Warmth for your body and soul.
EDiTORiAL TEAM
Kathryn Webster
Monica Tischler
Jo Percival
DESiGN & ART DiRECTiON
Julian Pettitt
Senior Designer, SCG
HOW TO REACH US
Editorial
AA Directions Level 5
20 Viaduct Harbour Avenue
Auckland, 1010
PO Box 5, Auckland 1140
Email: editor@aa.co.nz
Advertising Moira Penman
Mobile: 021 228 5854
Email: Moira@gsjadvisory.co.au
COVER
Design by Julian Pettitt. Photography by Jessie Casson. Location The Convent Hotel in Grey Lynn, Auckland.
My childhood eiderdown was paisley. Pale blue. It was enough to keep me snug over frosty Waikato winters in our uninsulated, underheated bungalow. I remember the ritual of hauling all the winter bedding out when the season turned and throwing the eiderdowns over the washing line for airing. Come summer, they'd all go back into the top of the linen cupboard, creating a particularly cosy hiding place. Which goes to say, eiderdowns have nostalgia quality! Now, I'm coveting the one featured on the cover of this issue... Read how they're made, plus lots more stories featuring New Zealanders doing wonderfully productive, positive things like refereeing regional rugby games, creating recipes for healthy family meals, helping people with disablities find independence with a driver's licence, and lots more. There's great variety in the pool of articles both within this digital magazine and online. You could spend many happy hours exploring AA Directions' new and archived stories. I recommend you snuggle up in an eiderdown and settle in with your laptop next cold, wet day and do just that!
Winter warmer
We snuggle up beneath a bespoke New Zealandmade eiderdown by Anita Carter and give you the chance to win one of your own.
Grassroots rugby referee Brent Malone talks of the mental and physical strength needed to manage a game.
05
Soul food
Looking for inspiration in the kitchen? Cookbook author Vanya Insull dishes on her favourite winter recipes.
07
Travel safe
AA Roadservice Officer Shaun Fairbairn shares his tips for vehicle maintenance and safe motoring during the winter months.
09
Andrew Gladstone describes his Wheel Love – a pioneering hybrid vehicle – as a fascinating piece of engineering.
11
A new Sky NZ Originals series highlights the impact of obtaining a driver licence, focusing on New Zealanders with disabilities as they learn to drive.
13
We share the results of an AA Research Foundation study that asked New Zealanders what it would take for them to swap their cars for alternative modes of transport.
15
Three friends hit the road in a Land Rover Discovery D350 on a weekend mission to scout secondhand shops in the lower North Island.
17
This small country is big on diversity, offering a smorgasbord of cultural delights.
19
Anita Carter is the only maker of handmade eiderdowns in New Zealand. She’s following in the footsteps of her grandfather who started the business in the 1940s.
We talk to a rugby ref, a cook and an on-the-road hero about getting through the winter as best we can – joining in, enjoying sports, indulging in delicious comfort food and ensuring our cars get us home safely.
Brent Malone is a passionate referee actively involved in grassroots rugby.
When did you begin refereeing?
I started in 1990. I played club rugby both in Hawke’s Bay and in Auckland, then went on to play premier rugby but eventually, through injury, I couldn’t do it anymore, so I took up the whistle.
How many games have you officiated?
About 1,000 games. But if you include the other support roles, it’d be double that. This is my 35th year, so we’re talking 35 consecutive years of running around a paddock. It does get harder!
What sort of training is involved to learn how to be a referee?
When I started the training was pretty average! Nowdays we have a much higher level of support. Anybody who joins our association is buddied up with an experienced referee. There are lots of good training modules and development programmes, with content available from the New Zeald Rugby Union. It’s getting better and better.
Obviously you need to have a pretty good understanding of the rules of the game? You have to make a decision based on a split second, so there are some areas where it comes down to interpretation. You have to make a call based on a situation or behaviour where it will have a material impact on the game. For new referees, we try to to coach them through making the right decision at the right time. We don’t have the luxury of falling back on camera feeds or TMO. When you’re on your own it can be very subjective. But it’s also so important to be confident and positive about your decision.
How fit do you have to be?
