In the South Island’s remote subalpine regions, a highly terrestrial songbird—one of two surviving species of New Zealand wren—has hopped, chirped and flown in the face of extinction. There are four ...

One of the most superbly located huts in the country, Syme Hut rests on a secondary cone of Mt Taranaki at an elevation of 1950 metres. Syme’s lofty roost gives an other-worldly sense of being high ...

Holding your breath. It’s as simple as that, and as hard. Try it now as you read. Take a quick deep breath… hold… and read on. Right now you are trying to ...

For nearly two centuries, the origins of a Spanish whaler and trader who founded a dynasty on the east coast were a mystery. Manuel Jose’s descendants are New Zealand’s largest family, and have ...

A forest is a place of peace. We go there to soak up the stillness, the quietude. But even the most Zen of gardens is in fact a frenetic trading floor, abuzz with an exchange of commodities and ...

Grebes are an ancient group of diving birds, quite unrelated to ducks and swans. The southern, or Australasian, crested grebe is one of New Zealand’s least known aquatic birds, a secretive but ...

Sew Hoy was a merchant rather than a miner—his Dunedin store imported and exported goods to Australia, China, the United States, and Great Britain—and in the late 1880s, he persuaded other Otago ...

The North Otago rural landscape is characterised by fossil-laden limestone in formations that remain remarkably undisturbed. Geology students are brought here to see textbook examples of sedimentary ...

The last 50 years has seen a focus on cleaning up environmental messes—in policy jargon, mitigating the effects of human activities. This approach has led to the creation worldwide of institutions ...

Here we are—a nation of parents, grandparents and children all in the same boat, together at home. He waka eke noa. Every day of the lock-down we will post a story or video and set of activities that ...

Pumice and ash, scoria and grit-the harsh layers of pulverised volcanic refuse that form Rangipo Dessert east of Mount Ruapehu-may offer little succour to plants, but from such unpromising materials ...

Every two years, the world’s elite freestyle kayakers gather at a chosen river and compete in a championship whitewater rodeo. In 1999, it was New Zealand’s turn to host the event—at the Fulljames ...