In the South Island’s remote subalpine regions, a highly terrestrial songbird—one of two surviving species of New Zealand wren—has hopped, chirped and flown in the face of extinction. There are four ...

One of the most superbly located huts in the country, Syme Hut rests on a secondary cone of Mt Taranaki at an elevation of 1950 metres. Syme’s lofty roost gives an other-worldly sense of being high ...

Holding your breath. It’s as simple as that, and as hard. Try it now as you read. Take a quick deep breath… hold… and read on. Right now you are trying to ...

Grebes are an ancient group of diving birds, quite unrelated to ducks and swans. The southern, or Australasian, crested grebe is one of New Zealand’s least known aquatic birds, a secretive but ...

For nearly two centuries, the origins of a Spanish whaler and trader who founded a dynasty on the east coast were a mystery. Manuel Jose’s descendants are New Zealand’s largest family, and have ...

A forest is a place of peace. We go there to soak up the stillness, the quietude. But even the most Zen of gardens is in fact a frenetic trading floor, abuzz with an exchange of commodities and ...

Sew Hoy was a merchant rather than a miner—his Dunedin store imported and exported goods to Australia, China, the United States, and Great Britain—and in the late 1880s, he persuaded other Otago ...

The North Otago rural landscape is characterised by fossil-laden limestone in formations that remain remarkably undisturbed. Geology students are brought here to see textbook examples of sedimentary ...

The last 50 years has seen a focus on cleaning up environmental messes—in policy jargon, mitigating the effects of human activities. This approach has led to the creation worldwide of institutions ...

In the last century illegal whisky production in Southland’s Hokonui Hills was a subject of police investigations. Today that shady past is a cause for celebration. The legend of Hokonui leads back to ...

Here we are—a nation of parents, grandparents and children all in the same boat, together at home. He waka eke noa. Every day of the lock-down we will post a story or video and set of activities that ...

What an improbable animal is the seahorse! With a horse’s head, a possum’s tail, eyes like tiny glass fishbowls and fins that wave like chiffon frills, the shy creatures have intrigued and delighted ...