April 2014 Archives

Hokitika – Pounamu, NZ Jade

Hokitika – Pounamu, NZ Jade

This video takes you into the heart of Hokitika on the West Coast of New Zealand, the birthplace of Pounamu, New Zealand jade. Pounamu was prized for its strength,…

Aussies Shocked at Star Kiwi Omissions

Aussies Shocked at Star Kiwi Omissions

Australian eyebrows are being raised quizzically at the Kiwi league team announced to face the Kangaroos in the annual Anzac Day test match this Friday. With an injury list as long as a video…

Hillary and Tenzing: Friendship at the Roof of the World

Hillary and Tenzing: Friendship at the Roof of the World

Everest conquerors Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed the world’s highest mountain together and ascended its peak “almost together”. Yet the controversy surrounding which of the climbers took the first step on to the…

White Lies | Tuakiri Huna – Theatrical Trailer

White Lies | Tuakiri Huna – Theatrical Trailer

Take a look at this feature film, which follows M?ori medicine woman Paraiti who meets a M?ori servant and is drawn into helping a wealthy P?keh? woman with a…

Ko’s Classic Swing Wins Skirts in San Fran

Ko’s Classic Swing Wins Skirts in San Fran

Kiwi golf prodigy Lydia Ko has earned her biggest prize purse of her short professional career when she took out the Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic in San Francisco at the weekend. The 17-year-old displayed…

Lorde Gives Foo-Fighter Dave Grohl Hope for Music

Lorde Gives Foo-Fighter Dave Grohl Hope for Music

Music legend Dave Grohl, founder of the Foo Fighters and member of Nirvana, has told Rolling Stone magazine that Lorde gives him hope for the future of music. Dismissing most music on the radio…

New Zealand’s Heaphy Track Open for Cyclists

New Zealand’s Heaphy Track Open for Cyclists

New Zealand’s Heaphy Track, the longest of the country’s nine famed Great Walks, is now permanently open to cyclists during winter. In a decision almost 15 years in the making, New…

Ginny Blackmore & Stan Walker – Holding You

Ginny Blackmore & Stan Walker – Holding You

Listen to two of your favourite New Zealand’s artists, Ginny Blackmore and Stan Walker as they team up and sing their debut single ‘Holding You’. The ballad was co-written…

Posse Founder Declares Business Barriers Imaginary

Posse Founder Declares Business Barriers Imaginary

Music industry entrepreneur and founder of social search engine Posse.com Wellingtonian Rebekah Campbell draws from her childhood to discuss how barriers to success are imaginary in a recent blog posting. “As a 13-year-old…

Telling the Story of People Connected to the Land

Telling the Story of People Connected to the Land

While taking in the sights of New Zealand’s “Maori heartland” Rotorua, the Toronto Sun’s Ian Robertson stops in at Te Puia: New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute in the Whakarewarewa Geothermal…

Short Western to Screen in Cannes

Short Western to Screen in Cannes

A 15-minute film by Aucklanders Luke Thornborough and Lisa Fothergill, called Jess, will screen at Cannes International Film Festival in the Short Film Corner of the event, in May. Its makers are trying…

Burn up the Road Premieres on Billboard

Burn up the Road Premieres on Billboard

Liam Finn’s new album The Nihilist navigates “through deliciously chilly soundscapes that oscillate tantalizingly into the warmth of big semi-processed drumbeats and his fuzzy guitars,” Jessica Letkemann writes for Billboard.com. “But while the New Zealander…

World’s First Jetpack Prepares for Commercial Sales

World’s First Jetpack Prepares for Commercial Sales

A New Zealand-based company is now close to making the jetpack only seen in science fiction movies a reality as the Civil Aviation Authority in the country has approved test…

Blind Gate Episode 1: Checking Each Other Out at Check-In

Blind Gate Episode 1: Checking Each Other Out at Check-In

Air New Zealand presents Blind Gate, the world’s first Valentine day dating show filmed live at London Heathrow airport. The show consists of 12 singletons are looking for love…