You’ve got to be able to manage a game and stay with the players. It’s an 80 minute game, so it’s not for the faint hearted!
But it’s a combination of mental fitness as well as physical fitness. You have to be in the right headspace. You’ve got to have empathy and understanding and create a relationship with teams that enables you to make good decisions. Equally, when you need to make some hard calls, you need the rapport to do that with captains.
What makes a good referee?
Someone who has empathy and understanding of the game. You need to realise that it’s not about the referee, it’s about the two teams.
What do you personally enjoy most about refereeing?
Rugby has been part of my life for a very long time. I love the game and I still really enjoy getting out there and getting involved. Click
The Taupō-based foodie shares winter warming recipes.
What's your ultimate go-to winter recipe for warmth and comfort?
My favourite recipe in my new cookbook is my slow-roasted pulled lamb, which I serve with homemade flatbreads and a feta whip. It’s like a new take on a classic.
On the day I was testing this recipe for the cookbook, my three sisters and their partners just happened to turn up. Now I have this really fond memory attached to the recipe too, of us all enjoying it together.
Do you have any special family traditions regarding food?
My family loves food, so it is always the main feature of any celebration or special occasion. We have a regular quiz night with extended family with a different country as a theme and we all have to bring a plate of traditional food from that culture.
My eldest son, Archie, loves making desserts, so he’ll sometimes potter around in the kitchen making his favourite selfsaucing chocolate pudding.
Tell us about your role as an ambassador for Kura Kai (the charity that raises funds to purchase chest freezers which are donated to high schools and kept stocked by volunteers giving their time, money and resources to cook nutritious family meals).
There is a Kura Kai freezer at Tauhara College in Taupō. Every few months my team and I spend the morning cooking meals for local families in need. Local businesses also spend time preparing meals. It’s great to see the support for those in the community and to be a part of that.
Has your involvement with the charity changed your perspective on food in any way?
I think it has aligned perfectly with what I’ve always tried to achieve with my recipes: spend the least amount of time and money on a meal, but still pack it full of flavour so it’s enjoyable to eat. I also really like cooking in bulk, as that’s another way to save time and money. I’m always thinking about recipes that are easy to double or even triple so you have a yummy meal that can be frozen in portions and reheated.
What are you most proud of achieving in your career so far? I love my partnership with Kura Kai. To get to a place where I’m able to support a charity is really rewarding. I was super excited to launch my meal planning app last year – the VJ Cooks app. We’ve recently rebranded it as CookPlan.
What can we look forward to from you in the future?
Growing the CookPlan app is a priority. I’ll be creating two more cookbooks; we’re shooting book four in my studio in November for release in Spring 2026. Then book five will be out in 2028. There’s also something else in the pipeline that I’m really excited about, but I can’t talk about it just yet!
Click here to read the full interview.
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Dunedin in winter sometimes creates extra challenges for AA Roadservice Officers, but they can handle a bit of weather. Shaun Fairbairn is one of the team.
Tell us a bit about yourself, Shaun.
I was born and raised in Dunedin and never left. It’s such a vibrant place with a friendly atmosphere and I enjoy living so close to the coast. My wife and I are nearing 30 years together and now we’ve got our children raising their own families here, too. I trade four wheels for two whenever I can and take my mountain bike out on warmer days.
What about your job history?
I’ve been in the motor trade for my whole career. As a child, my father got me into cars and motor racing, and that sparked my passion.
When I was old enough, my friends and I would buy piles of old junk and attempt to get them fixed up and running, with mixed results! But that led me into the profession, so I got some qualifications and apprenticeships under my belt.
Being a Roadservice Officer isn’t my first rodeo with the AA. Prior to this I spent 12 years as Manager of the Dunedin AA Auto Centre. I had seven mechanics, and we served as a franchise workshop for some major car brands. It was quite a big operation.
What’s the highlight of your job now?
The most gratifying part is, definitely, getting AA Members back on the road. No one wants a breakdown; they are always one of the more stressful parts of someone’s day. It’s so rewarding to see people's faces light up when we arrive, and the immediate relief when they’re back on their journey.
