But the saying implies a flipside – the bad day upon which Wellington most definitely can be beaten. And due to the cosmic coin-toss that is the weather, it seems that Wellington has been having a few too many non-good days lately, especially on weekends. It can leave a person, not just a city, feeling a little beaten.

But recently there’s been a bit of nice weather, and on weekends too. One particularly fine weekend was so remarkable that it made the front page of the paper. And on that weekend, even though it was still a really cold winter’s day, because it was sunny and not cloudy or raining, people did what they do in Wellington on nice days – they headed to the beach for an ice cream.

I joined the beach exodus and boarded an omnibus to Days Bay. It always feels like a place that used to be quite special in previous decades. Like the sort of place where people would have packed a picnic, jumped in their automobile and parked right on the beachfront, enjoying a lovely cold sunny day at the seaside.

A search on the National Library’s website indeed found evidence of Days Bay’s golden days in the 1930s, with this beach at the edge of the universe:

People on the beach at Days Bay, Lower Hutt, in 1930. Includes a man in a bathing costume, women with parasols and sun hats and a baby in a pram in the foreground. The ferry 'Muritai' is docked at the Days Bay Wharf in the background. Photographer: Sydney Charles Smith S C Smith Collection Reference number: 1/2-048206-G Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

But it turns out that Days Bay was a happening place even earlier than that.

In 1890 a fellow by the name of John Williams bought Days Bay and turned it into a resort, complete with a hotel, pavilion, tennis courts, hockey fields and a great big crazy-arse water chute.

Looking down onto the Pavilion and water chute at Williams Park, Days Bay, Lower Hutt, Wellington, with the beachfront at the top right of the image. Photograph taken ca 1910s by Sydney Charles Smith. S C Smith Collection Reference number: 1/1-022709-G Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

The hydroslide at the aquatic centre in Porirua has nothing on the old Days Bay water chute. The little boats seated eight people and went hurtling down the tracks at 50km/h before splashing down into the pond below.

All the National Library’s photos of the water chute show gentlemen and ladies in their Victorian casualwear both queuing to have a go on the chute, and also watching others having their turn. It looks choice fun and would have been absolutely thrilling, though probably not so much on a cold, windy day.

But eventually the chute was closed and the resort was sold off, and parts of it were turned into a park. Could it be that the climate of Days Bay isn’t actually nice enough to work as a resort location?

I’m not sure when the water chute went out of operation, but Robin Hyde’s novel The Godwits Fly, published in 1938, has this account of a visit to Days Bay:

Behind lies a small brown artificial lake, with swans sailing, their breasts only slightly soiled from the mud of their nests, their black bills snapping for bits of bread. Once there was a Day’s Bay Wonderland Exhibition, and the derelict water-chute still stands, from which flat-bottomed pontoons used to bounce out on the lake.

I wandered around Williams Park, searching for remnants of the old water chute. The hill where the chute ran is covered with thick foliage, but at the foot of the hill, just around the side of the pavilion, is a small brown artificial lake.

It’s now the home of ducks, with its unusual teardrop shape being the only clue that something different used to be here.

Compare and contrast these two photos taken from the end of the pond. The first taken in 1912, back when the chute was in full operation, with a nice long queue of people.

Water chute at Williams Park, Day's Bay, 1912. Photographer unidentified. Reference number: PAColl-7081-53 Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

And this is the pond today. There are no crowds, only ducks:

In fact, most of Days Bay has that feeling, that things use to be different, grander. The pavilion building is now a cafe cleverly called Pavilion, with the building itself having been surrounded by a strange bus-shelter-like veranda.

But maybe that’s how Days Bay works – it’s a memory of a warm summer’s day, with ice cream trickling down your hand as you try to win the tongue vs melt race.

And when it’s a rare sunny day in winter, we’ll still go to the beach in our merinos and polarfleeces and have an ice cream, even though it’s so cold and there’s no chance that the ice cream will melt onto the fingerless woollen gloves we have to wear while we’re holding the cone.

Exhibit M

22 February 1990. The 1990 Grammy Awards, recognising the musical output of 1989. Young MC and Kris Kristofferson present the Grammy for Best New Artist. “This year, the nominees for Best New Artist are making all kinds of music,” the bespectacled author of Keep It In Your Pants says. “And each one of them expresses himself in a unique way that commands attention,” Young’s elder co-presenter concludes.

The nominees are announced, along with a video clip of a respresentative song. There’s Neneh Cherry, rippin’ shit up with Buffalo Stance; the Indigo Girls belting out some harmonious acoustic pop on Closer To Fine. So far the applause is polite and appreciative.

Then comes Milli Vanilii’s nomination, along with the braided pair singing, “Girl you know it’s true. Ooh, ooh, ooh, I love you.” And dancing. And staring with those needy eyes. The audience breaks out into screaming and rapturous applause. Yes, yes, Rob and Fab!

