A Takapuna sports bar’s failed bid for later opening hours has reinforced 1am as the latest closing time allowed for the town centre.
The Takapuna Residents Association (TRA) and police were among 17 objectors to an application by Cousin Scott’s bar on Lake Rd to be allowed to open at 8am and
trade until 2am, extending the 9am to 1am licence it has held since late 2024.
Initially, the bar sought the ability to open late seven days a week, but later cut this back to Wednesday to Saturday.
At an Auckland District Licensing Committee hearing in February, bar owner
Scott Ruddock said the intention was not to increase late-night drinking, but to fit with the timing of international sports events. Ruddock committed to ensuring any bands would continue to stop playing at 12.30am, introduce a one-way door policy
North Shore Brass blows away competition
At last... North Shore Brass trombonist Aishah Leitner (centre) and band members react to hearing she is an individual winner, on a dream weekend in Wellington during which the 103-year-old Takapuna-based band also became national champion for the first time. Members collected a slew of awards. Story, pg 5.
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Hon Simon Watts
MP for North Shore northshore@parliament.govt.nz SimonWattsMP
Police opposed longer hours at bar
From page 1
after 1am and ensure staff managed patron dispersal after a 2am closing.
He tabled a letter of support from the Takapuna Beach Business Association for a “modest” extension of hours at the well-run premises, saying later trading might assist in retaining patrons within Takapuna and contribute positively to the local night-time economy.
But other submitters said a domino effect of more late-night licence applications might result, risking the return of previous problems around bars on Hurstmere Rd. Ruddock said his premises had not had police callouts and he considered opposition sprang from historic issues at other venues.
with community expectations.
Alcohol licensing inspector Kelly Lee concluded that staying open to 2am was not appropriate in the locality with its established pattern of trading. If Cousin Scott’s was the only premises in Takapuna able to trade beyond 1am, there was an increased risk of intoxicated people arriving from elsewhere. She noted the TRA and community calls for consistency in opening hours.
An inspectorate technical hearing specialist, Michael O’Flannigan, acknowledged Cousin Scott’s generally good compliance, but noted objectors had raised concerns about existing noise and patron behaviour. He said later trading would exacerbate those issues
Police and liquor licensing inspectors opposed the extended hours. They reported that while there had been no major issues with the bar, extended hours could have wider alcohol-related impacts.
Constable Sonny McSweeney from the Waitematā District Alcohol Harm Prevention Unit raised risks of patrons migrating from other premises after 1am and the “snowball effect” of other venues seeking similar hours, resulting in cumulative alcohol-related harm, such as fights and noise in the area. He referred to premises in Hurstmere Rd where extended hours and special licences had previously been associated with increased intoxication, disorder and alcohol-fuelled violence inside and outside licensed premises.
Sergeant Derek Murphy of the same unit said Takapuna was an area of high demand for police resources due to the density of licensed premises and growing population.
He said the current “level playing field” of 1am closing had been an important mechanism for balancing commercial activity
TRA committee member Sandra Allen told the hearing the community did not want later bar hours and that 1am struck a balance. She pointed to previous problems from later trading elsewhere in the area, including fighting, vomiting, urination and property damage.
In a reserved decision, licensing committee chair Marguerite Delbet found “no substantive justification” for extending the hours. It was well-established that licensed hours were a key driver of increased noise, disruption and disorder, particularly with late-night dispersal, the written decision said.
TRA chair Steven Salt said the organisation was relieved as allowing later hours would have set a precedent. “From a resident’s point of view there’s no appetite for later hours,” he said.
No-one wanted to return to the past problems of late closing. “It used to be when the bars closed, the paddy wagons would be lined up around the corner.”
Bars are still able to apply for special one-off licences for major events.
Authorised by Hon Simon Watts, Parliament Buildings, Wgtn.
Former chart star brings singalongs to Takapuna
Singer Fiona McDonald loves getting rooms full of shy strangers belting out popular songs together, and next week she is bringing her fun formula to the North Shore.
It offers the joy of singing, without judgment, she says. “I just want people to remember what it was like when you were seven and just wanted to sing.”
Easier for some than others, you might think, but for McDonald – who was in choirs at Carmel College before making her name as a singer for Strawpeople and the Headless Chickens in the 1990s –the point is participation, not competition.
“Somewhere along the line that changes.” It’s like being told you can’t play netball or are no good at art, so you stop giving it a go, she says. But McDonald believes singing, movement and dancing are innate and the human voice should not be stifled.
