Welcome to WELLYWOOD, a series of caches designed to enlighten you and show you around some of the wonderful locations in the coolest little capital of the world.
You will be required to do some 'pre-work' to complete and find some of these caches, while others will require you to do some exploring 'out in the field', and some will require a combination of both. Most caches can be found in the greater Wellington area, although there may be a few that are further afield. We hope you enjoy the series.
Zombietown
Just for a moment, in the 1950's, Newtown's quiet working class respectability came under serious threat. It all began at Wellington Zoo, where a local resident, the rather domineering Mrs Cosgrove, was bitten by a Sumatran rat monkey. A rat monkey bite can be very poisonous and she soon became a ravenous zombie. Luckily her nerdish son, Lionel, was determined to make sure no-one found out and, almost unbelievably, most of the mayhem stayed safely hidden behind Mrs Cosgrove's lace curtains.
This piece of local history is all recounted in Peter Jackson's very bloody Braindead. If zombie-comedy-splatter movies are your thing, this is definitely one for you.
The photograph is from the Evening Post of February 1992, a few months before the premiere. It shows "King Kong" Jackson with a model very like Newtown that was used in the opening credits of the film. (That is definitely the intersection of Constable & Riddiford Streets, although Newtown never had any four-storey buildings.)
In the accompanying article Jackson told how the model had been made for only $3000, with the help of some film students. Braindead was certainly bigger than Bad Taste (his first film), but he was still a low-budget film maker back then. The days of Wellywood and international blockbusters were still to come.
To find this cache you'll need to answer a few questions relating to the film - GZ is somewhere in Zombietown
a = Last digit of year film was released on Blu-ray
b = Month the film was released in New Zealand
c = Number of letters in name the film was known as in North America
d = Number of Oscars film was nominated for
e = Number of letters in surname of person who played the character of Vera Cosgrove
f = Sum of digits of day of month film was released in New Zealand
g = The last digit of the year Bill Ralston led his team out of Skull Island with a captured Sumatran Rat-Monkey
h = Number of letters in Albert's surname less the number of letters in the Nora's surname.
ij = Running time 1ij minutes
Cache can be found at 41 ab.cde 174 fg.hij