Braving New Zealand’s Old Ghost Road
One of New Zealand’s newest dual-use tramping and mountain bike trails, the 85km-long Old Ghost Road is also one of the most spectacular.
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Author: pdg
Getting high in Northland: A peak-bagger’s guide to the North’s 10 highest mountains
How to climb Northland’s highest peaks — well, some of them anyway — and where to find them.
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Far from home: The Czechs of Romania’s Banat Mountains
How a familiar tune in a remote corner of the Balkans led a hiker to rediscover a long-lost ethnic minority.
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Paparoa Track: NZ’s newest Great Walk
A practical guide to Aotearoa’s 10th Great Walk and the tragic story behind it.
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Walking the Queen Charlotte Track (the easy way)
The 70km Queen Charlotte Track offers fabulous views — and plenty of options for walking in comfort — where land meets sea in the Marlborough Sounds.
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Top news photos of 2020
A global pandemic, iwi-led Covid checkpoints, Waitangi Day festivities, politics, record-breaking rainfall, floods and fires — 2020 had it all.
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Armenia in pictures
An ancient land sprinkled with 1000-year-old stone churches, Armenia is sliding back to war with its neighbour Azerbaijan over a disputed territory.
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Laos in pictures
Laos doesn’t have the big tourism drawcards of its better-known neighbours — but that’s all the more reason to visit this slow-paced, smile-filled land.
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Azerbaijan in pictures
Unspoiled mountain villages where time stands still and mind-boggling environmental devastation left by the oil industry — you’ll find both in exotic, welcoming Azerbaijan.
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Is this the world’s most bizarre place for a castle?
It has everything you’d ever want in a medieval castle. There’s only one problem: It’s in the middle of a giant steel mill.
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Georgia in pictures
Straddling cultural and geographic boundaries between Europe and Asia, Georgia is one of the most fascinating — and scenically diverse — countries on Earth.
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Former Yugoslavia in pictures
Images of the dizzyingly diverse former Yugoslav republics of Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.
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Tonga in pictures
Unspoiled beaches, decrepit ferries, spontaneous schoolkids and a slow-paced way of life in one of the world’s last absolute monarchies.
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Cares Gorge: Is this Spain’s best one-day walk?
The Cares Trail clings to the side of a 1.5km-deep gorge in the Picos de Europa mountains of northern Spain.
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Spain and Portugal in pictures
A wonder of modern architecture, a spectacular mountain range, one of Europe’s deepest canyons, and the charming city that gave port wine – and a country – its name.
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Iran in pictures
Former US President George W Bush called it part of “the Axis of Evil”. I call it one of the most fascinating and welcoming places I’ve been.
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Turkey in pictures
A snow-bound palace, a ruined city, welcoming locals, a shipwreck and a fabled mountain — those are just a few of the things I photographed in Turkey in 2004.
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Remembering Syria: Photos before and after the war
In 1995 I spent three unforgettable weeks in Syria. Now, after almost 10 years of civil war, many of the places I visited are no more.
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Takahē and naked trampers on the Heaphy Track
The author encounters takahē, kleptomaniac weka and naked trampers on New Zealand’s longest Great Walk.
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The Pacific’s forgotten slave trade
It’s Australia’s shameful secret: A human trade in which tens of thousands of Pacific Islanders were kidnapped as labour for Queensland’s sugar plantations. Their descendants’ calls for an apology have so far fallen on deaf ears.
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