Brushtail possums are a protected species in their native Australia. Across the Tasman, they have established themselves as New Zealand’s most voracious and intractable pest, attacking simultaneously the beauty of our forests and the good name of our farming products....
For the second time in less than two years, a tropical cyclone has hammered Western Samoa. In February 1990 tropical cyclone Ofa killed seven people and caused $300 million damage to this island nation of 160,000 people. The island had not fully recovered when cyclone Val struck in December last year, killing 12 people and […]...
It takes six hours‘ walking to reach Port Craig from the Bluecliffs road end. Seven hours if the tide is in. Seven hours of boulders, hills, streams, beach and wet bush. Finally, there’s a bit of a clearing, a trampers’ but and a few rotting wharf piles down on the beach. It’s difficult to imagine […]...
No sooner had it been established that the planets were material bodies and not celestial lights than speculation began as to the possibility of their being inhabited....
Shortly after midnight on December 14, 1991, a seismograph at Twizel recorded shock waves which in 20 seconds reached the magnitude of a 3.9 earthquake. But this was no earthquake. Seventy-five kilometres away, the top of Mt Cook was collapsing. An awesome rock avalanche had let rip, dislodging 14 million cubic metres of rock buttress […]...
With their deep green foliage and regal grey trunks, puriri are indeed princes among Northland’s trees....
Fiordland National Park consists of a million hectares of rock and river, forest and fiord—some of the wildest and most untouched country in New Zealand. The place is a magnet to adventurers, who come here from around the world to experience true wilderness....
There was a time when the New Zealand dinner was a slab of meat, a dollop of mashed potato and a mound of boiled cabbage. Now, most of us have become more adventurous in our tastes....
