A skepical weekend
19th September 2022
This past weekend has been a pretty skeptically-active weekend for me.
On Friday afternoon, I took a drive from Auckland down to Hamilton to meet up with Mark and Bronwyn, who’d driven up from Wellington. We met at the Mormon Temple in Hamilton. Then, after visiting we drove back to Auckland where we met other skeptics at a pub in Ponsonby for a Skeptics in the Pub meetup - of which we haven’t run for many years, in Auckland.
Saturday morning saw us partaking in a breakfast hot drink of some special cacau chocolate and oat milk with a special meditative ceremony that we thought we’d try out.The chocolate was especially bitter, and I’m not a fan of hot drinks in general, but I made it all the way through. I’m sure Mark will have more to talk about that in his newsletter or on our podcast.
After that we took a drive to Albany, to Mill Lane to visit the former site of the controversial Centrepoint community. None of us had visited there before, but it was interesting to see the site, after listening to the excellent podcast - The Commune - about the community. We drove up the lane, but it felt a little creepy. The site is now used by the Wellpark College of Natural Therapies - no doubt teaching a bunch of alternative medicine woo - and, on the day, was hosting some sort of home birthing seminar.
By mid morning, Mark and Bronwyn were on the road again, for the long drive back to Wellington. They’d planned to stop off to look at various crazy conspiracy theory signs on the sides of the roads, and briefly visit the Highden Estate near Palmerston North. A very skeptical roadtrip!
And, to top off Bronwyn’s busy weekend, she’s also contributed an article about home testing kits.
