Fosters

[Guest]

God I miss Fosters old shop. Life is just not the same. Why do things have to change.

Fosters was part of my cultural womb and since they have been relocated I have been traipsing the waterfront like some lost soul.

Here is a shot of me all dressed up and ready for some real marine retail therapy.

Yup, that is one of those new fangled carbon bodied 100v lithium Seagull Powermaster outboards in my left hand.

The swag cast over my shoulder contains my Whale phone that is presently running Scrimshaw as a operating system.

My shopping list includes fast set oakum and pitch for those small vacuum bag tasks that are regularly arising on the good ship Priscilla.

God I miss that shop.

Mr Street could you please have a word with those Harken chaps and at the very least get them to install some creaking floor boards in the new outlet.

Thank you in advance.

[SloopJohnB 322]

The 2nd or 3th step from the bottom creaked.

[Deep Purple 511]

How funny, we drove into town last night past the old building, still with all its Foster and Harken signage up and I lamented its loss.

[Clipper 343]

All I can remember is not being able to afford anything there

[Kiteroa 8]

The old Harken/Fosters building was a special place. Legend has it that at high tide they would get salt water puddles in the basement. Receiving your new hardware in a brown paper bag was all part of the Fosters experience also.

[SloopJohnB 322]

and the smell of the marlin splice.

 

That's it tarred marline

[Chewing Gum 17]

Sydney Woodroffes in Anzac ave and John Burns in Stanley St were great also. These new fangled Woolworths type places just don't cut it.

[waikiore 399]

Have never smelled a splice, though the tarred marline we used to hang around the counter at John Burns smelt great, a co-workers gout pills necessitated it.

[Guest]

What you can smell is Stockholm Tar.

 

The old Fosters building has a water powered lift built out of wood in it. Humans aren't supposed to use it but we often did. It also have a newer one. Apparently it's one of the oldest in the Sth Hemisphere that still works.

 

Down deep in the basement there are water pumps. As the building was built on the foreshore, or what was the beach back in the day, WT is right the basement would flood when the tide is high without the pumps.

 

I can't say what I remember about working there, too many are still alive so still can be arrested and locked

[Zozza 293]

It is hard for us younger ones to imagine the foreshore reaching up to the Fosters building and it being flooded on a high tide.

 

Via the wonders of google I found this:

 

Modern day Queen Street was a gully through which the Waihorotiu Stream flowed and emptied into the sea. The shoreline at that time ran along modern Fort Street (originally Foreshore Street), along Jean Batten Place to the junction of Queen and Shortland Streets.

[erice 732]

that foreshore was borrowed from the ocean

 

now it's letting us know

 

it wants it back