Tane Tarlton (10) is Kelly's Tarlton's only grandchild, and ambassador for the Kelly Tarlton's Young Explorer Programme. The initiative is designed to teach children about marine sustainability and includes a competition for six-12 year olds where 10 lucky winners will be made VIP members for a year. He tells Elisabeth Easther about his life in the inner city around Symonds St area with his mum, Fiona.
I was born in Auckland Hospital and lived in Orakei until I was eight. I have been in the Symonds St area for the past two and a half years, and I go to Parnell Primary School. There are lots of good teachers and the principal is great too. It goes right up to year eight, and then I'll go to Auckland Boys' Grammar.
I really like it round here, there are lots of activities, like down at Wynyard Quarter they're always having events. I like to unicycle down there. I started unicycling when I was about eight; you can go up and down hills and you use your thighs to brake. Sometimes I go in the Santa Parade. What happens is, you go to this place where these three ladies make all these amazing costumes and you get fitted. On the day of the Santa Parade you get changed, then you are given a certain block in a street. Last time I was dressed as a jester, I hope to do it again this year.
I've always liked kites and about five months ago I went to the kite shop up the road. It's called Kite Works and is run by this really cool kite man called Perrin. He sells lots of different types of kites; the type of kite I like best is a power kite. It's like a parachute but smaller, only they're really expensive. There is a risk of taking off into the sky, my mum worries about that. Perrin is quite crazy about his kites, he flies them, sells them, fixes them and makes them. I loved the Kite Festival for Matariki. It was really amazing, there was one that was a big blue whale, and the blue whale just by itself was about $10,000. There were about 50 kites up in the sky, it looked so cool.
I quite like going to the shops in Newmarket, and I especially love the comic book shop called Heroes on K Rd. I started liking comics a little while ago. I bought my first one, a $3 comic, it was The X Files and now I think I have about 10 comics. I've also gone to Armageddon, that's really cool.