Prince George’s Photo Estimated at a Billion View

Prince George’s Photo Estimated at a Billion View

New Zealander Simon Woolf may have just taken most popular photograph of the royals in New Zealand ever, having snapped the infamous photo of a smiling George cuddling up to his mother at Plunket on…

New York Dogs Make Good Subjects

New York Dogs Make Good Subjects

New Zealand photographer Rachael Hale McKenna is using her creativity to help dogs and cats living in New York’s shelters, with a new book The New York Dog, which is filled with pictures of…

Saville and De Lautour Star in Only in HelLA

Saville and De Lautour Star in Only in HelLA

Hit American web series Only in HelLA’s most recent episode, “LA Coffee Shops”, which captured moments in a Los Angeles café, featured New Zealand actors Fleur Saville and David de Lautour. Ironically, the setting…

Americans Thirsty for NZ Wine Investments

Americans Thirsty for NZ Wine Investments

Wine lovers in the United States are drinking more New Zealand wines than ever, with double-digit annual percentage increases in the value of imports for the past five straight years, lifestyle magazine Wine Spectator…

Kate and Prince William Visit Auckland on New Zealand Tour

Kate and Prince William Visit Auckland on New Zealand Tour

Watch the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on their first trip to New Zealand, visiting the large crowds of kiwis braving the rain at the waterfront in Auckland city….

Descending Deep into Waitomo’s Lost Cave

Descending Deep into Waitomo’s Lost Cave

“Hidden among exotic woodland and guarded only by sheep, Lost World cave entrance is a narrow crack in the earth,” writes Ben Hazell for the Telegraph. “Beneath lies an underground gorge pierced open…

Lynskey Honoured for Early Mastery of Her Craft

Lynskey Honoured for Early Mastery of Her Craft

New Zealand actress Melanie Lynskey has earned herself an Emerging Master award from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) School of Filmmaking in Winston-Salem, one of the major events of the…

Conductor Gives It All for Canadian Music Director Role

Conductor Gives It All for Canadian Music Director Role

New York-based conductor New Zealander Gemma New, 27, makes her debut conducting Canada’s Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra on 26 April, her “one and only shot” for the position of HPO music director, according to Leonard…

GoPro: Kayak New Zealand

GoPro: Kayak New Zealand

Join the adventure in beautiful New Zealand as Ben Brown and Rush Sturges attempt to tackle daring but picturesque rivers. Pushing their limits to conquer some of the most…

Hammond Features in Pictures of the Year Exhibit

Hammond Features in Pictures of the Year Exhibit

New Zealand-born freelance photographer Robin Hammond is one of 49 photographers featuring in The Newseum’s highly anticipated Pictures of the Year exhibition, which runs through 1 September in Washington DC. Hammond…

Auckland’s Savvy Good Life Rivals San Francisco

Auckland’s Savvy Good Life Rivals San Francisco

Auckland offers much more than a gateway to this safe, friendly and super-scenic country, writes the National’s Kipat Wilson. “Straddling an isthmus two kilometres wide on North Island, it enjoys a warm climate, superb…

Vision West a Pioneering New Housing Project

Vision West a Pioneering New Housing Project

Strachan Group Architects in Auckland is one of four innovative companies “from London to Tokyo” to feature in a Monocle special on social housing projects, with developments “showing how good design and…

China Tilapia Supplier Expanding His Farms

China Tilapia Supplier Expanding His Farms

“New Zealander Jason Carter always knew he was an entrepreneur at heart, but running a fully vertically integrated tilapia business in China was not exactly what he planned on when he travelled…

Michelin-Star Restaurant Making It with Kickstarter

Michelin-Star Restaurant Making It with Kickstarter

New Zealand chef Matt Lambert is earning plenty of buzz for his inventive cuisine at his New York restaurant The Musket Room, but the story of how it got started is equally…

