Blog
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Book Review: Common Ground – Garden histories of Aotearoa by Matt Morris
Here’s a thing I didn’t know before I read Matt Morris’ Common Ground: gardening is more than an expensive pastime that mostly causes back pain and a seasonal cycle of frost-damage-induced disappointment. Gardens are, in fact, frickin’ fascinating. This isn’t a long version of one of those Home & Garden profiles featuring properties owned by…
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Chapter one: Seasons
Kawerau, New Zealand is not your typical holiday destination. As Aotearoa’s youngest town (just a baby, established in 1953), it was set up purely to service a timber mill. Tasman pulp and paper mill was responsible for the birth of this little North Island town, made up initially of mostly factory workers. Kawerau very nearly…
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Book Review: Is This the Promised Land? by Peter Simpson
“DRIVING ONE DAY WITH THE FAMILY OVER THE HILLS FROM BRIGHTON OR TAIERI MOUTH TO THE TAIERI PLAIN,” WRITES COLIN MCCAHON, “I FIRST BECAME AWARE OF MY OWN PARTICULAR GOD, PERHAPS AN EGYPTIAN GOD, BUT STANDING FAR FROM THE SUN OF EGYPT IN THE OTAGO COLD.” This is a sensibility that drove McCahon’s life work…
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Book Review: The Wilder Years – Selected poems by David Eggleton
YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW THAT DAVID EGGLETON WAS CROWNED LONDON TIME OUT’S STREET ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR IN 1985, BUT THAT’S AN ENVIABLE BIO NOTE AND ALSO A GREAT REMINDER TO TAKE TO THIS, HIS LATEST COLLECTION. The Wilder Years, Selected poems, comes to you in ten sections, spanning 1986 to the present. It’s an…
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Fundraiser for new Wanaka Climbing Guidebook
The Wanaka Rock Climbing Club (WRCC) needs help publishing the newly updated (and classic) Wānaka climbing guidebook. This guidebook is an invaluable resource for anyone climbing the local crags. The book is also the main source of funding for the not for profit, volunteer driven WRCC. WRCC has developed and maintained around 1000 (including 300…
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Why Cardrona Needs To Be Your Next Winter Holiday Destination
Planning on going to New Zealand for the winter and looking for a ski destination? Cardrona Alpine Resort should be your next stop. Located in the South Island of New Zealand, this fun and family friendly resort is known for being ‘higher and drier’ – its location, altitude and south facing slopes mean the mountain…
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Book Review: Tamatea Dusky
By Peta Carey Tamatea / Dusky Sound is a massive area, virtually uninhabited and rarely explored, despite its widely-regarded natural beauty. Remote and relentlessly buffeted by westerly winds, this archipelago in the southwest corner of Fiordland National Park draws unique, adaptable individuals requiring tenacity and endurance to match the physicality of its landscape and waterways.…
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Book Review: Wonderland
THE PHOTOS IN PETER ALSOP’S WONDERLAND (POTTON & BURTON) ARE A SAMPLING FROM THE ARCHIVES OF WHITES AVIATION. FOUNDED IN 1945, WHITES DEALT IN EVERYTHING FROM AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY, TO TRAVEL JOURNALISM, TO HAND-COLOURED PHOTOGRAPHY. ONE THING THEY DIDN’T DO WAS FLY; DESPITE THE COMPANY’S NAME, THEY NEVER OWNED A PLANE. THEIR PHOTOS, COLOURED BY HAND…
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The Complete Guide to Rotorua, from Hot Water Beach to Hobbiton
For an adventure into a land of gorgeous lakes, Mars-like volcanic landscapes and fascinating history, Rotorua, New Zealand should be top of the list. Rotorua has long been a popular place to travel to, as a hot spot of geothermal activity (geddit?), a place rich in Maori culture and heritage, and, in more recent years,…