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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New Zealand
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 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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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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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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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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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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The life of Brian
Prolific author Brian Parkinson has become a leading authority on New Zealand’s flora and fauna, despite having no formal qualifications,
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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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