The bird with a big mouth. The bird who leads the flock. The bird who announces the day. The bird who sounds the alarm. The dark bird. The rare bird. The noble, silly, insomniac parrot we’re going to ...

In 2024, Naomi Arnold slogged her way up Te Araroa, walking from Bluff to Cape Reinga over about nine months. Here, 100 kilometres into her odyssey and deeply unsure about her capacity to finish it, ...

The difference between exploring and being lost is the ability to return home. Te Rā tells the story of Māori voyaging and weaving technology, and has finally returned home—for now. It’s a cold winter ...

In 1986, when Suzanne Heywood was 16, her father drove her to a tiny bach on the shore of Lake Rotoiti and left her there. She was to care for her younger brother while their parents took paying ...

In February, Nelson photographer Virginia Woolf drove to Aoraki/Mount Cook to document glacier loss, as part of her climate change photography project Final Meltdown. But she was worried sick as she ...

Robin Morrison reset New Zealand’s view of itself with his 1981 photography book The South Island of New Zealand—From the Road. The print run of 2000 quickly sold out, and it won the New Zealand Book ...

“As soon as we die, we enter into fiction,” said the late English writer Dame Hilary Mantel. “Once we can no longer speak for ourselves, we are interpreted.” In the case of transported ...

In 1980s New Zealand, fashion was flamboyant and confident—all power suits and Lycra—our cricket test side were on form, and local music had dropped into a golden groove. But economically, things were ...

Where do young sea creatures spend their first weeks? What’s at the root of oceanic food chains? Kelp forests are to Aotearoa what coral reefs are to other marine ecosystems. Or they used to be. South ...

Lightweight, inflatable boats are changing backcountry travel. Easier to paddle than a whitewater kayak, and more forgiving of mistakes, packrafts are opening up river sports to a wider audience.

It’s one of New Zealand’s most important wetland habitats, and it’s also one of our most polluted lakes. Restoring it to its former abundance of birds and fish will take generations, but it’s possible ...

Out there in forest reserves, down remote back roads and tucked away in corners of small towns hide giant tōtara, mataī and rimu. A tiny group of obsessive people, guided by old records and ...