Back to Soul II Soul and a bit of their art/house/soul/pop song Back to Life (However Do You Want Me); and finally gravel-voiced rapper Tone Loc rounds out the nominations with his Young MC-penned track Funky Cold Medina.

The winner is announced. Milli Vanilli. The room erupts with screams. Yay!

Rob and Fab receive their award, and Rob makes this speech:

“We wanna say thank you very much, but we wanna say there are a lot of artists here in this room, there are a lot of artists outside in the world, who could achieve the same award that we achieved today. And it’s an award for all artists in the world. Thank you very much.”

That night, all the artists in the world gave silent thanks to Milli Vanilli.

Exhibit L

April 27, 2034

“Come here, my little comes. Gather around and I’ll tell you why we used to like the Milli Vanillis in the olden days. Oh, they were so pretty. It was like if you got Justin Beiber, made him brown, cloned him, gave him too many hair extensions, and dressed him in lycra bike pants, a jacket with giant shoulder pads and clompy boots. And how they could dance! They used to do this thing where they would jump up and spin around and their dreadlocks and braids flew about gaily. And that Rob, he had the most beautiful eyes.”

“Grandma?”

“Yes, child.”

“Who’s Justin Bieber?”

Exhibit K

November 16 1990. The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences withdraws Milli Vanilli’s Grammy for Best New Artist.

The main point comes down to that the vocal credit on the album specifically named Rob and Fab.

But the awarded recordings themself hadn’t changed. Milli Vanilli hadn’t changed. It was just that the two fellows on the album cover and in the music videos and dancing on stage were different from the men who sang on the record.

But somehow that affected the recording.

Exhibit J

It’s a bit like Schrödinger’s Cat. It’s not until you lift the lid on the album that you can form an opinion on the music. If the cat is alive, there’s a couple of handsome singers on the album and it’s a great album; if the cat is dead, it’s ordinary looking session singers on the album and it’s a terrible album.

Exhibit H

January 1990. Happy new decade. I had a $15 record voucher from either my recent 15th birthday present and/or Christmas the week before. I’d recently purchased De La Soul’s debut album Three Feet High and Rising and was really enjoying it. Yeah, soundtrack of summer.

So I was feeling a bit adventurous. I wanted something a bit urban, a bit gritty. Something that would keep reminding me of my summer holiday in Auckland and not the impending return to rural Hamilton.

I looked around a forgettable record shop (remember, kids, this was the early ’90s, when record shops were all over the place and could easily be forgettable), but couldn’t find anything that took my fancy.

Then I saw something on the top 20 rack of tapes. It was Milli Vanilli’s All or Nothing (US Remix Album). I’d heard their songs. They were ok. I bought the tape, listened to it a few times but it wasn’t very captivating.

One of the album tracks was Girl You Know It’s True (NY Subway Mix). This suggests someone has taken the original Girl You Know It’s True and remixed it to reflect the gritty urban beat of New York’s public transport system.

In reality it’s like someone’s heard MARRS’s groundbreaking samplefest Pump Up the Volume and decided to apply a similar style to Milli Vanilli. But instead of using an experienced DJ, it sounds like they gave the work-experience kid a Fairlight and some Grace Jones, Sly and Robbie, Michael Jackson, and Deep Purple singles and let them have at it. With disastrous results.

If I really want to feel a stab of regret, I can remind myself that at the time, The Stone Roses album would have been out there on the shelves for me to buy.

Exhibit G

April 2 1998. Let’s try not to think of Rob Pilatus’ final night on earth, alone in a hotel room in Hamburg, an accidental overdose. Let’s try not to think of the drug rehab and the assault charges and the relapsing and the neediness and the depression. Let’s try to remember the good things.

Exhibit F

After it was revealed that Rob and Fab were not the people singing on the Milli Vanilli records or dancing in their videos, the public outrage made it clear – there is no room for lack of authenticity in pop music.

Yet, surprisingly, the Indigo Girls did not see their sales go through the roof in response to this newfound desire for musical authenticity.

A lesson was learned – cheat, just don’t get caught. Today no one’s quite so bold as to hire pretty frontmen for frumpy singers. But there’s Auto-Tune to tidy up messy singers. Or what about getting a great singer to record the demo, which the mediocre singer memorises, right down to the quirky phrasing. And the potential that ProTools offers for chopping and layering to disguise flaws.

But why are we still obsessed with authenticity in music? Why is it ok for some types of art to be polished to an artifical state of perfection, but not ok for others.

Exhibit E

We hide our love for Milli Vanilli. We disguise it as contempt for the ’90s, beecause the ’90s were awful. At the moment, at least.

Milli Vanilli gets filed away with Crystal Pepsi, biker shorts and giant hair – pop culture anomalies that will never happen again.