Feeding Frenzy at Marlborough’s Lochmara Lodge

Feeding Frenzy at Marlborough’s Lochmara Lodge

On a day excursion to Lochmara Lodge Wildlife Recovery and Arts Centre in Queen Charlotte Sound, as part of a Marlborough wine-tasting trip, the Courier Mail’s Angela Saurine encounters kunekune pigs, yellow-crowned kakariki parakeets…

Cooking up a Supervillain in TV Series Arrow

Cooking up a Supervillain in TV Series Arrow

New Zealand-born actor Manu Bennett, 44, has become an overnight sensation starring as Slade Wilson – and his DC Comics’ alter ego Deathstroke – in recently renewed superhero series Arrow. Bennett, who played the Gallic…

Easter in Paihia!

Easter in Paihia!

Hop to the music and have the best holidays this Easter! The bunnies from the Alfresco’s crew in Paihia wish you a Happy Easter as they sing the 50’s…

Operatic Trio Performs Exclusively Live for the Telegraph

Operatic Trio Performs Exclusively Live for the Telegraph

In an exclusive live session for Britain’s Telegraph, New Zealand operatic trio Sol3 Mio performed their hit Yellow Bird from their self-titled debut album. The song was recorded in London, and was the best-selling album…

Artist Transforms Car Wrecks into Giant Kangaroo

Artist Transforms Car Wrecks into Giant Kangaroo

New Zealand artist Michel Tuffery is building a 4.5m high sculpture of a kangaroo from car body parts as part of a community project with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. In…

On a Whirlwind of Promotion in the UK

On a Whirlwind of Promotion in the UK

Author Eleanor Catton, who is currently on a book tour in the UK, tells the Scotsman that when she won the Man Booker prize last October with The Luminaries, fellow winner, Life of Pi…

Modern Maori Quartet – War Medley

Modern Maori Quartet – War Medley

Let your feet tap and your hips sway to the voices of the Modern Maori Quartet singing on New Zealand’s morning programme, Good Morning. The Modern Maori Quartet is…

Business Is Booming in Made-to-Measure

Business Is Booming in Made-to-Measure

When Kate Middleton first started stepping out in New Zealander Emilia Wickstead’s ladylike pastel concoctions, it’s fair to say that most of the fashion world’s reaction was: “Emilia … who?” the National’s Libby Banks…

Downhill MTB in New Zealand with Brook MacDonald – Part 3

Downhill MTB in New Zealand with Brook MacDonald – Part 3

Take a look at part 3 of 3 videos about Brook Macdonald and his amazing downhill mountain biking experience in New Zealand. Brook MacDonald is one of New Zealand’s…

Golf needs people like Tiger, says Campbell

Golf needs people like Tiger, says Campbell

Former US Open champion New Zealander Michael Campbell, 45, who famously defeated Tiger Woods by two strokes to win the 2005 US Open, is co-hosting four studio review shows with FOX Sports in Singapore…

Ten Foot Tall and Bullet Proof: The Dream Behind Loveblock Wine

Ten Foot Tall and Bullet Proof: The Dream Behind Loveblock Wine

There’s no reason why Erica and Kim Crawford had to do Loveblock. Having already found huge success with their eponymous Kim Crawford label – America’s top-selling wine from New Zealand – they could have…

Dreamliner Flying in the Face of Convention

Dreamliner Flying in the Face of Convention

16 April 2014 – The newly painted, and “stunning”, black Air New Zealand 787-9 is literally flying in the face of convention, according to Los Angeles Times travel editor Catharine Hamm. “The Dreamliner,…

Innovative Auckland Food Businesses Meet the Criteria

Innovative Auckland Food Businesses Meet the Criteria

Auckland’s Hip Group and Farro Fresh feature in Monocle’s first ever  “Retail Survey – Top 25” with the former taking the No 11 spot as “Best local bistro chain” and Farro No 16, as…

Nirvana Collaboration Masterful Stroke of Musicianship

Nirvana Collaboration Masterful Stroke of Musicianship

Lorde, who performed Nirvana’s All Apologies at the band’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, may not have seemed like an immediate choice for the evening, but then Ella Yelich-O’Connor is not your…

Instant Kiwi Attitude

Instant Kiwi Attitude

Watch what happens between some fishermen trying to catch fish and one man who has the Instant Kiwi Attitude. Have you got it?

