Rotokawa, 10 km north-east of Taupo on the route to Broadlands, is among the hottest of New Zealand’s thermal areas. It is also one of the most dangerous. On still days poisonous gases collect in depressions, setting invisible traps for unwary birds and rabbits and any too-casual humans....
A controversial satellite-tagging trial is the Department of Conservation’s latest move in the battle to save the world’s rarest dolphin. Maui’s dolphins inhabit the waters off the west coast of the North Island. Close cousins of the South Island Hector’s dolphins, Mauis have dwindled to fewer than a hundred, earning them the unfortunate distinction of being […]...
Lizards are creatures normally associated with tropical and subtropical climates. Denizens of deserts and rainforests, and dependent upon external warmth for energy, they are the most unlikely of creatures to be found on an ice-clad mountaintop. However, New Zealand has a diverse cool-climate lizard fauna totalling 70–90 species of skink and gecko, many of which […]...
Cabbage Trees, flax and bush-clad hillsides plunging into a shimmering blue sea. Sounds like New Zealand, right? Well, not quite. This is the Republic of Georgia, and the sea in question is the Black Sea, not the Tasman....
Driving to Auckland some years ago, just as State Highway 1 approached the Waikato River at Lake Karapiro, I glanced eastwards and was struck by some cliffs that reared up from the green farmland. They looked as if they should have had a river running between them. Later, when I consulted a geologist friend, I […]...
Early Development of nuclear-powered thermal stations was driven by rising demand for electricity and the need for security of supply. The oil crisis of the early 1970s moved France and some other countries to invest heavily in nuclear power development, so that today France generates about 80 per cent of its power using nuclear reactors....
Flowering broom gilds the shattered slopes of the wild middle section of the Clarence River, where it runs between the Inland and Seaward Kaikoura Ranges of Marlborough. Paddlers on multi-day rafting trips down this remote river must dig deep to guide their craft through the rapids that dot its serpentine course....
You could say that Selena kept herself warm in the most exotic sleeping bag in New Zealand. Researchers John Dowding and Elaine Murphy uncovered her dwelling while working in Fiordland’s Eglinton valley. “When we looked inside,” recalls John, “we found a bowl of feathers from some of the most endangered native forest birds in the country, including […]...
Hail a cab in Auckland or other large New Zealand centre and, chances are, the driver will be from Asia, particularly from the Indian subcontinent. Immigrants have become a major force in taxi industries the world over, but how has this come about locally?...