“Forget people who say ‘I can’t sing’, that’s why I started it,” she says of the successful singalong sessions she began a year ago at a community hall near her home in Grey Lynn.
“I don’t care if it’s good or not.” The aim is ensuring everyone enjoys themselves, aided by a selection of songs that reawaken collective memories. “I’m out front with the ukulele and a small PA... the loudest voice in the group. I’m the camp mother.”
The songs are hits from the 1970s, 80s and 90s, when McDonald was a child, teen and young adult. The likes of Country Road by John Denver, Dancing Queen by Abba and Living on a Prayer from Bon Jovi. “As soon as other people start singing around you, you just join in. Who doesn’t love a good Elvis Presley song, or Abba?”
McDonald says she decided to branch out to the North Shore because participants at her monthly sessions, which typically attract 70 to 100 people, include some who cross the bridge.
A social-media post gauging interest in doing something here had a good response. Takapuna Beachside Cinemas got in touch and McDonald decided the venue would be a great fit, with parking next door and the added bonuses of being able to buy a drink and put song lyrics on the big screen. “It suits what I’m trying to do.”
The idea of returning to her old stamping ground also appealed. McDonald’s family moved north from the Waikato when she was 12. “It was 1977 and we lived in Albany in the days it was very rural,” she recalls. The family had 10 acres. “These days you’d call it a lifestyle block, but we called it a farm. It had pigs, chickens and horses. My sister and I would ride our horse around.”
School was in Milford, where Gregorian chants and classical musical study featured. “I absolutely loved being in the Carmel choirs – it really helped me as a musician, it trained my ear up and introduced me to harmony.”
McDonald says she was a “good Catholic schoolgirl”, although she admits to wagging class to go to nearby Milford mall. Her transformation into cool alternative rock chick came in her university days, when she joined student radio station 95bFM, making the connections that got her into bands. From singing jingles for the station, to teaming up with producers Mark Tierney and Paul Casserly in electro-pop outfit Strawpeople and performing guest vocals on Headless Chickens hit Cruise Control in 1991, leading to a three-year stint with the Flying Nun band. Time in Sydney, a new Strawpeople album, Vicarious, named 1997 album of the year, and her 1999 solo album A Different Hunger, with a Top 10 single Sin Again.
There were also television presenting roles, where her bubbly personality came to the fore. She was on the original judging panel of NZ Idol in 2005.
It was when her two now-adult children were little, 20-odd years ago, that the first seeds of the singalongs were sown for the then Playcentre mum. “They asked me to play guitar. I said I didn’t know how, so I took up the ukulele and I’ve been teaching it for 20 years, and still do today.”
Adding lyrics was the eventual logical next step to encouraging people to have fun with music. “It sounds a cliche, but I just
wanted to give back to my community,” says McDonald. “I’m 60 now, I did the Strawpeople album a couple of years ago, but I’m in a different stage of my life.” While she isn’t ruling out another Strawpeople reunion, she says taking the singalongs nationwide could be an even more satisfying gig. Former collaborators get the appeal, she says, with many musos also secretly hankering to be singers. Fellow Strawpeople singer Stephanie Tauevihi got up at one session to lead Blue Bayou.
For herself, McDonald says the appeal is still singing her heart out, adding: “I really love looking out and seeing other people singing their hearts out too and enjoying themselves.”
It also takes her back to her childhood and the memories she expects many people share, of tagging along with parents to adult get-togethers, where someone would pull out a guitar. “Eight-yearold me was so excited.”
Recapturing or discovering that confidence to join in is what she wants to impart to people still with the notion they have to be able to sing to join. “We laugh as much as we sing,” she says.
And for those who are still a little shy, she adds of the venue: “It’s in the dark.”
• Singalong with Fiona McDonald has sold out for its first session next week. But it is returning on Monday, 29 June, 6.30pm to 8pm, at Takapuna Beachside Cinemas. Tickets $35, book online at takapunamovies.co.nz
No judgment... Former Strawpeople vocalist Fiona McDonald says her sessions aren’t about being “good” at singing
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form and drop it into the Court entry barrel located Milford Shopping Centre.
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PumpHouse to help that have been 123 new blue the Genevieve They’ve been through every excited child, ovation and every night at The one breaks, it back together. has to be scratch. And the seat keeps going. They are our we’re fundraising to make sure we can give them
support a seat, each of the 123 seats has a between $1 and $123. Browse the seating plan, and make your donation. You’ll get a digital receipt, and your name on our supporters’ or more qualify for a 33% tax rebate, so a $100 $67, and a $123 donation costs you $82. https://pumphouse.co.nz/support-our-senior-seats is a donation to The PumpHouse Theatre and reserved seating at performances.
