Born in June 1942, I lived in the house next to the new hall in Broad Bay along with my elder sister Anita and mum, Jean. Dad (Gus) was away in the army. In my first memory of my father, I was three years old bawling my eyes out on the platform of the railway station, surrounded by all these big people in khaki. Following that little episode, we moved to what was then 7 King George Street (now 11)….
Hello, my name is Elsie Sanderling. I have lived at 28 Frances Street since 1988, at first with my husband Ted, and for the last ten years alone. When we decided to move to Broad Bay a friend asked, ‘Why go there? They’re all artists and eccentrics,’ so we thought we would fit right in! My husband was a keen birdwatcher so he was pleased there were so many flowering and fruiting native trees in the garden and soon planted…
1984 BRITAIN: Miners’ strikes; Margaret Thatcher; American cruise missile bases … to name a few negatives. New Zealand was very different to this. When my first husband (Dr Rob Griffiths) gained a job with Civil Aviation, our family of four settled in Wellington for our first five years in New Zealand. 21 Oxley Crescent: In 1988 we began planning to move south because Rob had designed and initiated a correspondence course to be run from Otago University (his Postgrad Diploma in…
My family moved to Broad Bay from Gore in 1962. My parents rejected a hilltop property above Port Chalmers when they noticed how much moss and fern clung to the macrocarpa trees along the roadside. The other place up for sale was a small farm in Glen Road in Broad Bay, always known simply as ‘The Glen’ (now Bacon Street). I remember our first visit to the warmer, tranquil valley, and a small gardenless house where an old couple, the…
It all started with a conversation. I was working for DOC as a warden on the Routeburn Track in 2004, based at Howden Hut which is sadly no longer with us. We wardens had four days off out of 14 and my motorbike needed a service so I booked it in at Dunedin’s Uptown Motorcycles, also sadly no longer with us. Once the bike was suitably refreshed with lubricants, I had a spare day to kill so decided to ride…
I grew up across the harbour from Broad Bay, in Burkes, that tiny little suburb with just three streets, between St Leonards and Ravensbourne. It was on the wrong side of the hill and the sun disappeared much earlier in the day than on the other side of the peninsula, a fact my mother complained bitterly about. Maybe that’s why I dreamed of living here one day … or maybe it was the happy memories of trips to visit my…
I’m Layla. I am 11 years old and going to tell you about my life growing up in Broad Bay. I live on a cul-de-sac on King George Street in a two-bedroom cottage which was built around 1910. I live with my parents, three younger siblings and my cat, Massimo. We have lovely kind neighbours (too many to name everyone) who are the sort of people who look after each other in the street and you can always call on…
According to the Certificate of Title for 20 Matariki Street (originally John Street, but changed in the late 1960s to Matariki after one of the early harbour ferries), the land was first purchased by Edmund Ward in 1899. He lived on Harbour Cone where he was the cheesemaker at the Harbour Cone factory. The Harbour Cone Cheese Factory was established in 1877 by 11 shareholders who supplied milk to the factory excepting Edmund Ward who was the cheesemaker. In 1881…
As a UK visitor new to the South Island, I had been eagerly looking forward to visiting the Portobello area. It sounded exotic. We had initially planned a two-night stay at the delightful-sounding Fantail Cottage owned by Tessa and Vic Mills. We innocently arrived in New Zealand on 1st March 2020, completely unaware that Covid 19 was hot on our heels and convinced it was not serious. So when the government decreed a lockdown, wherever we happened to be staying,…
My name is Bernadette Newlands and I live with my partner Mark Strang in Virginia Avenue, on the beautiful little road that leads to Yellow Head and Broad Bay Cemetery. I have lived here since 1994 and Mark since about 1983. Mark’s uncle Cedric Meredith bought the house in the late 1970s and Mark’s sister Elly Koch and her husband Hendrik Koch lived there initially until they bought a house in Portobello. A little later, Mark shifted in to rent…