Because the past was awful and the present is better. Apart from the bits of the past that were golden. We cherish those.

But that’s not the Milli Vanilli bit. That’s the bit where we pretend we never bought a Milli Vanilli album. Or if we did, we thought it was awful.

We don’t remember all the songs that went to number one all over the world, or the joy people got from dancing to Baby Don’t Forget My Number (NY Subway Mix).

Perhaps that actually happened in a parallel universe, where Al Gore was president and the World Trade Center still stands.

Exhibit D

Q. Do you like Milli Vanilli?

A. No, I do not like Milli Vanilli because I think that they are crap!!!! I mean, they don’t even write their own songs or sing on their records and they have those braids which look really STUPID. Also, they do those dumb dances where they go from side to side, which look really LAME. Plus they wear really weird clothes with giant shoulder pads. Shoulder pads are so mental. I like proper singers who are actually talented, like Margaret Urlich, Jamie J Morgan, Ngaire and Madonna.

Exhibit C

I mean, it’s not like they were the only ones doing it. Technotronic had blue-lipped fashion model Felly lip-syncing in their Pump Up the Jam video; petit Zelma Davis stood in for plus-size Martha Walsh in C+C Music Factory’s Gonna Make You Sweat video; and it was shockingly revealed that Paula Abdul’s singing partner MC Skat Kat was not actually a streetwise cat, but was, in fact, two human males.

Exhibit B

Rob did the grunty singing and Fab did the rapping, but there always seemed to be a few more male voices in there too. And maybe there was even a voice of caution from the future.

It’s a tragedy for me to see the dream is over.
And I never will forget the day we met.
[Multi-platinum pop career], I’m gonna miss you.

- Girl I’m Gonna Miss You

Exhibit A

It was this house, in fact:

Only back then it wasn’t so nicely done up. It was a bit run down, and they paid heaps in electricity due to the house being in a commercial zone. The neighbours were all businesses, in soild, sensible commercial buildings built in the mid-20th century onwards.

Because back in the ’90s, Newton wasn’t really a suburb where people lived. Though most of the people who did reside there inhabited rundown old villas.

But it wasn’t always like that.

Newton used to be a bustling inner-city suburb. It looked a bit like this:

There were lots of houses, businesses, schools and churches. It was, like neighbouring Ponsonby, a solid, working-class surburb.

Then in the 1950s, it was decided that Auckland needed a motorway, and the best path for it was right through Newton. The houses were getting old and run down, so it was easy enough to convince people of the need to pull down the slums and replace them with a big-arse motorway.

Why live in crappy old Newton when you can move out to a dry, spacious modern new house in the suburbs, commuting to work along the new motorway?

And besides, the threat of a motorway coming nearby is a pretty good incentive for a landlord to stop doing upkeep on an already rickety old house.

It took a few decades, but eventually the houses and streets of Newton were bulldozed and replaced with a big-arse motorway.

And when you look at it on Google Maps, it looks like this:

Yet if you look between the motorway roads, you can still see the property boundaries of the old pre-motorway sections, as well as the gaps in between where the old roads went.

You can trace the invisible path between France Street and Mercury Lane, reunite West Street and West Terrace, loiter on the corner of Montague and Cobden Streets.

The remaining bits of Newton soon turned from residential to commercial. The old houses were pulled down, replaced by commercial buildings.

Nearby Ponsonby survived. It avoided the motorway (and it was, at one stage, the preferred route from Newton to the Harbour Bridge). Ponsonby’s villas, like Newton’s, were old and rickety. But eventually Ponsonby’s inner city location got the better of it and people with money moved in, fixing up those old villas, plank by plank, until they were sufficiently nice.

Could a Ponsonby-like fate have awaited Newton if, by some miracle, the motorway had gone some other way? Could Newton be a gentrified inner city suburb now?

The few old villas that remain in Newton, including the one in Randolph Street, are getting fancied up, lived in by people with money.

Though on the K Road side, there are still a few old rundown villas, wedged between panel beaters and mysterious businesses in old unnamed buildings.

Of course, a few old villas are used for business purposes, such as the infamous Pelican Club on Newton Road. It’s had so much done to it to protect the privacy of its clients that it’s accidentally taken on a quirky postmodernist look, managing to disguise itself to avoid looking like what it is – a windowless sex box.

And Newton gives us the King’s Arms. A former corner pub (France St & Edwin St), serving the locals, it now divides its time between hipsters who come for the live music, and the old drunks who hang out in the unhip bar in the old part of the building.

While the motorway may have done its best to eradicate the old residential, suburban Newton, the ghosts of that Newton linger in the remaining villas, the street names, the old bluestone curbstones.

And a curious thing is happening. Slowly over the last 15 years, people have started living in Newton again. It’s not in villas, though. This time it’s in apartments and townhouses. The ghosts of Newton have reminded us that at its heart it’s an inner-city suburb and, actually, not such a bad place to live after all.