ES T HE SUPPOR at Lake Pupuke will include sailing, rowing, land-based outdoor activities with all attendees Sylvan Park. Ablution facilities will be brought marquee will be erected for meals, which will be Young Mariners.
Fill in the form and drop it into the Centre Court entry barrel located in Milford Shopping Centre.
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Your monthly update from Murray Hill, Manager of Milford Business Association.
Shore band finally rules supreme at nationals
It took more than 100 years, but North Shore Brass (pictured above) is finally able to revel in the title of the nation’s best band.
The Takapuna-headquartered musicians secured top spot at the New Zealand National Brass Band Championships in Wellington last Saturday night. They unseated the seven-times-in-a row national champion Wellington Brass Band.
“We were celebrating into the wee small hours,” band president Owen Melhuish told the Observer. “I’m super proud, it’s been a long-time coming.”
Individual successes were also toasted. Seven North Shore players – six from the winning A-grade band, and 11-year-old Celine Wu from Sunnynook, from the Academy Band – performed in a National Band of New Zealand concert on Sunday. Celine, known for playing at local Anzac Day ceremonies, was an invited soloist on cornet.
North Shore Brass, originally known as Takapuna Brass Band, celebrated its centenary with a concert at the Bruce Mason Centre three years ago. Its various bands regularly perform at community events.
The top band won the New Zealand Championship Gold Cup under guest conductor Nigel Weeks from Nelson, against competitors from across the country, Australia and Tonga.
Melhuish said Weeks’ contribution was part of a planned transition, with its conductor of recent years, Harmen Vanhoorne, intending to return to Europe. He got the perfect farewell, however, in being a key part of the band and a winning soloist as its principal cornet player. Under his baton, the band has come close to national titles before, including third place in 2024 and 2025, and it is reigning Auckland champion.
Going all the way this year was something Melhuish put down “to a little bit of extra effort, hard work and graft, and good music choice”.
The “own choice” selection – one of three works each band is judged on – was A Brussels Requiem nodding to Belgium-born Vanhoorne. The band topped the points in this selection and the compulsory test piece, and was second for its chosen sacred work. Its percussion section was named best section
overall for its test piece performance. Individual winners:
• Aishah Leitner, who is now based in Christchurch as a member of the New Zealand Army Band, slipped back into her North Shore blue jacket to win a title she has been chasing for five years, winning the Invitation Slow Melody competition. She was also Open Trombone Champion.
• Cornet player and band linchpin John Sullivan claimed the overall Masters Champion title in his first time contesting the tough class against many veterans.
• Dimitrious Koulianos from Devonport won the Junior Slow Melody. The 17-year-old cornet player, who attends St Peters College, also placed third in the overall Junior Champion of Champions section.
• Celine Wu won Under-15 Slow Melody.
• Nigel Weeks was recognised as conductor of the champion band, in what was his seventh A-grade victory, but the first since 2004. He was also best conductor of the test piece section.
• Harmen Vanhoorne was best cornet player in the “own choice” category.
Owen Melhuish
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Woolworths reviews Hauraki store
The future of the Woolworths supermarket at Hauraki Corner is under review.
Approached by the Observer, a Woolworths spokesperson would only say: “We are consulting with our Hauraki Corner team on the future of our Hauraki Corner store. They remain our priority and we are unable to share any public information at this time.”
Australian-owned Woolworths New Zealand also owns the Fresh Choice brand. Individual Fresh Choice supermarkets are locally owned and operated throughout New Zealand under a franchise model.
The Hauraki supermarket was rebranded from Countdown around a year ago. Woolworths NZ began phasing out Countdown signage from 2023, to align with its Australian parent company.
Some years back it was a New World.
Woolworths has a larger Countdown on Barrys Pt Rd. It is facing nearby largescale competition in future from rival chain Pak’nSave, which has a site it plans to develop on Fred Thomas Dr, Takapuna. Pak’nSave is a Foodstuffs franchise brand, along with New World and Four Square.
Pest-nest site in line for tidy-up
Weed removal will start next week on the former gasometer site in central Takapuna, a location just publicly pinpointed as being where a yellow-legged hornet nest with a queen was found in late January.
To date, no further Takapuna finds have been made, but 38 traps are being monitored in a 1km radius of the Auburn St corner site.
