Till death do us part CASKETEERS’ FOREVER LOVE
‘He likes to say, “Ooh babe, we’re having a moment”. I’m like, “Are we?!”’
With a table overlooking Queenstown’s spectacular Lake Wakatipu and the log fire roaring, it couldn’t have been a more romantic dinner setting. Well, it would have been, only Francis Tipene – one half of TV’s popular show The Casketeers – was sitting alone with a film crew nearby, while other diners who recognised him came over to ask, “Where’s your wife?”
“She’s left me and gone back to Auckland,” he replied, before revealing that his beloved Kaiora had to unexpectedly head home after her aunty passed away while the family were on a week-long holiday.
“After the most challenging year dealing with the COVID restrictions on funerals, I’d booked a romantic date at Botswana Butchery just for her and I,” says Francis. “Lockdown pushed everything back, so the TV crew ended up coming on