Now, at first glance, this would suggest a hilarious radio-station parody of the Eagles’ classic song with the lyrics changed to reflect the unique cultural nature of the Hutt Valley.

But it could also mean that the “Hotel California” lyrics are actually about the Hutt Valley. This isn’t about the dirty LA music scene of the ’70s. No, it’s about life in the Hutt.

I think the latter is the more likely scenario. Let’s examine a selection of lyrics.

On a dark desert highway

Dark – the high hills of the Hutt Valley mean that the sun sets earlier, plunging the valley into darkness.
Desert – while not technically a desert, there are parts of the Hutt Valley that do feel like a barren desert. If not geographically, then architecturally.
Highway – State Highway 2 runs the length of the Hutt Valley, and includes the road engineering marvel that is the Petone Interchange.

I heard the mission bell

This is actually when you get a text from your mate who says “wanna do a mish?” and you are all “kewl” and then you show up to his place and go real hard, eh.

And I was thinking to myself, “This could be heaven or this could be hell.”

The Hutt Valley offers many different types of experiences – the New Dowse gallery, the Lower Hutt civic buildings, the Upper Hutt Roller Skating Club, vast tracts of car-centric suburbs, gangs, Queensgate mall. These could be considered “heaven” and/or “hell” depending on what your hobbies and interests are.

So I called up the captain, “Please bring me my wine.”

The Hutt Valley is just over the Rimutakas from the Wairarapa, a rich wine-growing and grape-growing area of New Zealand. The “captain” this lyric refers to is obviously involved with the Toast Martinborough festival, and is about to pour a festival-goer a sample glass of pinot gris.

Welcome to the Hotel California

The Hutt offers a range of fine accomodations, ranging from budget accommodation, to four-star motels for the dicerning traveller. And there’s also that one with the steakhouse attached, which is quite good if you like steak but don’t want to have to walk too far to your bed.

Mirrors on the ceiling, the pink champagne on ice.

This is obviously a reference to the wide range of products available from Westfield Queensgate. You can go to the Warehouse and buy some mirrors and then No-More-Nails them to your bedroom ceiling. Then you can celebrate your handiwork with some strawberry Lindauer. Man, that stuff’s real yum. But you should make sure the No More Nails has set hard before you lie down under it, because if you were sitting there enjoying a Lindauer and one of the mirrors fell on you, that would be really annoying and you’d probably spill the Lindauer and then you’d have to go and change the sheets. What a blimmin’ hassle.

You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

The Hutt Valley is a prison that will trap you for life.

But I’m rather fond of the original video. In fact, I’d say that the video for the Patea Maori Club’s 1984 number one single is almost as famous as the song itself.

It has a simple structure: first verse and chorus – down on the marae; second verse – down by the Aotea canoe; second chorus – out on the streets of Patea; funky break down – the big city; final choruses – back in the Patea hall.

But within these few locations, there are little visual gems that make this video a treat. Here are my ten favourite bits from the original Poi E video.

Mt Taranaki

The video opens with an upwards pan over this image of Mt Taranaki. It’s later shown to be a mural painted at the back of local hall, but with this slightly grainy footage, if you squint it almost looks like Mt Taranaki on a misty morning. Interestingly, when Poi E was released, the official name of this volcano was Mt Egmont. It would be two more years before Mt Taranaki got equal name status. I like to think the Patea Maori Club had a little to do with that.

The dog with the poi

The first section of the video is the Patea Maori Club performing Poi E in front of a whare nui. This could lead to a disastrously boring video – like “Sailing Away” two years later – but the Poi E video mixes it up by including footage of this crazy dog running around with a poi in its mouth. Did the dog steal the poi or was he the club’s special kuri performer?

Mutton chops

Look at those mutton chops. Just look at them. Now, this video was made in 1984. Mutton chops were at their fashion peak in the mid-’70s. Yet this fellow has lovingly held on to his unfashionable facial hair. In fact, it looks like a bit of a ’70s shag do lurking underneath that headband. He has his look and he’s not changing for anyone.

The boy

I love this kid because he’s really enjoying himself. While the rest of the kids look like they’re just there to participate in the filming of the music video, this chap looks like he’s there because he loves the song. Standing tall and proud and really digging the music. Nice one, little fellow.

The milk tanker

I think this was a happy accident. At this point in the video, the group are standing in front of the concrete canoe, but trucks keep thundering past, ruining the shot. But the film-makers cleverly incorporate the trucks into the video. Here comes a milk truck, and a bit later there’s a cattle truck. Hey, this is what life is like in Patea.