Biosecurity NZ told the paper further finds of the pest species had been made in nearby suburbs but these had not included
Biosecurity’s Commissioner North, Mike Inglis, said the most recent was in late March, when one male was identified in Hauraki. Elsewhere on the Devonport peninsula, a worker and a male were identified
in late February.
Sightings in Forrest Hill, which is nearer the epicentre of the outbreak in Glenfield, included a primary nest found in February and further sightings that month of seven worker wasps and then a male in March.
“The aim is to find and destroy queens and their nests to break the reproductive cycle,” said Inglis. The North Shore outbreak has so far included the identification of 77 queens, 1090 males and 3478 workers.
Council said the weed work at the vacant gasometer site was “routine annual maintenance” unrelated to the hornet find. It will be done between 20 April and 1 May, with spraying around 18 May. A high-rise tower has been planned for the site.
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Triumphant Takapuna cricketers smash it at awards
Takapuna District Cricket Club won numerous Auckland Cricket awards last Friday in one of its most successful years, which also saw it named national cricket club of year for the 2025-26 season.
Takapuna won the coveted Simmonds and Osbourne Shield as the top-performing club in Auckland. The shield recognises excellence across all grades.
Across the premier club competitions, Takapuna’s premier men’s side secured both the Jeff Crowe Cup for the men’s one-day competition and the Hedley Howarth twoday championship, while the premier women claimed the Pearl Dawson Cup after an undefeated T20 campaign that culminated in victory over Suburbs New Lynn in the final.
Takapuna’s individual awards included: Women’s Club Cricketer of the Year, Taila Hurley; Players Player award, Matt Jones; Outstanding Contribution to Women and Girls, Susanne Martin; and the Merv Wallace Bat for Coach of the Year, Brad Cachopa (men’s premiers).
Plenty to celebrate... the Takapuna contingent revel in the club’s success at the annual Auckland Cricket awards event last Friday
Her hip had other plans
Her hip had other plans
Rosemary had plans for her retirement. Morning walks with friends, afternoons in the garden, weekends chasing grandchildren around the park. Her hip, however, had other ideas.
“It started gradually,” the 68-year-old recalls. “First I’d feel it after long walks. Then after short ones. Eventually I was feeling it just lying in bed trying to get comfortable.”
She’d decline invitations, knowing she’d pay for it later. The garden grew untidy. Visits from grandchildren became something to manage rather than enjoy.
“My world was shrinking,” she admits. “I was becoming someone who sat and watched rather than joined in.”
Her daughter left a bottle of Koru FX on Rosemary’s kitchen bench after reading about the natural cream in her local paper.
“I wasn’t expecting much,” Rosemary admits. “But I massaged some into my hip and felt this lovely warming sensation, then a cooling that settled everything down.”
The activities she’d been avoiding… gradually, they returned to her routine.
“Last weekend I spent three hours at
the park with them,” she beams. “Running around, pushing swings, picking them up for cuddles. Six months ago that would have been unthinkable.”
Her husband has noticed the difference. “He says he’s got his wife back,” Rosemary shares. “I’m doing things again, saying yes instead of making excuses.”
“It’s not about being twenty again. It’s about your body not holding you back from the life you want.”
Respectable Milford once seen as much racier
Milford had a bit of a colourful reputation at one stage, says resident historian Debbie Dunsford, who is determined its stories aren’t lost to the passing of time.
From the early 1900s, she says the now thoroughly respectable suburb was a beach resort and an entertainment destination that attracted headlines and sly remarks. People travelled by ferry from the city to Bayswater and on to Milford by tram for day outings in the years leading into World War I.
As this sort of leisure for the masses became more accessible and bathing in salt water and surf more fashionable, photographers followed, leading to headlines in the Weekly News in 1914 criticising the relaxed standard of attire in the suburb at the end of the tram line. “It captured changing times and changing attitudes,” says Dunsford. This included people socialising on Sundays and getting into swimming costumes behind the bushes.
Over the years, Dunsford has tracked down a collection of old photographs documenting the early days, some of which will be on display at a talk she is giving on Monday 20 April at the PumpHouse Theatre on A History of Milford. “It’s got a great past, it really has,” she says.
One day she hopes to write a book, focusing, as will her talk, mainly on the entertainments that helped shape the area’s reputation as a place to play. Long before modern cliches about Shore girls supposedly being “sure things” , she says another risque phrase was in circulation – “Are you married or do you live in Milford?”
