Keith Wiffin on walking, Irish beer and bringing back the library

Saturday, 11 January 2025

Keith Wiffin has never owned a car so has Wellington at his feet.

Keith Wiffin has lived all but three of his 65 years in Wellington, most recently in the heart of the club and restaurant area. He likes the vibe of the Cuba St area but hopes this will be the year he finds somewhere quieter to live.

My favourite thing about this part of Wellington is…

I like the vibe in the Cuba St-Vivian St area. There’s a few restaurants I go to, that’s the up side. The downside is nightclub noise, it can be so noisy. It’s my hope to find somewhere quiet to live, that’s my goal for 2025. I’m always tired. I think the exercise I do is helpful, getting me to the point where I’m still standing.

For meetings, usually on Lambton Quay or The Terrace, I walk because …

I use the buses from time to time but by and large I’ll walk. It has to be a really foul day before I take the buses. Public transport costs have gone up. I occasionally catch a train to Waikanae, Paekākāriki, and I have somewhere I can stay up there.

If you’re looking for somewhere to eat you can’t go past …

When I can I’ll eat Asian food, if I have the money to dine out. My favourite dish is Indian curry. Sometimes I walk up through the Botanic Garden and have lunch at Upesh Kitchen in Kelburn. And in Newtown it’s the Curry Pot.

My favourite place to take a visitor to Wellington would be …

Wiffin finds walking around the city great therapy.

Zealandia, I’m a big fan of tuatara. And a big fan of kākā — they’re wonderful, they’re intelligent, cheeky, their call is prehistoric. There’s a fence line where you view the tuatara, I was standing there and there was a kākā in the tree above me and it dropped a twig on my head. I thought it was an accident but then it broke off another twig and dropped it on my head again. I’d recommend Zealandia to anyone.

The perfect Saturday routine in the city is …

My only real routine is having a shower and cleaning my teeth. If I don’t have work to do I’ll have a walk, go and have a quiet pint somewhere, read books. Occasionally you will find me at D4 on Featherston. Kilkenny Irish beer, which they have at D4, is one of the joys of my life.The service is great and the hospitality, but fewer people are going in there. Redundancies in the public service have affected the whole city. That’s the thing about pubs, they’re not just about alcohol, beer and wine, they’re about socialising with people.

When I need to clear my head, I go …

walking, that’s my therapy. One of my favourite walks is Oriental Bay up to Roseneath to look over the harbour. Three or four times a week I go for a brisk walk to clear my head, for recreation. I physically feel pretty good if I can do that. Sometimes I walk up to Newtown and into the town belt. I’ve also been known to walk out to Berhampore and Island Bay. Sometimes I walk through the tunnel and out to Kilbirnie where I used to live. The tunnel has improved quite a lot since they took the lead out of petrol but it still would not be everybody’s cup of tea, it’s really noisy. This is a unique city, I’ve never owned a car in my life and you can do that in Wellington, you can’t do it in Auckland to anywhere near the same extent, but here you can get away with it.

Wiffin was one of many who spoke to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into abuse in care about their experiences. (File photo)

My nominee for Wellingtonian of the Year would be…

[Lawyer] Sonja Cooper. She’s been battling a lot of resistance for years for survivors of abuse in care, and has been trying to achieve justice. She’s tried valiantly to achieve justice, acknowledgement and redress for all those who were abused in care. I think she’s an absolute hero. I think she should be Dame Sonja Cooper.

If I were mayor for a day I would…

Courtenay Place looks derelict at the moment. I don’t where the responsibility lies but something should have been done about it by now, it used to be such a vibrant place. The council needs to be really proactive about doing something, insist that people use the properties or be subject to fines or some penalties for those who didn’t do anything. I’ve heard tourists talking about it, for a capital city to look like that, it’s a bit of a disgrace. It’s hard to have faith in the Wellington City Council at the moment. They can never get consensus around things. There’s too much bitterness.

I miss the old library. Ideas came to me and I could do my writing in peace and quiet. I learnt to read in my early 20s. The first book I read was a dictionary. I'm self taught. That lack of education that so many of us have, that goes with being a state ward. I would like the library back ASAP!

– As told to Wendy Murdoch