Two months of staring through a porthole at Antarctic ice floes hardly seems a useful preparation for a story on tropical atolls. Yet it was his exploration of this great white wilderness while on assignment for New Zealand Geographic at the beginning of the year (see Issue 9) that gave Mark Scott a vital clue […]...
Once again the Sky Serpent has been defeated and forced to disgorge the Sun almost as soon as it had swallowed it. Thirty-three hundred years ago, the Eighteenth Dynasty Pharaoh Akhenaten (“he who is beneficial to Aten”) made a shortlived attempt to replace the gods of Egypt with a monotheistic religion centred on the Aten, […]...
Although the cannibal rabbits of Central Otago, on close scrutiny, turned out to be only suffering from frost-bitten ears, the big freeze in July still provided plenty of the stuff of legend. Beer froze in some pubs, sheep froze to the ground, hands froze on metal gates, diesel turned to sludge, water pipes burst and icy […]...
The people of Marton have reason enough to be proud of the name of their pleasant tree-lined town. It reflects the name of Captain James Cook’s birthplace, Marton-in-Cleveland, in the North riding of Yorkshire. But back in the 1860s, when Marton was being established, things were different. The Maori name was Tutaenui, and when the […]...
E kore au e ngaro, to kaakano i ruia mai i Rangiatea. I shall never disappear, the seed sown here from Rangiatea....
New Zealand Geographic readers who enjoyed learning about papermaking (Issue 9) can now make their own paper, using an inexpensive paper recycling kit developed by a Dunedin couple. The kit contains a simple “papermaker’s sandwich” (two outer frames and a fine mesh which goes in the middle), drying boards, a sponge and an instruction book. Using […]...
It has been more than a century since the first hot-air balloon soared into New Zealand skies. In the early years, ballooning was largely entertainment, with daredevil exponents impressing the crowds by dangling from trapezes and leaping from their balloons with primitive parachutes. Today, it is both sport and sightseeing, as Wellington journalist Mark Coote discovered at the New Zealand Hot […]...
In the 19th century, mariners relied on “faith in God and an Admiralty chart”. Despite the revolutionary impact of satellites and global communication networks on the task of navigation, the essence of safe sailing is still a sound chart....
Moulds, mushrooms and their kin....
Pied oystercatchers float down from a sea of grey cloud and land softly on the shore of the Manukau Harbour. The tide is covering the mudflats, so these waders fossick through a nearby field of wet grass, their orange beaks probing for worms instead of their preferred seafood. A hundred metres away, Phil Henare watches […]...
