One of Westland’s most dramatic engineering marvels, the Denniston Incline, is the main feature of Westport’s coalmining museum, Coaltown. In 1859, surveyor John Rochfort first discovered coal in a small creek 14km north of Westport. However, it was not until 1860 that Dr Julius von Haast found seams of prized bituminous coal high on the fog-shrouded […]...
During late spring and early summer the night sky appears to be rather featureless. In the west the brilliant riches of Scorpius and Sagittarius have disappeared, while in the east Orion, lord of the summer sky, is just rising, and the inverted Southern Cross is scraping the southern horizon. The pattern of stars forming most of […]...
Here is a timely insight into one of the most extraordinary birds which have ever lived. Once thought to be an evolutionary ‘missing link’ between owls and parrots, the kakapo is fighting a losing battle against the forces of habitat change and predation. Fewer than 50 birds are left: a few on Little Barrier Island; […]...
The Scots Brought their past and their present with them — and a determination to forget neither. Long before surveyor William Tuckett rowed to the head of Otago harbour in April, 1844, and discovered to his “unqualified satisfaction” a site for a new town, Free Church of Scotland colonists had already named the capital of […]...
Results Are Starting to appear from an Antarctic scuba diving project undertaken by New Zealand scientists over the last few summers at Cape Armitage, Ross Island. The research headed by Dr Chris Battershill (lately of Canterbury University, now of Queensland) had a dual purpose. The first was to examine subtidal ecology in a particularly harsh and […]...
Department of Conservation staff have been making a last-ditch attempt to save a colony of flax snails on the remote island of Motuopao, off Cape Maria Van Diemen. The snails, thought to be a sub-species of Placostylus ambagiosus, number less than ten individuals. Their existence has been under threat by the native rat, kiore, which […]...
New Zealand has a wasp problem. If you don’t believe it, take a trip into the beech forests around Nelson. Here the singing of birds is replaced by the buzzing of millions of wasps. Holidaymakers are dismayed to find their favourite tramping, fishing and picnicking sites overrun by these venomous insects. In late summer the […]...
The Cape Reinga-Spirits Bay region of the Far North has great significance for Māori. According to Māori mythology, when the spirits of the dead return to Hawaiki, the homeland of their ancestors, they travel along sacred pathways of the Muriwhenua (land’s end). The dramatic landscapes and seascapes of this area are the inspiration for the following photographs and writings....
A visit to your local fish shop will only confirm the fine print on the supermarket boxes: most of the fish we are eating these days was unheard of a decade ago. Furthermore, we are now exporting these strange-sounding entities (hoki, alfonsino, orange roughy, oreo dory) all around the globe. Fishing has become a major new industry, but the operation bears […]...
We may have lost our giant eagle, but New Zealand still has two ‘hawks’, one of which is the acknowledged aerobatics supremo....
