Introduced over 150 years ago as the basis for a fur trade, the Australian brush-tail possum has instead become an ecological plague, chomping its way through millions of tonnes of forest foliage a ...

This is an interesting and varied tramp only an hour’s drive north of Kaikoura, starting 12 km inland from the main highway. The Isolated Hill Scenic Reserve in the Seaward Kaikouras has some dramatic ...

Feijoas have become a New Zealand emblem. So how did they end up in Aotearoa, and how did we end up adoring them—to the point of obsession, for some—when feijoas have not really caught on anywhere ...

How did I ever get caught in a trap like this? No way up and certainly no way to climb back down. A wall of vertical granite fell away beneath my feet and gravity, so deftly defied until now, returned ...

As I write this, Easter beckons and the stores are awash with Easter eggs. Eggs have traditionally been as­sociated with new life and, in Chris­tendom, the resurrection of Christ. In some countries, ...

Unlike its larger flanking lakes—Pukaki and Tekapo, which are glacier-fed—Lake Alexandrina is predominantly composed of ground water springing from its bed. A trout hatchery, the Lake was beset with ...

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 ...

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 ...

A resonant whoosh of air and water blasts skywards as a Bryde’s (pronounced “broode­rs”) whale surfaces 60 metres in front of us. The twin blowholes on the top of its head are clearly visible. The ...

Society Let the Taiaha be a vessel Almost every year since 1973, tāne Māori of all ages have travelled to an uninhabited island in Lake Rotorua to train in the traditional art of taiaha. They learn ...

When I call Ramari Oliphant Stewart, she’s busy nailing down a new roof ahead of a cyclone that threatens to lash the West Coast. She built the house herself, here in the teeth of the Tasman Sea on a ...

In April 2000, a small boulder that had for decades graced the garden of the old St Stephen’s Presbyterian manse in Dunedin was ceremoniously welcomed home by the people of Moeraki. The rock had begun ...