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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Author: pdg
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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Best photos of 2019
For once picking my favourite photo of the year was easy.
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The Te Araroa Project
What drives more than 1000 people a year to walk the length of New Zealand? I decided to find out.
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The Girl Fair: Matchmaking centuries before Tinder
Long before dating apps Romanian villagers would bring their daughters to a remote mountaintop in the hope of finding love.
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Bagpipes in Bohemia: A festival full of surpises
The world’s biggest bagpipe festival is not in Scotland but in an obscure, post-industrial town in the Czech Republic.
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The Merry Cemetery: Where folk art conquers grief
Anyone who tries to tell you death is no laughing matter clearly hasn’t been to Romania’s Merry Cemetery.
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Is this the world’s strangest parade?
The 500th anniversary of the death of one of history’s most original — and macabre — artists deserves a parade. But an ordinary parade just won’t do.
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Transnistria: How to visit a country that doesn’t exist
A Soviet time warp and unrecognised breakaway state, Transnistria is one of the strangest places in Europe.
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Sir Hekenukumai Puhipi: The bridge builder
Sir Hek Busby spent a lifetime building bridges – over rivers, between peoples, and across the mighty Pacific Ocean.
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Please don’t press that button, Mr Trump
Why I’m hoping against hope the US won’t go to war with Iran.
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The old man and the lake
During the author’s visit to Rwanda locals are amused to see someone so old riding a bicycle.
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One man’s war: A Hokianga soldier remembers
Bill Guest only left North Hokianga once and reckons it was only luck that brought him back alive. The 96-year-old veteran shares some of the horror, and humour, of World War II.
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Kiwi couple’s answer to the housing crisis: A tiny house on a trailer
Rangimārie Mules and Jared Hiakita didn’t want to start their life together shackled to a giant mortgage. Their solution was a tiny house on a trailer.
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Bohemia’s bagpipe festival in pictures
Every two years the International Bagpipe Festival draws pipers from all over Europe — and occasionally from as far away as New Zealand — to a small town in the Czech Republic.
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Walking New Zealand’s Hokianga Coastal Track
Three days of wildly beautiful coastline — and chances are you won’t have to share it with anyone.
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A beastly back rub: Hanging out with the hyenas of Harar
There are times in your life when you ask yourself: How did I get here? For me, one of those times was in a rubbish dump at night in Ethiopia with a 60kg hyena on my back.
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Six things to do in Harar, Ethiopia, that don’t involve hyenas
If you find yourself in Harar, Ethiopia, but you don’t fancy getting a back massage from a hyena: Relax. There’s plenty of other things to do.
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Why you should visit Europe’s least touristy country
A lively capital, an ancient cave monastery, the world’s biggest wine cellars and a Soviet time warp await visitors to Europe’s least touristy country.
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Stairway to heaven
In the bush west of Kerikeri, a small town in northern New Zealand, a Korean spiritual leader says he is building a global headquarters for an organisation of 100 million members.
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