Clutha Development
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Big birds: The 1964 guide to the giant extinct penguins of Aotearoa
Most of us think well of penguins. There’s something joyous about their awkward waddling, something heart-warming about their tiny flipper wings, a reminder that these earthbound creatures once knew how to fly. They’ve featured in everything from an Oscar-winning documentary (March of the Penguins, in which Morgan Freeman chronicles the harrowing breeding-and-feeding cycle of Antarctica’s…
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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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The lions of Lawrence
THE ANIMAL ATTIC IN DUNEDIN’S OTAGO MUSEUM IS ONE OF THOSE PLACES THAT IS BOTH MAGICAL AND UNSETTLING AT THE SAME TIME. DATING FROM 1877, IT IS ORGANISED LIKE A VICTORIAN NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM OR THE PRIVATE COLLECTION OF A GENTLEMEN OF MEANS WHO HAD THE INCLINATION TO PURSUE THINGS SCIENTIFIC. IT IS AN ODE…
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The collector
Bruce Mahalski has great bone structure. Bruce Mahalski makes art from bone. A sculptor and mural artist, Bruce is probably best known for running the incredible Dunedin Museum of Natural Mystery (highlights: the mummified housecat and legendary musician Chris Knox’s painting of the 1977 line-up of his legendary band The Enemy), and for being the…
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The terrible catastrophe of 1863
Whitney Thurlow revisits a notorious avalanche. In Avalanche Accidents in Aotearoa, the only scholarly history of avalanches in New Zealand, one event stands out. It was August of 1963, and 50 prospectors were camped at the head of the Serpentine Gully, near Dunstan, when a “very heavy snowfall” hit the Main Divide of the Southern…
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Take a punt
It’s all river crossings and holy hops at Tuapeka Mouth. The Tuapeka Mouth Ferry is a hangover, a legacy of the days when Aotearoa’s rivers were a pain in the arse to cross and the iron needed to build bridges was expensive to import. The ferry is said to be the last of its kind…
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Top of the pit stops
The 1964 guide to our favourite rural, and remote, toilets of the South Island. You may not realise it if you grew up in Aotearoa, but this country does public toilets well. Drive into any small town and you will be greeted by a white-on-blue sign pointing the way jauntily to the loos, conveniently located,…
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Electrifying driftwood
Walking the thin line of sanity in Papatowai at The Lost Gypsy Curios & Coffee. IT’S THE SMALL PLACES THAT HIDE THE UNEXPECTED. YOU DRIVE THROUGH AND WONDER, WHAT HAPPENS HERE? THE TRIP FROM INVERCARGILL TO PAPATOWAI TAKES ALMOST TWO HOURS, AND AS YOU HEAD THROUGH THE CATLINS TO THE SMALL COASTAL SETTLEMENT (FULL TIME…