Another bonus of working on Dunedin roads is that it rarely takes me longer than 15 minutes to drive to a Member in need.
Are there any jobs that you come across more frequently during winter?
It’s always the batteries that struggle with the colder temperatures, especially if you’ve got one that’s on its last legs.
Another one is engine flooding. In cold weather, worn spark plugs or a compromised ignition system can struggle to ignite fuel on startup, causing the spark plugs to get fuel-fouled and prevent the vehicle from starting.
What tips would you give motorists for keeping their cars in tip-top condition over the colder months?
My biggest advice is getting your vehicle serviced as you come into winter.
Clear vision is crucial, especially in harsher weather and with less daylight. Ensure your wiper blades are in good condition and if your car has auto headlight features, I strongly recommend using them; it’s one less thing to remember.
In a similar vein, if the cabin filter inside your heating system is blocked up, it will compromise your ability to defog your windows.
Click here to read the full interview.
Andrew Gladstone and his 2000 Hybrid Honda Insight.
“i’VE BEEN AROUND cars for most of my working life, so the Insight was a model I was aware of. It’s an unusual car. When I saw this one for sale about three years ago I had to have it. What really appealed to me was that the car is a fascinating piece of engineering. It was Honda’s attempt to create the most fuel-efficient car in the world at the time, and was the first hybrid vehicle you could buy outside of Japan.
When it came out in 2000, it had the lowest drag coeficient of any car in production. This is why it has the teardrop shape, being narrower at the back than it is at the front.
It was really designed as form following function. Honda wanted to see how fuel efficient they could make it. It is still is very fuel efficient, it just sips at petrol. I’m getting 20.7km per litre.
The Insight is also made of aluminium and other lightweight composites; it only weighs 850kg. If it gets windy you can certainly feel it! And you sit really low, so it’s quite sporty.
I do use the car a lot but it’s not ideal if I need to transport anything, so I have another car which has four doors and proper seating. If you don’t have to carry much, then it’s really good. It’s interesting and cheap to run, but not very practical.”
Click here to read the full story.
Sky NZ Originals series A Licence to Drive features twelve New Zealanders with disabilities embarking on the journey to obtain their driver licences.
he six-part series is the brainchild of Sweet Productions producers Robyn Paterson and Jai Waite. The creative duo launched their disability-led platform in 2022 to give fair representation through the stories they were telling.
T“As a society and as an industry, we are very aware of how vital it is that there is ownership behind the lens when working with certain forms of diversity,” Robyn says. “That hasn’t been true so much of disability until more recently, and that’s where we wanted to shift the dial.”
The award-winning documentary filmmaker lives with the chronic health condition fibromyalgia which causes pain and fatigue.
“It has always been about the power to tell our own stories,” echoes Jai, who suffered a spinal cord injury from a diving accident in his 20s which resulted in quadriplegia.
From lifechanging workplace accidents and congenital disabilities, the stories in A Licence to Drive follow a student learning to drive with his feet because he doesn’t have arm function and others with autism, dyspraxia, even polio.
While the driver licencing journey is different for everyone, one of the main themes depicted in the show is how pivotal it is to gaining independence.
“It’s important for people to be able to live their lives in a way that feels full for them,” Robyn says. “We’ve really seen the transformation it can make in people’s lives.”
Robyn and Jai agree it’s also vital that society supports a disabled person’s ability to drive how and where they want to because of the many barriers they’re up against, including funding, the cost of additional driving lessons, and access to specialised driving instructors.
AA Driving School has a network of 100 instructors with diverse expertise, including assisting people with disabilities.
Wellington instructor Caleb Dillner teaches up to 30 students a week to help them get their restricted and full licences, bringing with him more than a decade of experience working and supporting people with intellectual disabilities.
One of his students is 22-year-old Margaret Anderson Kane who has spent close to 100 hours behind the wheel under
Caleb’s guidance to obtain her restricted licence, her ticket to freedom and employment opportunities. She found the overall experience of learning to drive a challenge – until she found Caleb.
“With my disability I struggle to comprehend information, and visual demonstrations allowed me to learn in a way that is best for my brain,” she says.
