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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New Zealand
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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Waitangi Day in pictures
A selection of my favourite images from Waitangi Day, the anniversary of the signing of New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi, taken since 2010.
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Best photos of 2018
From a new Prime Minister’s visit to a tearful whale stranding and a mass haka in the rain, these are a few of my favourite news photos of 2018.
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Brother’s bones home at last
In 1976 Paul Thomas promised his mother he would bring his brother’s remains home. In 2018 he finally succeeded.
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The far-reaching wake of the waka
What makes a group of Dutch students so passionate about Māori culture that they travel halfway around the world each year to take part in Waitangi Day festivities?
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The highwaymen of Hokianga
Once a year the Wild West saddles up and rides into Waimamaku for a day of highway robbery.
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Godson to the Queen
The fascinating and little-known tale of how Queen Victoria came to have a Māori godson.
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Hundertwasser in Holland: ‘Your loss is our gain’
How a ‘New Zealand monument’ designed by eccentric Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser ended up being built in Holland instead.
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Te Paki: New Zealand’s top hike
Could the Te Paki Coastal Track around New Zealand’s northern tip qualify as a Great Walk? I decided to brave the mosquitoes to find out.
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Against the odds: Surviving the Burma railroad
Seventy-five years after being conscripted into the Dutch East Army during World War II, a Northland man’s service – and his ordeal on the notorious Burma railroad – has finally been recognised.
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Peace at last for shipwreck’s ‘hungry ghosts’
A Northland woman’s quest to discover the truth behind a century-year-old maritime tragedy has brought two peoples together – and brought peace to hundreds of “hungry ghosts”.
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Where the sun rises
Travelling around East Cape in search of the easternmost pub in New Zealand – by bicycle.
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An everlasting link
A traditional carved canoe has created a new bond between New Zealand and the Netherlands, two seafaring nations with a shared history going back almost 400 years.
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In a corner of a foreign field
The author stumbles on something strangely familiar in an obscure corner of the former Soviet Union.
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Journey to the end of the map
I’ve never been able to resist places at the end of the map. Show me a dead-end road, a peninsula or a cape, and I’ll show you somewhere alluring and mysterious.
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Following in Sir Ed’s footsteps
When inclement weather stopped the great Sir Edmund Hillary training for Everest on the peaks of Snowdonia National Park, he’d practice on a stack of chairs in a Welsh pub instead.
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