Aotea waka arch

This isn’t actually a hidden delight of the video. No, this concrete waka is one of the main stars of the vid. It’s a slightly kitschy design, but has come to be an icon of Patea. It commemorates the Aotea canoe that brought the first Maori to the Taranaki. This takes the PMC out of the traditional marae setting and puts them firmly in a what can only be a small New Zealand town.

McDonald’s

The action moves to Manners Mall, Wellington. And when it’s the mid-1980s and you’re from a small town, what symbolises the big city? McDonald’s. It’s cool, it’s urban and the outside of the building has “McDonald’s” embossed in plastic. I bet they all had Big Macs after filming was complete.

The girl

Look how happy she is! Arms reaching out as if to hug the world. Every performer wants this sort of reaction from the audience. Absolute genuine adulation and appreciation. She doesn’t care about the music video shoot either. She just want to dance along to her favourite band.

The new wave chicks

We’re back at the local hall for the finale, then suddenly these two truly outrageous ladies show up. The hair, the eyeliner, the off-the-shoulder top, the jewellery, the pout – just what are these two new wave babes doing in a Patea Maori Club video? I’m not sure, but it is a nice nod to the sort of other culture the PMC were up against in the pop charts.

Poi George

The new wave chicks can’t keep a straight face for long. The camera zooms out to reveal this fellow who we shall call Poi George. A Maori fulla with Boy-George-style plaits and non-Boy-George-style poi. I don’t even know where all this action is taking place in relation to the rest of the video, but this is my absolute favourite bit of the video. They knew exactly what they were doing – they knew they were making a video for a song that was going to be a hit.

—

• Watch the video for Poi E at NZ On Screen
• Buy Poi E at iTunes or Amplifier.

The museum building opened in 1936, but lasted only 60 years, moving into the Te Papa behemoth down the hill. The museum building is now occupied by Massey University’s College of Creative Arts. They put all the pretty subjects into the pretty building.

I have a vague memory of having visited the old museum, but it was in the early ’80s and my memory is fuzzy. I remember that the building was brown, and that’s about it.

I consulted The Shell Guide to New Zealand for Maurice Shadbolt’s take on the museum, circa 1969:

[The museum] has much for visitors. [The] Art Gallery, though its New Zealand collection is patchy and unrepresentative, also has much of interest.

I decided to explore the building and see what ghosts were still lurking.

From Buckle Street, it’s a bit like sneaking up to a haunted house. The old overgrown pohutukawa trees either side of the War Memorial seem spooky and a little menacing. But combine that with the very serious solemnity of the adjacent National War Memorial, and all that’s missing is an engraved warning of certain doom for trespassers.

Approaching the building, it seems so full of hope and grandeur. It’s a building that says, “Hey, look at us! We’re a dominion now, and we have a museum and an art gallery! Just like a proper grown-up country.”

But with all the plaques naming great men and events, there is also the knowledge that the building wasn’t enough. It might have looked impressive from the outside, but it soon proved to be too small on the inside.

Inside, the main foyer seems oppressively small. I can’t help comparing it to the Auckland Museum with its grand entrance hall. It’s big and has always managed to keep up with increasing visitor numbers over the decades. But the old Dominion Museum’s entrance hall is so small, it feels like maybe I’ve accidentally walked in the back entrance. But I haven’t.

It was a Saturday so the university was all but empty. The stone surfaces echoed every noise, making me self-conscious of every step. I also had a vague paranoia that maybe I’m not supposed to be there. That a stern person would jump out from behind a pillar and say, “You’re not a student and/or a lecturer! Get out! Get out now!”

I came to the Grand Hall. In the past this housed whare and waka and other everyday objects of traditional Maori life. Now the hall was used to house an exhibition of work by industrial design students.

Massey’s website says the exhibition provides “a quirky interpretation of everyday objects.” See what’s happened? Nothing’s happened. Everyday objects are taken out of their ordinary context and put on display in the Grand Hall.

I noticed the handrails on all the big staircases in the museum building had metal kiwis supporting the rail. It looked a bit kitschy, or possibly quaint. But then I realised that Te Papa is full of such kitschy, deliberate symbolism. It’s done a lot more subtly at Te Papa, but it’s there – “grid-like spaces reflect the patterns of European settlement.”

Outside, I went for a walk around the museum building. Again I was struck by how small it was. How did this make do as the National Museum and Art Gallery? And maybe that’s why Te Papa sometimes feels empty – too much explanatory text and not enough objects. Maybe they just didn’t amass a big collection because they had no room to keep it.

Though, in The Shell Guide to New Zealand, Maurice comments that the “museum’s displays … are well arranged.” I imagine an impeccably organised Manhattan studio apartment writ large. And if you open the giant moa sculpture, there you’ll find an ancient Greek pottery… filled with freshly brewed tea. And that’s half a sixpence for a cuppa.

