How to ride New Zealand’s Timber Trail without blowing your budget — or busting a gut
Ancient podocarp forest, soaring suspension bridges and oodles of history make the Timber Trail one of New Zealand’s best cycling experiences.
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Author: pdg
‘We can hear ourselves think again’: Stillness descends on Mangamuka as highway closes for the second time in two years
Two years ago a massive slip wiped out a highway and turned Mangamuka into a ghost town. Now it’s happened again.
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“We were starving”: How my aunties saved their family from famine
In the Hunger Winter of 1944-45 Dutch families faced a terrible choice: Risk starving to death or walk hundreds of kilometres in sub-zero temperatures to find food.
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Jordan in pictures
Proud desert dwellers, extraordinary hospitality, and the ancient, rock-hewn city of Petra: Just three of the reasons you need to visit Jordan.
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Auckland’s island escape: Great Barrier’s Aotea Track
The island boasts spectacular beaches, hot springs, raucous birdlife and lush forest — and it’s just half an hour from Auckland by plane.
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Fiordland’s Hollyford Valley: A walk back in time
Where experiencing one of New Zealand’s wildest places doesn’t mean you have to go without fine food and lodgings.
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The Hunger Diary: My father and the Dutch famine
A chance discovery sheds light on the last famine in Western Europe: The Hunger Winter of 1944-45.
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Ukraine revisited: Invasion rekindles memories of long-ago trip
Towering monuments, vibrant cities, and a national identity which has somehow survived Soviet oppression and a turbulent history — those are a few of my memories from a trip to Ukraine long before the Russian invasion.
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The Bone Church of Kutná Hora: Final resting place of 40,000 people or macabre tourist attraction?
The monks of Sedlec Abbey, in what is now the Czech Republic, turned a problem into a morbid masterpiece.
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Egypt in pictures
Best known for its ancient wonders, Egypt also boasts biblical sites, superb snorkelling, stoner hangouts, trips down the Nile on traditional sailing boats, and — best of all — sleepy oases of date palms and mud brick homes deep in the desert.
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Portmeirion of the south: How the most remarkable village in Wales was almost built in New Zealand
Village’s creator had a “serious flirtation” with an island in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf before choosing a bay near his home in Wales instead.
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Being Dutch: What my heritage means to me
What does it mean to be a New Zealander of Dutch descent? And what if the country of my ancestors decides I no longer belong?
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Cambodia in pictures
More than 900 years after it was built Angkor Wat is still the world’s biggest religious monument — but this resilient, vibrant country offers much more than temples.
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Albania in pictures
Destroyed factories, looted manhole covers, stunning scenery and staggering generosity: That was Albania in 1999.
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Czechostalgia: A photographic ramble through 1990s Bohemia
Snow-covered landscapes, peeling plasterwork and views from my window: A sentimental selection of photos from Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic in the early 1990s.
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Project Island Song: Return of the giants
An ambitious ecological restoration project aims to return a small corner of New Zealand to the way it was before humans arrived.
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Ani: City of Ghosts
One of the great cities of the medieval world, Ani is today a city of ghosts marooned between bitter enemies Turkey and Armenia.
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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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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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