Year of the Kiwi: A New Zealand Working Holiday

Year of the Kiwi: A New Zealand Working Holiday

Take a journey through New Zealand and the wonderful experience of one young man who goes on a working holiday down to Middle Earth. “This video is dedicated to…

Darby’s Sexy Leg Confuses Variety

Darby’s Sexy Leg Confuses Variety

Rhys Darby’s new eight-episode mockumentary Short Poppies is being praised for its “whimsical and winsome” charms ahead of its debut on American screens on Netflix. The LA Times’ Robert Lloyd describes the series as…

Kiwi Powers Oxford to Biggest Victory in 40 Years

Kiwi Powers Oxford to Biggest Victory in 40 Years

One of Southland’s finest, world champion and Olympic medallist Storm Uru, has played a critical role in continuing Oxford University’s domination of Cambridge University in their hotly contested annual boat race this month. Oxford…

Novel Inspired by a Real Woman’s Escape

Novel Inspired by a Real Woman’s Escape

New Zealand author Dixie Carlton’s first novel Margaret – A Song out of Time was inspired by a real woman Carlton first met as Elsie Margaret May McKenzie. She was then in her mid-70s…

Hargreaves Is Still Playing with His Food

Hargreaves Is Still Playing with His Food

14 April 2014 – New Zealand-born photographer Henry Hargreaves’ images of “deep fried gadgets (yep, iPhones in batter), bacon alphabet and rainbow-coloured food” are “marvelled” over in the Skinny this month. “Jelly becomes a series…

People Come and Go but Te Wahipounamu Endures

People Come and Go but Te Wahipounamu Endures

“Te Wahipounamu, the place of jade. Since 1990 this southwestern edge of New Zealand has enjoyed World Heritage recognition for its four national parks and interconnecting tracts of conservation land,” Kennedy Warne writes for…

Indie Star Moves Cross Country to LA

Indie Star Moves Cross Country to LA

Musician (and occasional actor) New Zealand-born Dean Wareham moved to Los Angeles last year after nearly a quarter-century in New York. Wareham, a permanent fixture in the indie rock scene, “informed a generation of…

Air New Zealand Presents: A Little Piece of Home

Air New Zealand Presents: A Little Piece of Home

Every Kiwi misses home once in a while. So Air New Zealand helps bring back a little piece of home to 700 homesick kiwis in Perth and one lucky…

Famed US Business Thinker Lauds NZ Anchor Company

Famed US Business Thinker Lauds NZ Anchor Company

Fourth generation family sea anchor business WA Coppins, a Port of Nelson-based company, has made a big splash with one of the world’s most influential business thinkers, American author Tom Peters. Peters, author…

New Zealand’s Meteorites a Worthy Subject

New Zealand’s Meteorites a Worthy Subject

Fine art photographer Casey Moore travels the world documenting meteorites using his large-format Sinar camera, with much of his work centring around reconnecting with New Zealand, his country of origin. In the course of his…

Twigg Sets Season Benchmark Beating World Champ

Twigg Sets Season Benchmark Beating World Champ

Upset by fast-finishing New Zealand rival Emma Twigg in a thrilling Sydney International Rowing Regatta final, sculling world champion England’s Kim Crow says she’ll become a smarter tactician. Crow looked set to cruise to her…

Peter Jackson & The Hobbit cast on There & Back Again

Peter Jackson & The Hobbit cast on There & Back Again

Peter Jackson and the Hobbit cast from Desolation Of Smaug tell us what they’re most excited about seeing in There & Back Again, also known as the The Hobbit…

Royal Visit Shines Global Light on Maori Traditions

Royal Visit Shines Global Light on Maori Traditions

News outlets worldwide have lately been splashing a bare bottom on their front pages – but it’s not what you think. Upon their arrival to New Zealand the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge received…