As I approached the back of the building, I heard some gangsta rap playing. “Oh no,” I thought. I am intruding upon the turf of the notorious Mt Cook G’s. They will surely step me up rool hard.” But when I turned the corner, there were no notorious G’s. A lone speaker was piping out the gangsta rap to no one.

Perhaps this is like the opposite of places that play classical music to keep away loitering teens. Perhaps Massey Uni wants to scare off codgers. “Yeah, piss off back to the War Memorial, gramps. This space is for the youth gone wild!”

Back around the front of the museum building, I took one more look at its audacious facade before I headed off down the hill. The old museum building feels like your aunt whose husband ran off with a younger, sexier (albeit crazy) woman. Eventually your aunt remarries a nice man who treats her really well, but he’s not your uncle and it just doesn’t feel the same like it did in the happier days.

But I had discovered that the valley suburb of Wainuiomata had plenty of affordable real estate. In fact – holy crap – I could actually afford to buy a three-bedroom house in Wainuiomata. I’d never been there before, so a visit was in order to check out this hidden part of Lower Hutt.

I turned up to Waterloo Interchange and jumped on the first bus going over the hill. The climb up offers scenic views of Wellington Harbour. Or at least it would have if I’d been able to look in that direction. Sitting across the aisle from me was a dude who, every time I turned to look out the window on his side, would glare at me as if I was trying to start something… with my eyes. Yeah, I got a looking problem, bro.

Over the hill and down into the valley, the bus went, leaving me surprised at how close and quick it is to get to.

I don’t think I was quite prepared for how enclosed by the hills Wainuiomata is. Everywhere I looked, there were the hills in the background, encircling the suburb. I felt like an anthropologist discovering a lost village in a forgotten valley. Oh, what secret languages and customs can I learn!

Well, there are lots of outdoor couches in Wainuiomata. That’s one observation.

I wasn’t really paying attention to where the bus was taking me. Suddenly I spied some shops, so I got off at the next bus stop.

I heard loud music nearby, and found myself strangely drawn to it. Around a corner I found the source – Wonderland Records. I went inside and was shocked to discover it was a record shop. I mean, a proper record shop, like there used to be in the ’80s and early ’90s.

There were racks full of CDs, records and tapes. Tapes! Cassette tapes! My stereo has a double cassette deck, but I think the last tape I bought was Darcy Clay’s “Jesus I Was Evil”, back in ’97. I started to imagine all the fun I could have with new tapes. Why, I could listen to Genesis and Steely Dan and the Eagles all night long!

The shop was so full of music that I trod carefully, utterly fearful of taking a mistep and messing up Jim Reeves’s pretty face.

Looking at the new CDs, I noticed they were indeed priced the way new CDs are (were?) priced in shops – about $33. I’ve been buying music off iTunes for a while now, and the idea of paying that much for a CD seems utterly outrageous. For $33, I’d expect Justin Bieber to come to my house and serenade me too, plz.

So I’m not quite sure how a shop like this does business. I’m guessing it’s found a niche for itself and has a loyal customer base who shop there because it can give them what they need.

And, frankly, if a record shop as glorious as that is called Wonderland, it deserves to stick around for as long as possible.

Back on the street, I suddenly realised that I was in the middle of nowhere, sort of. I figured out a direction to walk, and made my way to the hub of Wainuiomata, the Wainuiomata Shopping Centre.

The shopping centre was built in 1970, but it feels a bit older than that, in the way that architectural styles take a decade or so to reach New Zealand. It’s from the glorious autopian era, the post WWII boom times when the automobile was going to change life for the better.

It has a curious combination of strips of little shops next to a larger indoor mall, which now seems to be centred around an unholy trinity of a Warehouse and two supermarkets.

It all felt like it was a place that once wanted to be something magnificent and magical. A shopping centre for the young families putting down roots in the valley, so they didn’t need to make the trip over to the Hutt or to Wellington to do the shopping.

But it also feels like somewhere along the way, that dream was lost and something different took its place. It’s just “the shops” now. You can buy stuff there, if you want. Or you could go to Westfield Queensgate, if you want.

Wainuiomata feels like a mash-up of a small country town and 1950s-era suburb, like you’d find further along the Hutt Valley. And while these are clearly desireable attributes for some people, I wouldn’t want to live in either a small country town or a suburb, so Wainuiomata’s cheap real estate isn’t enough to lure me there.

But Wonderland Records, though – I’d happily go down that rabbit hole again.

I didn’t want to have to go back to Upper Hutt to check out the billboard in full, but thankfully Tui have a Twitter account where all the latest billboard slogans are tooted. It was there I found this:

As soon as I read it I felt tears spring to my eyes. “Aue,” I wailed. “I am single, 35 years old, not conventionally attractive, with a rubbish personality, and many many issues! How will I ever find a Tui-drinking partner in the 18-35 demographic?”

After spending the entire day in bed eating supermarket pick ‘n’ mix sweeties and watching season five of “Sex and the City” on my VCR, I slowly came to my senses.

