Two months left for King Kong ship...

The ship used by Peter Jackson for the movie King Kong is finally to be turned into a diving attraction, somewhere off the Wellington south coast.

The aging fishing vessel, originally named "Manuia" and built in the Netherlands in 1965, was bought for the King Kong production around 2004. It was heavily modified by the Weta Workshop to resemble an old 1890's ship, complete with smoke-stack. The original red/green colours were replaced with black, yellow and rust coloured paint, and the general shape was changed as well.

After the movie was completed, it stayed on the edge of the Miramar peninsula, where it's been moored ever since.

Now, word has it that the King Kong ship is finally going to be sunk, around mid February 2010. This has been widely expected for about three years now but the signs are pretty solid this time. Slowly, the ship is being stripped of all furnishings and non-sinkable items, and anything environmentally unfriendly. It is my expectation that it will be towed out to sea and scuttled somewhere near Wellington waters, to attract divers.

Before it's completely stripped, I hope to get a few choice souvenirs off it, if there's anything left - I know for instance that a lot of the external rivets on the hull exterior are fake, and would make great collectible items.

NB - the horizontal line of rivets is has a gap where the paint has flaked

off, taking the rivets with it - obviously glued on to the side.

Let me know if anyone is interested - I can't make any promises but I'll see what I can do!

  - Jack M

Update : Chocolate Fish Cafe has re-opened!

Another "little" item I'd not yet written up was the fact that on the 16th of November, 2009, the world famous Chocolate Fish Cafe re-opened its doors. Or at least, found some new doors to open. The location is at Shelly Bay Airforce Base, as I previously mentioned.


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The relaunch was delayed several times - originally it was to be near the start of October, but that was shifted back to October 9th. On the 9th, however, all we found was a rather large green Thing, ...

...and a sign delaying the opening to another approximate date.

The approximate date thing no doubt was weather related - we've had some pretty horrible conditions in the last few weeks, although it looks like it's fining up again somewhat.

So we drove past again a few days later, but nothing yet - finally on the 17th we were met with success, and had missed the re-opening by a day or so. Oh well, so much for being the first through the doors! :)

The limitations of the place are immediately apparent - there's no proper kitchen so they are restricted for the time being in what they can prepare. Almost all the menu items are grilled or barbecued, and all the coffees are served in paper cups to cut down on dishwashing.

The coffee was great though - I don't know what it is about the coffee from there, whether it's the type of coffee they use, or the way they make it, or that particular barrista, or whatever, but I reckon I could pick out the Choc Fish coffee out of ten random coffees. Even in a paper cup.

And yes, they still serve the little chocolate fishies with selected coffees. They're not Aiko's favourites, so generally I get both of them, which my sweet tooth does appreciate.

Before I go, can I just draw your attention to the awesome chair that I "happened" to sit on? In case you don't recognise it (and shame on you if you don't!), here's the back of it as well...

Make sure you visit this awesome cafe when you're in Wellington next. Once you finish your coffee, there's a movie prop factory/warehouse just 30 meters away, and they do tours there as well, so it's all in keeping with the Wellywood spirit!

  - Jack M.

Update on Chocolate Fish Cafe, Mark II

Last Wednesday the 16th of September, Wellington's Dominion Post newspaper printed (on its front cover, as the headline article no less) the news that the iconic Chocolate Fish Cafe is reopening its doors.

The new location, as I had earlier reported almost three weeks earlier, is to be at the Shelly Bay Airforce Base. The Barbecue Grill (instead of a full kitchen) is also now confirmed. The new "flavour" of the cafe will be kaimoana, (Maori for seafood) - "[...] barbecued fish, scallops, whitebait, paua, corn-fritters... between two bits of bread". Sounds awesome! (full DomPost article here).

  - Jack M.

Son of Chocolate Fish Cafe, Mark II

I received a tipoff last night about the reopening of the Chocolate Fish Cafe, so this morning we decided to check it out for ourselves, by visiting the sister cafe, the Chocolate Frog.

This time, it's real. At least, the t-shirts have been printed already, so it's hard to deny it. The Chocolate Fish cafe is returning, and as I'd blogged at the end of May, it's going to be at the old site of the Shelly Bay Air Force base.

"Chocolate Fish Cafe Mark II Wellington N.Z."

Odd photo, I know. I asked one of the staff, who wanted to stay anonymous, if it was ok to take a photo of the t-shirt for my blog. She did request "but not my face please", so here I was photographing the shirt without the face. Ok, that was a little embarrasing really, especially with my wife standing beside me. Honestly, it's an innocent picture! Look, just read the t-shirt already, would you?



The general gist is that the Choc Fish II will open at Shelly Bay Airforce Base, around October first or thereabouts, and will at first be a reduced version of the original cafe. As the land still hasn't been properly redeveloped yet, there won't be a full kitchen, restricting it to just a barbecue grill. No scooped icecream, but iceblocks on sticks will be available.

The good news is that there will be sit-down space available, although the lunches will probably be served on takeaway plates, since there won't be a lot of cleaning facilities. Probably no toilets in the first bit either. I asked if this will be just for the summer season but the plan is that they will be there to stay, as long as they could get a long term lease (this time!).

I'll post updates as and when they come to hand.

- Jack M.

Chocolate Fish Cafe to reopen soon?

Another rumour I heard yesterday was that the management of the Chocolate Fish have been looking around for another coastal location on the Miramar Peninsula (aka "Wellywood") and have apparently been very interested in one particular spot, at the former Airforce base at Shelly Bay.

For those who haven't heard about this cafe before - it was the favourite hangout for a lot of the LOTR cast members back in the LOTR filming days. Due to the isolated location it was nicely secluded from the rest of Wellington, which meant everything stayed nicely "normal" for the (soon-to-be) stars.


The staff at Chocolate Frog (the former Chocolate Fish's sister Cafe) are vehemently denying the rumour, which means the chances of it being true are no higher than about 50%, I reckon. Still, that's higher than zero.


As an aside, I had my first coffee this morning at the Chocolate Fish's replacement cafe (the Scorch-o-rama, named after its location in Scorching Bay), and as far as I'm concerned it'll be my last one there. They had attrocious service, it took just over 20 minutes (!) to bring a simple cappucino and a latte out to us. The dirty dishes on our table from the previous lunchers never got cleaned up, even when the coffee finally arrived. They were grossly understaffed from what I could tell - only two people on front-of-house duty, which included clearing of tables, cashier-duties, and making the coffees, as well as waiting tables when the kitchen staff finished making the meals. Not good.

I'll stop bitching now. If I hear any other ChocFish rumours, I'll post them here!