This dated to when many of the beachfront homes in Milford were baches. Although some were owned by wealthy families who moved in for long summer stays, many more modest homes were hired out for shorter stays. Takapuna people, with their more established town centre and permanent population, were apt to be a tad sniffy about Milford, she says. As the decades passed and more family homes were built, tenants were displaced and the little-sister suburb lost its somewhat bohemian vibe.
Older residents can still recall the days of the venue on the beach reserve built to look like a pirate ship. Dance halls and cinemas came and went, with the Picturedrome in the town centre morphing into the Surfside Ballroom, which hosted bands. Another dance hall and cinema used to stand on East Coast Rd, across the Wairau Creek.
“The Surfside was competing with pubs and hotels. It couldn’t have booze, but men would meet by their car boots,” says Dunsford.
As a teen she visited a couple of times before it was turned into a shopping arcade, only to be demolished for the mall’s development in the early 1990s.
Dunsford, 72, says her earliest memories are of the late 1950s and the “beach being everything”. She recalls her parents dressing up for a night at the pirate ship in its later years, leaving her with a babysitter for the first time. She went through Milford Primary and Westlake Girls High School and did secretary work before obtaining a BA in history in her early 30s. With two sets of parents living in Milford, she and husband Kevin settled back in the area after short stints away. Over the years, Dunsford has written books about Kumeu and Mt Albert, done oral histories and contract research projects. What turned her attention closer to home was a North Shore City Council report that said the suburb had no special character. “Looking around, there’s nothing left there, but I knew some of the history and began looking into it.”
Exhibitions of photographs she has collated have been shown at Auckland Heritage Festivals, beginning in 2013, and have been used by the Milford Residents Association, which she co-chairs.
An oral history grant allowed her to tap into the memories of longtime residents from the 1920s to1940s, including the father of her MRA co-chair and friend Norma Bott, who told her the pirate ship was “magic”. “We grew up hearing about Milford,” Dunsford says. She is keen to amass more photos, including from World War II, when American servicemen visited. She also wants to flesh out the band-era entertainment history.
When Auckland Council decided to replace the old brick toilet block on Milford Reserve – “I rather liked it, you could get changed in the sun, it was open above,” she recalls – four large photographs from yesteryear were put on display on the exterior walls of the new boatshed-style facility. They show early bathers, the pirate ship and large saltwater pool, and the high wooden bridge that once crossed Wairau Creek.
The MRA is now working with council to ensure residents get a say in Milford’s post-flood future. Dunsford has hopes of public park space on bought-out properties in the Nile Rd area. She worries excessive intensification is a threat to its human scale and coastal character, but she still loves Milford. The suburb’s demographics have changed, but she says it remains a friendly community. Storm recovery projects have underlined that, with people saying how much they love the area.
“It still feels like a beach suburb. People love that aspect, it’s still a little bit low-key.”
• Debbie Dunsford, A History of Milford, 7pm, 20 April, at the PumpHouse Coal Bunker, the latest in a series of Creative Talks at the venue. Entry free, but RSVP required.
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Family estrangement is so common it’s a silent epidemic. Estrangement can cause grief, anger, confusion, shame, fear, loss of identity, isolation, depression, trauma, hopelessness and/or helplessness. It can be deeply individual, relational, multi-generational, cultural, religious, financial and/or sociological. It can happen suddenly or gradually. Although estrangement may seem to provide temporary emotional relief for some, it often causes long-term suffering within a family. Others who have not experienced a family estrangement may struggle to understand why it occurs and why it’s so painful. They may ask a simple question (like “Do you have (grand)children?”) or offer inappropriate advice without appreciating the pain this can cause.
Each family estrangement is unique, complex and multifaceted. Sometimes family members can reconcile and develop better ways of relating. Other times an estrangement must run its course and strategic patience is required. While positive relationship changes can occur, other times change may be difficult and strategic calm acceptance is helpful.
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Then and now... Debbie Dunsford stands by one of the historic photographs of Milford permanently on display at the beach reserve’s changing sheds. The pirate ship venue was roughly where the block now stands, with the large swimming pool (right) on what is today a grass area, stretching back towards the marina.
The Takapuna Anzac Day service will be held on Saturday 25 April at 9am at the war memorial on The Strand. Marchers assemble at Sanders Ave and parade up Lake Rd for the formalities. Roads on the route will be closed to traffic until 11am. The Devonport parade is at 11am. The Harbour Bridge will be lit in red each evening from 16 to 25 April, and between 5 and 7am on Anzac Day.