I realised that pretty much all my friends who are “single” (worst concept ever) and over the age of 30 do have issues. But this is what makes them who they are. We can’t all be ironed out into flawless robots of perfection. Sometimes it’s nice to be a little bit messed up, to have that grit in your oyster.

Maybe there are Tui-drinkers who see that billboard and nod sagely, “Bro, that happened to me. She was a hot older woman, but she turned out to be a nutter.”

That Tui billboard exists in a different universe to me. I don’t have to worry about what Tui-drinkers in the 18-35 demographic think of me as a single 35-year-old woman, because I just don’t play that game.

But I’d never been on the Wairarapa train, so I took advantage of a long weekend, bought a Wairarapa Day Excursion ticket… and discovered the train was replaced by buses from Wellington to Upper Hutt.

Never mind. Soon enough, I was on the train and it was lovely. It had individual lights, air conditioning, a food carriage, little tables in front of every seat and quietness.

As the train passed through the Rimutaka Tunnel and into the wide, open and sunny Wairarapa, I realised I didn’t yet have a final destination in mind. While the Day Excursion ticket offered the promise of exploring the Wairarapa by train all day long, it wasn’t much use when there was only two trains – one in the morning, one in the evening.

So I decided to make like the Traveling Wilburys and go to the end of the line, otherwise known as Masterton.

Hang on, what does Maurcie Shadbolt have to say about Masterton? “Avenue of trees at northern and southern approaches lend town atmosphere.” I just checked on Google Streetview to see if this was still true, and discovered that the Masterton Streetview pics were taken on a winter’s day with a heavy grey sky, making it look like the sort of town that should be bypassed for fear of inducing a depressive episode:

But, Maurice, what if you approach the city by train, in the middle? What is there? “A museum of some interest.” Righto.

Aratoi is the Wairarapa museum of art and history, but it seems to do art much better than history. The historical content is lurking in a couple of rooms, telling a tale of the days when photos were black and white, but with a brief burst of colour and glamour provided by Georgina the transsexual mayor. It was indeed of some interest.

Of more interest was the art. The main gallery had a selection of large paintings and other wall-mounted works from the Rutherford Collection. A lot of them had a crazy 1980s post-modern feeling, which made me happy.

Next door to Aratoi is Shear Discovery. While this might sound like the name of a suburban hairdresser, it is actually the National Shearing and Woolhandling Museum. Yeah, national.

The museum is based around two old shearing sheds, and is filled with wool and old shearing equipment It parties like it’s 1949 (where “partying” is “relaxing with a cuppa and a fag”).

It has a smell. It’s the dusty odour of raw wool. It reminds me that I have been in an actual shearing shed before – one time on a high school geography field trip, another time at Brownies. It brings back feelings of discomfort and unease. I don’t like the rural. I like urban.

And then next door to Shear Discovery is the Jubilee Fire House. Its centrepiece is the magnificent Jubilee steam-powered fire engine, looking a bit like the Wonkamobile. The fire house also houses old pieces of fire-fighting eqipment, as well as the museum volunteer, who followed me around, literally describing things to me. In front of a case of old fire extinguishers, “That’s our collection of old fire extinguishers.” In front of the selection of old uniforms: “These are old uniforms that firefighters wore.”

But, oh, you know, it’s a small museum run on love. I suppose one can’t always expect to be just left alone.

The shops on the main street seemed to mostly be closed in the afternoon. Hey, just like the ’80s – so retro.

There was just over five hours between trains and I was slightly worried that I’d run out of things to do. There’s no 3G coverage in Masterton, so I took along a a book in case I needed something to pass the time.

But I all my sightseeing took up most of the time, and I found a nice cafe to fill in the rest of the afternoon, and if I didn’t pay too much attention to the thinly plucked eyebrows of the girls behind the counter or the polarfleece of the patrons, I could even pretend I was back in Wellington.

Masterton might not be as glamorous as other Wairarapa destinations like Greytown or Martinborough, it’s perfectly lovely place to spend a nice sunny afternoon. But just an afternoon, thanks.

Figuring this says something about New Zealand, I went to YouTube and listened to all the songs. These are my scientific findings.

Dawn featuring Tony Orlando – “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree“, 1973. (10 weeks)
There’s something magical ’bout “Ribbon”. On the surface it sounds like a novelty song, with its oompah beat and simple lyrics. But then there’s a killer melody lurking, and the emotional depths of an ex-con who finds his woman still loves him. I can’t help but love it, and shall tie a yellow ribbon around my ole MP3 player.

Pussycat – “Mississippi“, 1976. (10 weeks)
Where did this song come from? And where did it go? Pussycat were a Dutch girl group, and “Mississippi” was their lament to the popularity of rock over country music. It has that not-quite-America feeling to it, largely due to the Eastern European guitar flourishes. This song seems like a case of pop actually eating itself – a sweet country pop farewelled country music, and then was swallowed whole by punk. Or was it?

