Most beautiful of all
Fiordland’s Routeburn and Greenstone Tracks, combined at 7km and both within the World Heritage-listed area of Te Wahipounamu in south-west New Zealand, make for “what might be the most beautiful walk in the world’s…
Tag Archives: Sydney Morning Herald (The)
Backcountry Best
“New Zealand offers some of the best, and most extreme, heli-skiing on the planet”, according to The Sydney Morning Herald’s Craig Tansley who surveys New Zealand’s world-class fields. “There are over 400 runs to choose from…
Ahead of the Best
Taupo-born Olympic triathlete Bevan Docherty, 33, has won the opening race of the ITU Dextro Energy World Champs Series in Sydney. Docherty, a two-time Olympic medallist, pulled away from the chase pack halfway through…
Not Humpty Dumpty
Should the New Zealand-bred champion horse Phar Lap be “put back together again” asks The Sydney Morning Herald. Victorian Racing Minister Rob Hulls is seeking to “re-unify” the skeleton (from Wellington) and the heart (now…
Final Season Strength
Warriors prop Steve Price, 36, has announced he will retire at the end of the season. His battle-weary legs may have forced his hand, but it is a simple message inscribed on his wrist…
Division Debate
“There has always been sense in New Zealand and Australia being one country,” writes the Anthony Mason Professor of Law at the University of NSW George Williams in an opinion piece called, ‘A nation…
Best Northern Beaches
The North Island’s top beaches are named by The Sydney Morning Herald’s Bruce Elder, who writes that those suggested are so good that no trip to New Zealand would be complete without visiting them….
Developing football
Wellington property developer Terry Serepisos, “who decided three years ago to save professional football in New Zealand, is the talk of his home town” writes The Sydney Morning Herald’s Michael Cockerill. “Wellington Phoenix are…
Sculptured Meaning
At Timaru’s Phar Lap Raceway, a bronze statue of the famed Big Red and his regular jockey, Jim Pike takes pride of place. Today, the South Island city is making full use of the…
Unique Fine Dining
Pipis, paua, tuatua, feijoas, kumara, cervena, puha and horipito are just some of the unfamiliar items found on the menu in New Zealand restaurants, Winsor Dobbins of The Sydney Morning Herald discovers….
Phoenix Survive Playoff
With Phoenix goal keeper Liam Reddy fending off an attack by Perth in a penalty shootout in front of a record crowd of 25,000 at the Cake Tin, the Wellington team prevailed 4-2 to…
Gusty But Gourmet
“With more than 300 bars, restaurants and cafes in the city alone, Wellington is certainly not short of options,” recommends Winsor Dobbin for The Sydney Morning Herald. Dobbin explores the best dining…
Barclay a big presence
Auckland actress Emily Barclay, 25, “is in no danger of not being cast” and “right now is one of the hottest new talents in the business — on stage and on screen”, writes The…
Top of the World
Air New Zealand has been named Airline of the Year, with judges of the Air Transport World magazine awards, “amazed and surprised at the degree of innovation that was occurring at a remote relatively…
In Father’s Strokes
New Zealand adventurer Shaun Quincey, 25, hopes to follow his father Colin Quincey into the history books by becoming the second person to row solo the 2200km from Australia to New Zealand. His father…
Knighthood for Jackson
Director Peter Jackson was among five New Zealanders to become knights or dames after a return to New Year’s honours. Former Prime Minister Helen Clark — who axed British honours while in office —…
Home to Rest
Wallabies coach Robbie Deans heads home to Christchurch for some jet boating and a family catch-up having been at the helm of the Australian team for two seasons. Deans and the Wallabies flew out…
Walker the Idol
New Zealand-raised eighteen-year-old Stan Walker has been crowned Australian Idol winning a AU$200,000 artist’s development fund and a recording contract with Sony. Described as a soul singer, Walker, who is a shop assistant in…
If it Ain’t Broken
New Zealand has been named by travel gurus The Lonely Planet as one of the ten top countries to visit in 2010. The travel bible named New Zealand on the basis of the adage…
Blumsky’s selling point
Former Wellington mayor, shoe salesman and business mentor Mark Blumsky has written a book promoting the secrets to success for small business owners: differentiation and attitude. Slippers: Service and Selling begins with an allegory…
Same but Different