Warbirds in action
A flypast over Auckland is part of the Warbirds Association’s national Anzac Day commemorations. The planes will pass over the Auckland War Memorial Museum around 10.30am and be visible from the North Shore. Flights are weather dependent.
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Plans are advancing to more easily close Takapuna’s Waiwharariki Anzac Square to traffic during special events.
Council wants to be able to temporarily shut the middle section of the service lane that runs from Lake Rd to Anzac St during large gatherings. It says this will ensure a public space that is safer for pedestrians, especially at night.
Removable bollards or lifting arms will be installed to block the central part of the lane as required, to complement other measures Auckland Transport has in the pipeline, including installing a new judder bar mid-way down the lane and adding road markings and speed reduction signage.
The service lane runs from Anzac St alongside the cinema and behind Hurstmere Rd businesses, then veers between the padel courts and Cousin Scott’s bar to Lake Rd.
Devonport-Takapuna Local Board members briefed on the plans at a recent workshop, wanted to know how the temporary measures would impact businesses. They were told access – likely via a keypad or swipe pad system – would be retained for businesses, deliveries and emergency
vehicles, at either end of the lane. But during temporary closings of the middle section, vehicles would have to exit at the entry point.
Outside of events, no operating changes to the lane were proposed, staff said. Board members were told two other lanes behind businesses in the shopping block would not be impacted. One is off Lake Rd, south of Cousin Scott’s towards the Hurstmere Rd intersection and the other off Anzac St, towards its Hurstmere Rd end.
Businesses were asked for feedback on the plan in January, with only the Takapuna Beach Business Association responding. It wanted the closings well communicated and limited to events of more than 2000 people. Any closings for the Sunday market needed further discussion, it said. Reversing out of the lane should be banned.
Council is yet to decide which of its teams will manage the closings, but the idea is to have known planned regular events, such as annual festivals, covered by one Auckland Transport traffic plan. This would make closing easier and help event organisers with their logistics and costs, staff said.
Hopes shellfish move may be widened
Renewed calls have been made to extend a shellfish and seaweed gathering ban to include the Devonport Peninsula and coastline up to East Coast Bays, after a ban was recently established around Whangaparāoa Peninsula.
issues with the Fisheries Ministry. She hoped to be in a position to put out a report for submission this year. The area being looked at included Auckland’s east and west coasts. Deans said the board would continue to advocate to protect resources. Late last year, supporting the original call for a ban, the The best present for elders
The chairs of the Devonport-Takapuna and Hibiscus and Bays local boards urged
50s!
Takapuna youngsters shine in exciting rugby derby
Takapuna Rugby Club’s premiers lost their top-of-the-table local derby to North Shore 41-22 last Saturday but the match was much closer than the final score suggested, with several players just out of school excelling for the blue and golds.
Lee-Hanru Greyvensteyn and Solomone Tuitupou were Westlake Boys High School stars in the school’s North Harbour championship-winning 2025 side, but both looked more than comfortable in their senior football debuts for Takapuna at Onewa Domain last Saturday.
Halfback Greyvensteyn played the first half and impressed with his option taking, quick passing and pinpoint left-foot box kicks. Loose forward Tuitupou came on in the second half and smashed through the Shore defence with several barnstorming runs – looking as difficult to contain as he was in his school days.
At the other end of the age spectrum, first five Jon ‘JL” Elrick was playing his 243rd game for Takapuna premiers, showing poise and no concern for his 42-year-old body in his strong ball carries and gutsy defence. Although not perfect from the tee, his goal kicking kept Takapuna in the match for the first hour.
Shore started strongly, with rapid-fire attacks seeing the three-in-a row championship winners jump to a 13-0 lead.
It looked like the visitors might run away with the match, but Takapuna mounted a committed comeback on the back of several drives by flanker Gage Jackson and a cracking try to winger Josh Smith-Bain to trail only 15-16 at the break.
Shore flanker Liam Sturm scored immediately after halftime, extending Shore’s lead to 23-15, but Takapuna replied with a converted try to close the gap again
A scintillating 40-metre Oscar Koller break led to another converted try and the
visitors leading 34-22. But given the see-saw nature of the game, anything still seemed possible.
Finally, a last-minute converted try gave Shore a flattering score-line in a highly competitive match enjoyed by a crowd of more than 1000. There’s still plenty of exciting
rugby and good young talent coming through to ignite the title race.
