Interesting place, Petone. Lambton Quay is pretty much upmarket chain stores now, with that particularly nasty bit at the Willis Street end filled with expensive clothing and accessory stores. Their combination of high price, middling quality and essential uselessness makes them the closest thing Wellington retail has to a House of Romanov.
Anyway, Petone’s Jackson Street is much more interesting, like Cuba Street used to be. I went on safari yesterday with the refulgent Coco, and we took about four hours to cover three-quarters of the street. We made an extended detour to Mitre 10 Mega, which sells a fascinating selection of materials to make things out of, and tools to shape the materials, but there’s no section for instruction manuals or design ideas or anything which tells you how to use these things. I imagine the most devoted customers would be insulted at the suggestion that they were anything less than experts, but can you imagine a computer store with no how-to guides or a gourmet store with no cookbooks?
They also sell a range of branded Mitre 10 products, from playing cards to rugby balls, just like the Hard Rock Cafe.
By the time we emerged it was after 5pm, so we had to skip the Spice Shack and the Dutch Shop and other singular Petone attractions. I’d grabbed a second-hand washing machine pipe for a dollar, which proved to be an awkward thing to carry around the central city, like a ferret or a theremin.
Dust Motes in the Screaming Turtle Cafe Soundtrack:
Vain, Erudite and Stupid ~The Dead C
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George & Ira Gershwin Song Book
Don’t Do Anything ~Sam Phillips