Click here to read the full story.
Environmental awareness, city planning concepts, and tech innovation have all come together in recent years to see increasing demands for greener transport options.
In New Zealand this has led to growing discussion around how to make more of public transport (PT), active mobility such as walking and cycling, and electric or hybrid vehicles. A relatively small, spread-out population, tricky terrain and limited funds for transport infrastructure have shaped a preference for personal vehicles powered by the internal combustion engine.
A recent AA Research Foundation study asked several focus groups of New Zealanders what it would take for them to swap their cars for alternatives more frequently
Despite a high reliance on cars, study participants weren’t strongly attached to using them. Members across the focus groups showed a pragmatic attitude with many walking, cycling, or using public transport when they felt it was practical.
Being able to transport shopping and recreational gear and having the flexibility of mixing the types of trips – work, school drop off, recreation and socialising – were where cars were considered the best option.
Walking or cycling trips were also limited by needing to be relatively short, restricted carrying capacity for items, the weather, and the perception – particularly of cycling – that it was less safe.
AA Research Foundation Programme Manager Christopher Stachowski says the findings were unsurprising. New Zealand has long focused on personal vehicles as the central pillar of its transport planning.
“New Zealanders are used to owning and using cars and this research shows that many people still see them as the best transport option. Public transport is available in most cities and bigger towns, but even there people are more likely to own and use their cars. In smaller towns people have little option other than to use personal vehicles.”
Vehicle maintenance and petrol prices, parking, the stress of driving and the cost to the environment were all seen as drawbacks to personal vehicles, however the downsides associated with the alternatives were seen as bigger barriers.
Focus group members said the price of EVs and hybrids was a major barrier to purchasing more fuel efficient vehicles. There was also a lack of confidence in the technology, with range and long-term battery life being key concerns.
“For people in smaller towns and rural areas driving is sometimes the only option. Giving people more confidence in EV and hybrids by informing them about the technology and educating people about eco-driving techniques would be a good place to start.”
Walking and cycling were perceived as viable options for shorter trips; however, they were broadly viewed as unsafe.
Christopher says active transport could be encouraged though urban design –designated or separated cycling zones, and pedestrian spaces that are well-lit with long sight lines where possible threats can be detected earlier.
Click here to read the full story.
A road trip from Woodville to Wellington is all about nostalgic retail therapy.
oad trip!” we whoop, pulling onto State Highway 2. Three mums untethered for a weekend, hitting the open road with nothing but loose plans to explore the secondhand shops of the lower North Island. The best part: we’re travelling in a brand new Land Rover Discovery D350.
RWe nestle into white leather seats, unsullied by children’s smears and crumbs, feeling more than a little smug about our luxurious whip.
Outside Dannevirke we pass shaggy highland cattle with ginger fringes covering
their eyes like surly teenagers. The detritus from overnight wind litters the highway, but the gales have blown the cobwebs off the day leaving it blue and shining.
Our first stop is Woodville Mart, a cornucopia of collectibles in a cavernous building. There’s crockery, tools, taps, teaspoons, romance novels, wheels and fittings, all fastidiously categorised. If you needed a specific piece of vintage hardware, you could undoubtedly find it here.
Down a side street we find The Viking’s Haul, run by an actual Viking. The softly spoken owner, Evan Nattrass, greets us
from behind his long grey beard and furtrimmed hat. We pore through the musty jumble, chortling at retro record covers featuring dumpy men in provocative poses. There are teetering stacks of earthy tableware and an abundance of familiar, nostalgic kitchen items like salt pigs, egg cups and teapots.
We’ve timed our visit to Woodville well because alongside the stalwart secondhand shops there’s also a market on. Inside the Woodville Community Centre stalls are set out on the shiny basketball court. We browse carved wooden jewellery, native plants, cupcakes, fruit wine and crocheted baby clothes while a man wearing a poncho and wide leather hat croons country songs.
I didn’t have ‘buying a cabbage leaf salad bowl from Ekatāhuna’ on my road trip bingo card, but I find myself drawn to the gaudy green ceramic – purchased for the bargain price of $10.
