Contributors
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In the clubs
The 1964 guide to the club fields of the South Island. “You can find me in the club, bottle full of bub.”- ‘In Da Club’, 50 Cent Here’s an approximation of the conversation I had the first time I set foot on a club field: “What the hell is that?” “That’s the nutcracker.” “Nut what??”…
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An elephant’s graveyard
We heard there was an elephant buried in a Southland paddock. When we went to investigate, we found Sally. Riversdale is a small town tucked between the Hokonui Hills and the Mataura River, just northwest of Gore. It has a nine-hole golf course, an annual Mixed Media Art Exhibition and a gloriously restored circa-1880 country…
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Into thick air
Whitney Thurlow is a professional mountain guide with more than 50 ascents of Tititea Mount Aspiring. But it was a boredom-induced walk up the road that nearly did him in. It was the kind of mood where a bad idea could take root and flourish. I had just returned from an aborted guiding job in…
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Starlink, star bright
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It’s thousands of satellites circling Earth. I’VE GOT PERSONAL BEEF WITH ELON MUSK BECAUSE THE FIRST TIME I SAW HIS SATELLITE TRAIN MY MATES WERE ON ACID, AND IT SCARED THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF THEM. I was babysitting some friends in the Matukituki Valley, gazing at the indifferent…
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Food review: Timaru Roast, Invercargill
We are in the throes of myriad crises right now, from the cost of living to the climate emergency to the BTS hiatus. These are all important issues. But also, did you know there is a new roast shop in Invercargill!?! For those of you unfamiliar with the genre, a roast shop is a primarily…
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Book Review: Strong Words 3: The Best of the Landfall Essay Competition
Selected by Emma Neale and Lynley Edmeades (Otago University Press, 2023) Essays are on the up in Aotearoa. This has in part been fuelled by successes like when Wellington’s Ashleigh Young winning the 2017 Windham-Campbell Prize (worth $230,000!) for her essay collection Can You Tolerate This?. The annual Landfall Essay Competition, which has been running…
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Of M*A*S*H and mushrooms
The curious case of a puffball named for a famous pair of TV lips. There are many things I don’t know about fungi, but one thing I know for sure: it’s crucial to get a positive identification. Taxonomy is of the ultimate importance. Especially when the guidebook (Geoff Ridley’s A Photographic Guide to Mushrooms and Other…
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Roll Cage Mary
Sometimes landscape symbols feel like an ingrained part of ourselves. A cathedral, or a memorial, is solid, concrete and dependable, even when it has fallen. There is an order to the markings of our landscapes that helps us navigate our world. That is until you arrive in Antarctica, when all that solidity goes out the…
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A gig in a hut
On stage and off the grid in the Pisa Range. A single bulb hangs from the roof, casting direct light on the musician below, his eyes closed, his face contorted. The crowd, if you can call it that, sits on wooden benches in near darkness just a few metres away. They are completely silent. At…