Selling Our Sunshine To Ease The Pain Of The Aussie Rain!

After 2 years of having the good people at National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) rain on our parade, Whakatane was finally crowned New Zealand’s sunniest place with 2561 hours of sunlight in 2010.

The locals have known for years that Whakatane is the sunniest place in the country despite both our 2008 and 2009 readings being dubiously disregarded by the nobles at NIWA. To ensure this never happened again, in 2010 we captured and canned our 2561 hours of pure sunshine and kept them as evidence in case our sunshiney-ness was again called into question.

NIWA crowned Whakatane NZ’s sunniest place for 2010 on January 12, 2011. Since it’s now official and undisputable, we’ve now found ourselves with 2561 cans of excess 100% Pure Whakatane Sunshine. We were going to give them to our friends in  Marlborough who seem to have had a shortage in 2010 but then we thought if anyone needs a ray of sunshine at the moment, it is our neighbours across the ditch in Brisbane. In fact, more than sunshine they probably need cold hard cash to help those who have had everything they ever owned literally washed away.

So on Wednesday 26 January, the Great Whakatane Sunshine Sale will begin. Former Chief Super 14 & BOP Steamers star James “Googs” Mc Gougan will lead a team of born and bred locals from Whakatane to Blenheim, stopping in at every town along the way to hock off a few cans of sunshine for a good cause. Every donation will receive a can and all donations will go to the Brisbane Flood Relief via the New Zealand Red Cross.

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Fighting For Our Time in the Sun: The Battle With NIWA

Following the golden years of the 70s, where Whakatane’s sunshine levels were much vaunted, the town dropped out of the race in the 80s as recordings were no longer being taken. In 2006, a group of local businessman chipped in and donated a Nowegian Kipp and Zonnen sunshine recorder to the cause. NIWA checked and approved the recorder & its location and Whakatane was back in the race.

In 2007, Whakatane came third behind Lake Tekapo and Blenheim – NIWA had no problem with this. 2008 ended with Whakatane miles in front of any other with 2703 hours of sunshine. However, NIWA had decided that our sunshine hours were too high to be believable which lead to our disqualification.

NIWA’s answer was to check our instrument by putting their own recorder beside ours but as they didn’t get to do this until April we were out of the race in 2009. 

Canned Sunshine?

Cans of “100% Pure Whakatane Sunshine” were first produced around 40 years ago to celebrate Whakatane’s sunshine dominance in the 70s. The cans were the brainchild of local man Mr John Dreifuss, who managed the Eastern Bay town’s promotions at the time. Several versions of the can have been released since then including a brand new look to celebrate our status as New Zealand’s official sunniest place in 2010.