Carterton Space Week started with an idea. Since most of the time the New Zealand World Space Week falls during school holidays, we had to reinvent ourselves and create an event that equally covers holiday programmes, community and visitors. So we pitched the idea first to the local business community in 2023, and by October, we had a line-up of events. Coincidentally, 2023 was also when Wairarapa was announced as a Dark Sky Reserve, so everyone’s eyes were on the dark skies, and we took advantage of that, too. The theme in 2023 was Space and Entrepreneurship.
What we did in 2023
We held a business Dark Sky meeting with businesses from around the region. Our special guest was astrotourism entrepreneur Graeme Murray.
With support from Go-Carterton and through the efforts of the fantastic Lou Newman, we had a Space Scavenger Hunt, Creative Cosmos Colouring in competitions, Space Story Time at our fabulous bookshop — Almo’s, we launched rockets with Star Safari and the Phoenix Astronomical Society from Carrington Park, had an open free stargazing night at Star Safari and Spacewardbound.nz‘s Mars Blueberry Planetarium at the Wairarapa Events Centre.
Space Week in Carterton 2024
In 2024, the Space Week got serious with even more support from our business community, Go Carterton, supported in turn by Carterton District Council and Wellington NZ. This event fell within the school holidays. We had a week of fantastic events, interactive activities like water rocket launches, astro-quizzes, astrophotography workshops and planetarium sessions. We had talks from experts in Celestial Navigation and the Science of Sleep. And, most importantly, we held our first Space Careers Event with the extraordinary participation of the New Zealand Space Agency and Victoria University of Wellington, our Greater District.
Even Mr. Carter, the founder of our lovely town and bequestor of Carter Observatory in Wellington, got a makeover during the week, complete with an astronaut suit (and some daffodils).
Rebranding
During Carterton Space Week 2024 we decided to rebrand Carterton as the Daffodil Town by Day and Space Town by night.
