Magazine Articles
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It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a squid boat
Laura Williamson revisits a close encounter in the skies above Kaikōura. It was sometime after 2am on December 21, 1978. An Argosy turboprop freight plane was en-route from Wellington to Christchurch with a hold full of newspapers when the crew saw something strange off the Kaikōura coast. A set of lights seemed to be following
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Chasing the New Zealand Mountain Dolphin
It started as a light-hearted investigation. It became a fervour of curiosity and madness in the South Island bush. I first heard of the beasts in 2021. In a DOC hut near Murchison, I caught a passing comment about a creature known as the Ruahine Mountain Dolphin. “The what?” I asked. My question was met
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Above par: The 1964 guide to Aotearoa’s best rural golf courses
Our resident golf writer Phil Hamilton tours the nation’s village greens. Golf is big in Aotearoa. By some metrics, we have the second-most courses per capita after Scotland, the birthplace of the sport. Flash resort courses continue to be built at pace and to suck up overseas attention, but the heart of golf in this
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KATs and Dogs
Leia (yes, as in Princess) trots happily alongside me. We are headed towards a sign-up table in a gravel carpark in Haast, where Anya-Lucia Kruszewski, a Department of Conservation (DOC) trainer, is waiting to receive dogs and their owners. Leia, an 18-month-old border collie, completed her first Kiwi Avoidance Training (KAT) with Anya and my
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A date with death
There’s no telling when death might tap you on the shoulder. When your name is called, there are no ifs or buts; as the saying goes, “you can be a king or street sweeper, but everyone dances with the Grim Reaper.” Many of us spend our time avoiding this fact. Others, however, invite it in
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The scientist
It was nearly twenty years ago when retired zoologist John Darby, having spent hours at his computer summarising his data on Antarctic and yellow-eyed penguins one day, wandered the short distance from his home to the Wānaka lakefront. There were the usual waterbirds ̶ mallards, black-billed gulls, scaups, shags ̶ but then he saw
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Recipe: Food for walks
Eliana Gray shares a few trail-tested tramping recipes. We started the Rakiura Coast Track fresh off the morning ferry, by turns elated and nauseous from the late September strait. Beginning the morning wide-legged and wind-whipped on the deck, keeping pace with the gulls and pretending to be old-timey sailors fresh with adventure, we were ready
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Elsie’s Dream
A winning story. This year, the Queenstown Writers Festival team held a mini festival featuring author talks workshops, as well as, for the first time, a writing contest. The Anna-Marie Chin Writing Competition saw writers from Otago and Southland given a range of prompts and 48 hours to write an original response, either fiction or
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The shadow side of inspiration
Fear and self-loathing in the mountains. I’m balanced on a rock, my hand sweating against the granite. There’s a 14-kilo pack on my back, a scramble and a jump ahead of me, and an eye-watering incline beside me. If I slip and fall, I won’t stop falling for some time. Legs aching, two days’ worth