As well as my salad bowl, Ekatāhuna’s strangely named Snigger and Snail has shelves lined with DVDs and CDs, the once cutting edge but now antiquated forms of media. I muse on how music has morphed from vinyl to cassette to compact disc and now is just an intangible collection of code as I hit play on my retro Spotify playlist back in the Land Rover.
Click here to read the full story.
WFiona Terry takes her family on a big tour of a small country.
e were in multicultural Singapore with our teenagers, experiencing an ‘around-the-world’ trip, all within a country approximately 28km from north to south and 55km wide. We’d visited Little India where the Hindu temples were colourful and ornate, meandered through the narrow streets of the Arab Quarter, window-shopped at the exclusive emporiums gracing the colonial Raffles complex (built after the British occupied Singapore in the 19th Century), and been seduced into trying more than our share of delicious dishes at the hawker food markets in Chinatown.
Our hotel, The Clan, embraces the city’s Chinese heritage. We’d been welcomed with a traditional ceremony including fine oolong tea poured as our tea master regaled us with stories of the early Chinese settlers.
To help familiarise us with the area’s history, our Clan Keeper, Sam – the
personal advisor assigned to help us feel at home – led us on a tour of the district where this luxurious hotel was opened in 2021.
We followed him into the afternoon heat to explore the heritage area and walked no more than two minutes before reaching the ornate Fuk Tak Chi Museum, formerly one of Singapore’s oldest Chinese temples, established in the 1820s by Cantonese and Hakka immigrants.
Exploring on our own later, it struck us just how green this city is, despite being so urbanised. It seemed wherever we looked, we were never far from lush greenery; a number of hotels literally appeared to be covered in hanging gardens.
Our around-the-world experience extended to high altitude rainforest on more reclaimed land that now accommodates the 101-hectare Gardens by the Bay. At the northern edge of this park, famous for its grove of human-made super-trees and overlooked by the iconic 57-storey Marina Bay hotel, sits the Cloud
Forest. The pathway that winds through this magnificent domed greenhouse starts at Māori tōtara wood carving Tāne Te Waiora Kūwaha, which stands alongside a 30m waterfall and represents a symbolic doorway celebrating cultures, beliefs and identities.
In such a cosmopolitan country it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to discover a mosque designed by an Irish architect, or that so many cultures come together in this space. We passed men wearing long tunics, women in hijabs and colourful headscarves, boutiques selling kaftans, pashminas and tie-dyed T shirts. I watched as a group of ladies in jeans and trainers posed for a photo between a European bakery and Turkish restaurant and had no doubt the line dancer we’d seen outside a Buddhist temple would have felt right at home here in her Stetson, too.
Click here to enter the draw to win one of Anita’s handmade eiderdowns.
They’re the epitome of cosiness, clouds of soft feather encased in paisley, floral, maybe stripy fabric: the eiderdown. The royalty of bedding, eiderdowns are simply thrown over sheets as a straight-forward, no-nonsense ‘bed’s made’ solution, the ultimate snug shield against winter chills.
Anita Carter of Pahiatua custom makes them, by hand. She’s the only one in New Zealand doing so, tapping into a family tradition that started with her grandfather, Clifton Glanville, who launched the business in Wellington back in the 1940s.
“My grandfather did it, my mother did it and as a teenager I had the job of sewing and filling eiderdowns,” Anita says. “I had four kids, and when they were little I picked it up and it grew from there.”
It’s not a thriving enterprise, she says, more of a side hustle to her job as a courier. But she loves it. Using patterns created by her grandfather, she uses down-proof liner to create a pocket, stuffs that with a 50-50 mix of imported feather and down and sews that into a cover made of boudoir fabric either from her collection or, more usually, provided by the client.
“Generally, people prefer to provide their own because the eiderdown’s going to last for years and years, so it's got to be the right fabric.”
They come in various sizes, from big enough for a king-size bed to just right for a baby’s cot. Anita makes sleeping bags for babies, too. On her website is a gallery of colourful choice: rows of roses, woodland animals, bold bright florals, elegant toile and embossed velvet. It’s hard to imagine making a choice.
Click here to read the full story.