• In a thrilling premier 2 match, North Shore beat Takapuna 36-31 with a last-minute try. Takapuna, 2025’s reserve championship winners, had led by two points with two minutes to play.
Local derby action…Gage Jackson (above) powers through the North Shore defence, while Josh Smith-Bain (below) scores in the second half
Many Takapuna development sites full of pest plants
The Rangitoto Observer reported (3 April) that negotiations for the final handover to council of the esplanade reserve next to the Amaia development in Esmonde Rd, are near completion.
This followed the liquidation of KBS Construction. A local board member commented that the land was very scruffy, and “he wanted it to be handed over in good condition”.
Originally promoted as an urban-village development with a seven-storey block now completed, it was to be surrounded by open space including an esplanade reserve to the estuary edge. The development became contentious when the developer applied for
a retrospective Plan Change 85 in 2023 to build further apartment blocks including one 16 storeys high.
Following heavy rain, a slip at the edge of the esplanade reserve carried pampas into the estuary.
At a public hearing in August 2023, objections were raised over the scale of this plan change and concerns regarding its proximity to an inlet of Shoal Bay, an area designated as a Site of Significant Wildlife Interest (SSWI).
The hearings commissioners supported the development and approved the plan change, which includes the 16-storey apartment building. Auckland Council consented the
plan change.
Looking around development sites in Takapuna awaiting consent or building progress, many are full of pest plants. Wattle and pampas are highly invasive plants that are very costly to remove in sensitive ecological areas, particularly streams and estuary sites. Developments with inadequate silt fences often let sediment enter our streams and estuaries, showing continued disregard for the local environment.
Hopefully, a tidy-up with appropriate additional planting will follow the esplanade handover to the council.
Philip Moll
Why is council removing well-used Forrest Hill playground?
I was concerned to read (Observer, 3 April) that Auckland Council is considering removing the swings at William Souter Park — the only remaining play equipment for children in our immediate area.
Our neighbourhood has changed dramatically. Where seven homes once stood, there are now more than 40 townhouses, with little to no outdoor space for children. As a result, kids are now playing on unsafe
surfaces – including a steep concrete driveway nearby, where a stray ball regularly rolls onto the road.
The swings are not a luxury — they are the only safe, accessible play option within walking distance. Removing them would leave dozens of local children with nowhere suitable to play.
At a time when we are told there is limited funding for essential infrastructure, it is
Write to the Rangitoto Observer
difficult to understand why money would be spent removing something safe, functional and well used.
If anything, this area needs more recreational space — not less.
I urge council to reconsider and instead look at simple, practical additions, such as a basketball hoop, to support the growing number of families in the area.
Max Whitehead
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Email news@rangitoto-observer.co.nz or write to Letters, PO Box 32 275, Devonport.
Milford / Takapuna Tides
Ireland leaves its mark on paintings with tale to tell
North Shore artist Janet Mazenier’s moody paintings contain layers of meaning and place. Central to their inspiration is exploring her own family origins and the geology that has helped her forge artistic connections and strengthen her own sense of identity. “I was conceived in Ireland and born in New Zealand,” she says.
Discovering more of her background as the daughter of immigrants who settled in Whanganui in the 1960s has formed a key part of Mazinier’s PhD research and art practice over the last three years, reflecting time spent researching in Aotearoa and Ireland.
This has resulted in concurrent exhibitions in Auckland, including one at the Angela Morton Room at Takapuna Library called Deep Time Mapping: how painting can tell stories of the soul of Place. This contains smaller works than the giant canvas called Ephemeral Song that forms the culmination of her PhD project on show at AUT. “The exhibitions talk to each other,” she says.
A public talk on Wednesday 15 April at 6pm for the Friends of Takapuna Library offers her overview of a journey that has taken her to Ireland and Iceland.
It has also helped her elderly parents reconnect with family from their home country.
The Takapuna exhibition is accompanied by a film that lends an insight into the wild landscapes Mazenier was immersed in. In Ireland, she surprised colleagues at a women’s art residency in the Burren in County Clare by wanting to bathe the canvas they were working on in surf and sand.
The idea was formed after she had pounamu she was taking to Ireland as gifts blessed at Narrow Neck Beach. “I had brought my home here to them,” she explains. “The oceans connect us.”
The group in Ireland was filmed bathing the work before she and others took it on to an arts festival in Iceland, where the volcanic landscape struck a chord.
The landscape of Ireland had its own pull, connecting more with myth and mood. At one stage, Mazenier endured a lonely stay in a chilly old cottage, restored as an artist’s residence, where unexplained sounds haunted the evenings.
