Last weekend I was having breakfast with friends who experienced Cyclone Gabrielle in the Hawkes Bay area. As is natural for many conversations in my life, it started out talking about eruptions, then moved on…
Last weekend I was having breakfast with friends who experienced Cyclone Gabrielle in the Hawkes Bay area. As is natural for many conversations in my life, it started out talking about eruptions, then moved on…
When a mystery horse came back from the Punui River in November 1888 without a rider it was taken into Kihikihi where it was identified as that of Sir Willoughby Dixon. He had last been…
Stories have always played a big part in my life. I can remember, when I was younger, lying on the couch listening to my mum read the first four books of the Harry Potter series….
A Welcome Home social at Pirongia for the seventh contingent of men returning from the South African Boer War was an eminently successful one. The public hall had not for many a day contained so…
Last night (as I write this) there was a live burning of a house in Levin aired on Seven Sharp to show the realities of such an event. My household watched the fire quickly grow…
This past week was particularly busy for Te Awamutu police with staff assisting enquiries at Marokopa. The enquiries follow sightings of Tom Phillips who has been missing with his three children. One thing I would…
For 20 years or more, we have been impressed and surprised by the positive economic data that has been coming out of China. Growth has been between 7 and 10 per cent a year over…
Did you know that the rock that makes up the top of Mount Everest is limestone that formed below the ocean? Enormous tectonic forces slowly pushed the rocks upwards to make a mountain range that…
John Gough had been at work in the Poro-O-Tarao tunnel for about half an hour on a Saturday morning at the end of July in 1888 when one of the bricklayers asked him to make…
The logs are crackling and splitting in the wood burner. The door is wide open to draft the flames. My three dogs sleep contentedly while I tidy up the mayhem in the kitchen, caused the…
