Issue 14: Winter 2023
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Book review: The South Island of New Zealand: From the Road
By Robin Morrison (Massey University Press, 2023) First published in 1981, The South Island of New Zealand: From the Road was the result of a road trip taken by the late photographer Robin Morrison and his family in 1979. While travelling through the South Island, Robin chose to take pictures of places and people, instead…
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Book review: BITER
by Claudia Jardine (Auckland University Press, 2022) Claudia Jardine is a bit of a polymath. She has an MA in classics from Victoria University of Wellington, is the reigning Christchurch Poetry Slam Champion, and is an independent musician. She is also very funny. BITER, her debut poetry collection, reflects all of the above. The book…
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Book review: Not Set in Stone
By Dave Vass (Potton & Burton, 2023) In Not Set in Stone, Dave Vass tells the story of a life spent in the mountains, and now spent without them. One of Aotearoa’s leading mountaineers, Dave broke his neck in 2015 while walking out from a climbing trip in Fiordland, resulting in incomplete tetraplegia. Much of…
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At the mercy of the winds
Up, up and away with NASA’s beautiful balloon. It’s ANZAC Day, 2017. I’m parked on the side of Kane Road, peering across a paddock strewn with pivot irrigators and over the Clutha River to the Wānaka Airport. There, a balloon shaped like an inverted teardrop is slowly filling with helium, cubic inch by cubic inch.…
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Contagion magic
Travels with Rocinante. It was the end of autumn. I was sitting on my bedroom floor, staring at the bones of a bike. Metal debris littered the carpet. My phone stood propped against the cardboard bike box as YouTube explained how to screw pedals on. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. …
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Home sweet home
A Queenstown-based film-maker wants us to think globally, shred locally. Sage Kotsenburg once said, “there’s no blueprint to snowboarding, you know? You can really just make your own mark.” In 2014, Sage won the first-ever Olympic gold medal in men’s snowboard slopestyle, and his words still ring true for Ryan Quirke. With the mountains up…
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There’s no safety like snow safety
On the slopes at the inaugural Ski Patrol Games. Two guys are skiing down a racecourse towing a log in a stretcher. One is out in front, steering, while the other follows, tethered to the rig by a rope. They are dressed in suits and ties. Snow conditions are marginal. The log is visibly heavy.…
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On the boil
Tea, technology and the perfection of the Thermette. It’s the first day of spring and a sharp chill slices the air, hazing the grass at Trotters Gorge with ice. Gregor places more beech twigs into the mouth of the Thermette and warms his hands on its side, the hot gas catching to flame in the…
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It’s all in the head
“The lightning overhead was unbelievable! We had only minutes to decide. Should we keep paddling into the storm, or camp early and waste precious hours?” It’s July 5, 2022. Ben Lott and his teammate Scott Worthington are racing in a kayak down the Yukon River. Flowing almost 2000 miles through Canada and Alaska, it covers…