. In some ways, it’s a good founding document. It’s short, and simple. It did three basic things: it establishes a British governorship over NZ (the NZ government essentially inherited this governorship), recognised that the Maori owned NZ, and had a right to their land and properties, and, finally, gave Maori the rights of British citizens. Well, sort of. At the same time, it’s a terrible founding document. You …