Boney M. – “Rivers of Babylon“, 1978. (14 weeks)
“Rivers of Babylon” was originally written by reggae band The Melodians, with the lyrics almost straight from Psalms 137. Boney M’s version took the rough, glorious Jamaican original and added some European glamour and disco cool, turning it into a cheerful pop hit. Its 14-week run also makes it the single with the longest run at #1 (that’s three and a half months). This tune helped reggae cross over and made it an Aotearoan favourite. Without the success of “Rivers of Babylon”, there would be no barbecue dub today.

All Of Us – “Sailing Away“, 1986. (9 weeks)
It’s eight years before another song has a long run at number one, and this time it’s a New Zealand song. But does it have to be “Sailing Away”? This was New Zealand’s attempt at a “We Are the World” style group song. But rather than being in aid of or protesting apartheid, it was virtually an ad to get the general public to support the New Zealand boat in the America’s Cup. The song was a who’s who of New Zealand singers, many of whom are better known as ad jingle singers. Also, those guys from Satellite Spies – whose idea was it get them on board? New Zealand lost, both the Louis Vuitton Cup and musically.

Whitney Houston – “I Will Always Love You“, 1992-1993. (11 weeks)
Hey, Pussycat! Country didn’t die – it was reworked into soul. Dolly Parton‘s ’70s ballad became a powerhouse tune for a pre-crack Whitney Houston to belt out on the soundtrack of “The Bodyguard”. I can’t quite understand why this song was so popular – it’s like a sticky caramel – once is ok, but more than that in one sitting becomes rather unpleasant.

UB40 – “Can’t Help Falling in Love“, 1993. (10 weeks)
Ok, so it’s a cover version (tick), of an Elvis song (tick), in a reggae style (tick), by UB40 (tick) – it’s almost a perfect New Zealand number one song. The video is particularly hilarious, with UB40′s cheery performance cut with scenes from the Sharon Stone shithouse thriller “Sliver”. What was it about the early ’90s that required such massive declarations of love in pop form? (Meanwhile, down the other end of the charts, grunge was getting all up in your face.)

Avril Lavigne – “Complicated“, 2002. (9 weeks)
Hey, Pussycat II! Country didn’t die – it was cleverly disguised as skater punk. I mean, sk8r punk, man. Take the cute teen girl, iron her hair, give her some eyeliner and proto-emo jeans and everyone will be so distracted with her California skater chick look that they’ll overlook the fact that she is singing a bloody country song. The big love of the early ’90s had changed its Facebook status to “It’s complicated”.

Smashproof featuring Gin Wigmore – “Brother“, 2009. (11 weeks)
Finally. It’s a New Zealand song that enjoyed a long run at number one and it’s a really good song. Based on smooth strings, reminiscent of “Unfinished Sympathy“, the song examines the reality of growing up in South Auckland. It took 23 years for “Sailing Away” to lose its top spot, but when it finally happened, its arse was kicked.

Lady Gaga – “Poker Face“, 2008-2009. (10 weeks)
“Poker Face” sounds a bit like ’80s synth pop and a bit like ’90s Euro dance pop, but a song sounding like this would never ever have topped the charts in those decades. There’s a bit of the ol’ Tony Orlando magic there – the elements of a potentially naff song, but something wondrous that pulls it all together into a perfect pop song about poker and/or sex.

Black Eyed Peas – “I Gotta Feeling“, 2009. (9 weeks)
I used to work with a guy who’d sit at his desk, headphones on, singing “Tonight gonna be a good night,” over and over. I didn’t know the song, but I imagined that line was a small part of the whole. It turns out that line is pretty much the entire song, an ode to the early, hopeful, exciting part of the evening, when your make-up still looks good and you’re not sitting on the staircase crying into your twelfth wine.

Stan Walker – “Black Box“, 2009-2010. (10 weeks)
Stan’s the 2009 winner of Australian Idol, and this is the winner’s song. Insert pop idol here. It’s a perfectly fine pop song, one that has benefitted from the accompanying TV show to boost its popularity. Curiously enough, “Black Box” only ever made it to #2 in the Australian charts. Stan did better in his homeland, making the efforts of TrueBliss and the NZ Idol winners pale in comparison.

The pop charts of Tony Orlando’s day are very different to the charts of Stan Walker’s time. It’s a careful blend of physical music sales, digital sales and radio play. But it makes me wonder – in 35 years time, will Stan Walker (or indeed Lady Gaga) be as well known still as Boney M, or as delightfully obscure as Pussycat?

Further reading
John-Paul at Man of Errors has a splendid series looking at the New Zealand number one songs in 1973, including “Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree“.