Here’s where our online presence began!
Going through old files I found this old header logo piece from my old blog/ news/ website before forming Haunted Auckland
Back in 2006, I started a small blog /journal page called BizarreNZ.
It was on one of those free DIY website sites. Homestead.com. Not sure if it’s still going.
I was limited to what I was able to do on it, but I was a total newbie anyway, so having a basic copy/paste setup and only 12 fonts to choose from was a good starting point for learning how it all works.
I regret not making any screenshots of that version at the time. My excuse, I hadn’t heard of screenshots at that stage so had no idea you could even do that!
The header pic I’ve posted is the second version used on the Blogspot site. From memory, the original one wasn’t much to look at and was just BIZARRENZ written in bold white letters in ”impact” font, on a black background.
I didn’t post too much on that one. Again, more excuses. I was heavily into promoting bands and organizing gigs and events. A full-time job and I was over-committed with too many things outside of that.
I slowed down with the music scene around 2008 as I had a growing dissatisfaction with the scene and wanted to focus more on my other interests.
During that time I had learned a little about websites and was feeling more confident and creative the more I learned. I then found another site that allowed for blogging sites, blogspot.com. I think that one’s shut down now too. Again it was free and easy to navigate, but there were more functions and more possibilities of what I could do with it.
So I shut down the Homestead page and reinvented myself on the Blogspot platform. Same name, more features. Before doing so I transferred a lot of articles and material over to the new one.
The Blogspot page, BizarreNZ became quite popular and had interest from all over the world. Articles I had written myself or shared from others were being linked to other websites and I was getting emails from far and wide.
The website description stated: ”A site dedicated to all that is weird and unexplained. Focussing primarily on events in New Zealand, as well as encompassing the wider, weirder global happenings. UFOs, Cryptozoology, Ghosts, exopolitics, the paranormal, and everything else that’s out of the ordinary.”
At the end of 2009, I started thinking about pulling a team together. I hadn’t had a paranormal team since 1986 (1983 – 1986) and had been doing my research solo since. My old 1980s team was called Auckland Ghost Hunting Group. I pinched the term ”ghost hunting” off an old book I had found as a kid which was a big influence on which direction I would head in life, ”Confessions of a Ghost Hunter”, by Harry Price. I started designing a new website. Another free and easy one. I figured I’d reboot BizarreNZ into a new team-based project. An investigation team even.
This is when I met Matthew Tyler, a keen paranormalist and a whizz on the computer.
Together we founded Haunted Auckland at the end of 2010 and started recruiting and conducting our investigation work at the start of 2011. Matthew did a full overhaul/ rebuild of the resource website (which we have called Paranormal NZ since its birth) and has lovingly tended to the ‘mighty beast’ it has become even since. The website is now recognised worldwide and is often cited as a valuable reference resource by students and news journalists.
The BizarreNZ site eventually shut down as the internet company closed its doors. My last posting on that one was in June 2012 as my focus had since changed to our new team which was moving in great strides.
In 2024 the team name changed to a more suitable, Paranormal NZ and the rest is yet to unfold!