Elemental aspects fascinate Mazenier. Using oils and a cold wax medium allows her to explore this.
“I used that material to express what I want to come through in the work.” She says by layering wax and paint on canvas, she can then excavate back into the work, creating texture and opening up “infinite possibilities”.
Three lightboxes, shaped as columns, are on display at the Angela Morton Room, with their back-lit canvases reminding her of ancient Irish standing stones covered in lichen and mosses.
“You could paint the smell of the turf,” she says. Peat bogs in Ireland and volcanic soil and fault-lines in New Zealand and Iceland
in progress at her home studio.
all add to colours, textures and influences ranging from sedimentary to illuminating.
“Ireland has a lot longer twilights that reflect off the stones there,” she says. But the golden light also reminds her of what she sees when looking out to Rangitoto.
Mazenier has lived in Devonport for more than 10 years. She was drawn north from a high-powered career in project management for Telecom based in Wellington, deciding to embark on art studies.
The village appealed, partly because her brother David Downs lived here. The wellknown marketing man and chair of the Well Foundation then endured a long health battle, when she and her family were on hand to offer support.
Her two adult children are yet to fully explore their Irish heritage, but Mazenier
this week.
says her journey has helped pave the way.
She says the extended PhD process, testing how painting can express the spirit of time and place and which has its final step next month with an oral presentation, has been “mostly joyful”
Seeing her father lapse into Irish when he connected with a cousin on the phone was one of the surprises. The 95-year-old was surprised too. He is too physically frail to travel, but her mother has finally made a trip back.
For herself, she says: “I’ve got a place to go back to.”
What others see in her work is up to them. “It’s very much the artist being a conduit for it,” she says.
“My thing is always grounded in place and people and how I see it is abstract. This brings in emotion.”
Layers of meaning... Janet Mazenier in front of a painting
She is discussing her work in Takapuna
Cycling shorts collection back on Takapuna screens
Cycling enthusiasts can get on their bikes and head to the movies when the Big Bike Film Night returns to the North Shore this month.
Festival founder Brett Cotter tours a programme of cycling short films around the country each year and says the 2026 offering includes some inspiring footage from New Zealand, alongside international items.
The programme of eight shorts includes the story of two women cyclists from Christchurch who set out to ride each of the skifields around New Zealand.
Another locally shot film is Queen of the Mountain, which features Annie Ford, an Australian based in Queenstown who sets out to break a 24-hour Guinness World Record in downhill mountain-biking to raise funds for a planting project in the Queenstown foothills. International offerings include footage shot in spectacular landscapes in Norway, Canada and up punishing Mont Ventoux in the south of France.
Takapuna Beachside Cinemas owners Shaun and Helen Hayward say after the night sold out last year, they have scheduled extra sessions on Wednesday 29 April, including an afternoon matinee. The Forrest Hill couple have got back on bikes themselves in recent years, due to their children’s involvement in cycling for their schools, Westlake Boys High and Takapuna Grammar.
“We’ve got this lovely community of cyclists that we’ve got to know, because of the kids,” says Helen. This helped them promote the Bike Night but also gave an opportunity for people with common interests to get together. “Once people know you do it, they look out for it.”
Helen says the popularity of cycling in the area is apparent with the number of bike shops on Barrys Pt Rd.
Cotter, who is based in Taupo, has North Shore links through his grandmother who lived in Devonport. He says Bike Night’s focus on story telling means it will appeal not just to cyclists, but film fans generally. Book at the cinema, or for more information see bigbikefilmnight.nz
www.takapunamovies.co.nz
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@takapunabeachsidecinema
09 666 0714
SHOWING NOW
Fuze (M) 96min
Mr. Nobody Against Putin (E) 90min
You, Me & Tuscany (PG) 105min
The Drama (R16) 106min
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (R16) 108min
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2D & 3D) (PG) 120min
Hoppers (2D & 3D) (PG) 104min
I Swear (RP13) 120min
The Magic Faraway Tree (G) 110min
They Will Kill You (R16) 95min
SPECIAL EVENTS & NEW RELEASES
Hunt For The Wilderpeople (PG) 100min
Michael 125min From 22 Apr
Exit 8 (M) 94min From 23 Apr
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk (E) 112min From 23 Apr
Sgt. Haane (M) 88min ANZAC DAY screening
The Devil Wears Prada 2 122min
Advance screening 29 Apr
For more info on films & events go to thevic.co.nz
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