Looking for family-friendly activities in March in Ngaio / Crofton Downs area? Come down and join us at our open streets Community Picnic!- here’s the event page, with all the information that you will want: Ngaio Community Picnic Event

This year, it’s about getting around in our community – finding the secret gems only known to those who walk, run or bike around our beautiful places. 

The theme this year: Choose your own adventure

Travel to the picnic in sustainable transport fun

• 1.     Guided bike ride. Want to try out cycling on our beautiful Ngaio hills and new cycling infrastructure, but could use a little help? Join our guided bike ride with a hired e-bike and expert guides to teach you how. Starting from Switched-on Bikes at 9:30am, on the waterfront you will get e-bike hire for the whole day and ride up to Ngaio together, and end at the community picnic for some fun together. Register here – Welly on wheels Ngaio confidence skills for biking.

• 2.     Walking Scavenger Hunt. Our local artists at Sam’s Art House are putting together a special scavenger hunt for us all to learn more about the special hidden treasures we might only find walking and running around our beautiful neighbourhood. Start at Cummings Park anytime from 11:30 – 1:00 to pick up your free scavenger hunt pack and wander to the picnic the fun way – collecting treasures on the way and contributing to the community art activity at the picnic, all welcome and no registration needed. Event page here Scavenger Hunt Event
• 3.     Community fun bike ride. Kids and whānau all welcome to join us for a celebration of biking in Ngaio! Decorate your bike or dress up and join the kid-friendly bike ride from Cummings Park to Huntleigh. Meeting at 11:30 at Cummings park and all heading together for a half hour bike ride around Ngaio and to the picnic for fun and music. Event page here Community Bike Ride Event

All of these end up at our picnic – or you can just join us straight there!

• Flamingo bikes and scooters with giveaways and chances to try them out
• 🔧 Bring your broken bike down and Mobile Bikespace will help you get it back in action
• 👁️ Mountains to Sea running a kid friendly stream health monitoring workshop
• 🚉 Metlink and Council staff helping answer pātai/questions about sustainable transport options
• Community stalls, games 🏆prizes, live music, fire engine, BYO picnic!
• Scouts sausage sizzle and Ngaio playcentre open house and face painting.

Want to join the community group working to reduce emissions in Ngaio Crofton Downs? Join the Climate Crew today!

Before the March recycling day, I sent out messages saying that at the Ngaio Recycling Days, we are moving to only accepting tetrapaks which have been cut, opened flat and washed clean. Thank you to everyone who received the message and brought in flat contributions.

To transition to these tighter rules – I did accept cartons that not been cut open, and added those to the collection, after a quick slice to meet the recycling programme’s request. However this week when I dropped off at Earthlink, the tetrapaks were being inspected, and unfortunately the first box that I selected contained boxes that had old contents that were crusty or moldy, or still wet. My whole consignment of 28KG was therefore rejected and had to be brought home. The contamination reduces the quality of the end product, and adds unnecessary weight to transporting to the processing factory.

At home I went through all of the collection to sort out those which did not meet the recycling grade (see the recycling instructions in my next post above). Unfortunately around 4kg went to landfill – much because it was contaminated by other packs in the collection.

Can you tell which of the two packs above went to rubbish and which went back to Earthlink?

From the next collection therefore – we will only accept for recycling, those tetrapaks which come to us cut flat, clean, and dry.

And yes – the pack on the left is the model example of what we are looking for.

This advice is from Kiwirail – we thought our members would be interested to know what is happening with the railway lines.

You and your community may have noticed a recent increase in the noise made by trains on the Johnsonville Line, especially for our nearby neighbours. We’d like to explain what’s going on.

Our teams have been working in the Ngaio/Khandallah area to replace sections of rail – an important job to keep the trains running safely. The new rail has been safely laid and clamped, but you may have noticed a banging noise when trains go along parts of the line. This is because we still need to do welding and ‘de-stressing’ work here, which is a temperature-dependent activity.

We’ll be continuing our work here later in the month, and then during our Easter works programme. Once this is done, and as the new rail ‘beds in’, the noises should decrease.

If you have any questions, please get in touch.

Ngā mihi,

Alice Machin  |  Communications Advisor
Alice Machin Alice.Machin@kiwirail.co.nz

We have a huge dream to become the first carbon-neutral suburb in NZ, and we are wanting residents of Ngaio and Crofton Downs to come on board. 

By working together our actions, no matter how small, will make a difference. We are focussing on the things that we can do together that will help us to reduce our impact on climate change.

Our first goal is to get our first 50 people signed up to Future Fit. This is an on-line carbon calculator, that calculates your footprint, suggests actions, and monitors your progress over time.

Join us in creating a more sustainable future! This will keep you in touch with the amazing Ngaio and Crofton Downs Climate Crew, make you aware of events that are coming up, and invite you to join in our activities over the year.

Joining up is easy, just complete the form at this page – Join the 2025 Ngaio Climate Crew. We would love you to also join up to our team in  FutureFit. We will send to every new member, instructions on how to do this, along with an invitation to our team.

Stay in contact through Facebook or Instagram (Links will show icons), or follow the Climate Crew menu option on our website.

If you have any questions about Ngaio Climate Crew, or how to join up – email us at ngaioclimatecrew@gmail.com, or visit us at the Ngaio Repair Café and Recycling Collections.

There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew”.
Marshall_McLuhan

We are moving towards only accepting tetrapaks which have been opened flat and rinsed. This is due to the state of some cartons that we have been receiving, opening them up makes rinsing so much easier, and this is what the recyclers are asking for.

Transporting liquid in tetrapaks to the Hamilton factory adds unnecessary weight, and downgrades the quality of the end product.

Here’s a helpful video from Hamilton City Council (it refers to Hamilton drop off points – Ngaio Union Church is your local drop off point, 10 to 12pm. first Saturday of each month).

The Ngaio Community Picnic is going to be held on 23 March 2025, from 12 until 3pm, at Huntleigh Park. This is an event that is co-organised with Ngaio Crofton Downs Residents Association, and Ngaio Playcenter.

This year we will have the normal entertainment, games and stalls. But we are also tying in with WCC with bike rides and treasure hunts – all part of our efforts to get people out of cars and into active transport.

The Ngaio Climate Crew will be there too (see Ngaio Climate Crew, and Wellington suburbs eye a world first in climate action), visit us to see about joining.

Keep your eye out – promotions are about to hit, with details on how to get involved, and register for the rides.

This month we avoided sending to landfill:
– 29kg of tetrapaks
– 32kg of plastic lids
– 21kg of metal lid
– 12.5kg of batteries
– 1.8kg Colgate packaging
– 1.9kg of medecine blister packs
– 3.7 kg of Nespresso pods

Thats a lot of individual items! How many? – this many.