On the eve of talks between Australian and New Zealand cabinets in Sydney last week, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Andrew Tink looks back to 1840 – when New Zealand was briefly a dependency of…
NZ Wine a Popular Drop
New Zealand wine is becoming increasingly popular for Australian drinkers with exports across the Tasman up by 31 per cent to $323 million in the 2008/09 financial year, according to the New Zealand Winegrowers…
Afghan Warrior Signs Up
Seventeen-year-old Afghan refugee Omar Slaimankhel has signed a two-year contract with the Vodafone Warriors and “after surviving the kind of dangers his family has endured, playing rugby league must seem like a stroll in…
No thanks to Sir
Actor Sam Neill has turned down a knighthood saying the title was “just far too grand”. His views were echoed by other well-known New Zealanders, including Maori activist and author Ranginui Walker, who said…
Sauvignon Surplus
The New Zealand wine industry is primed to suffer from a surfeit of Sauvignon Blanc in the coming years, as wine production expands exponentially and prices drop. Sauvignon Blanc, which makes up 80 percent…
Flirtatious Fins
Kaikoura’s Dolphin Encounter marketing manager Jo Thompson says the acrobatic and sociable dusky dolphin is the “big tart of the dolphin world” and “unique for travelling in pods of up to 1000.” The Sydney…
Front row seat for Kirk
Former Fairfax boss and All Black great David Kirk is the newly appointed executive chairman of the Pacific Equity Partners-owned Hoyts cinema group. The move, which will also see Kirk invest his own money…
Lover of Words Passes
Respected literary scholar and Professor Terry Sturm, who played a leading role in placing New Zealand literature at the centre of the academic curriculum and was awarded a CBE in recognition of his services…
Sports Refugee Remembered
Wanganui-born journalist Jock Veitch who as a student at Wanganui Collegiate was regarded as a slacker and told there was nothing wrong with him that a game of rugger or cricket couldn’t fix, has…
Return to the Overlooked
Now Sydney-based, New Zealand photographer Rebecca Wiig, 27, has documented the city’s RSL clubs for an exhibition of 26 photographs called ‘If These Walls Could Talk’ held at Darlinghurst’s Tap Gallery. She began shooting…
Built to Sway
21 February 2009 – “Wellington, full of steep and newly formed hills held together by grass, gorse bushes and stunted ngaio trees … shares with its better-known counterpart San Francisco an engaging characteristic: it’s…
Tomcat Temptations
Auckland chocolatier Hanna Frederick, a former food scientist, has injected a male aphrodisiac into her chocolate treats for Valentine’s Day. Frederick, who made headlines by feeding beer-flavoured chocolate to brewers and deer antler chocolate…
Enchantment for sharing
Children’s writer Margaret Mahy, recipient of the Carnegie Medal for Children’s Literature, the Hans Christian Andersen Medal and a host of other awards, says the shared experience of a parent reading to a child…
Seven and Rising
Auckland model Zippora Seven, 17, who has been lauded as the fashion industry’s new Kate Moss, is the new face of Swedish clothing label H&M’s spring/summer 2009 campaign. A topless shoot of the teenager…
Better off before
New Zealand historian David Thomson was one of the first people to write about the “phenomenon” of the “lucky generation” born during the period from the late 1920s through the 1930s according to The…
Out on a Win
Champion Taranaki jockey Greg Childs, 46, is retiring from a 30-year career which began in New Zealand in the 1970s as an apprentice and ended with a win in the Bounty Hawk Handicap on…
In vogue in Sydney
18 December 2008 – Auckland songstress Gin Wigmore, 22, has been named one of ten best up-and-coming musical acts in the Metro section of The Sydney Morning Herald. Wigmore is fairly confident she’s the…
Walking the Wet
Fiordland’s Hollyford Track “lacks the traffic of Milford Sound” according to The Sydney Morning Herald’s Jenny Tabakoff who tramps the Valley in a guided tour on a particularly damp three days. Delivered by…
Through Cloud and Snow
From Wellington Railway Station – “a symphony of towering columns, vaulted ceilings and marble terrazzo floors” – travelling by train north up the west coast “the track squeezes between wild, rocky shoreline and precipitous…
One Beloved Phantom
Much venerated entertainer Rob Guest, 58, who was awarded an OBE for his services to the New Zealand entertainment industry in 1994, has died in Melbourne. Guest had been starring in the musical Wicked….
Tramping Pick N’ Mix
New Zealand’s Department of Conservation has designated nine tramping tracks as “Great Walks”, which include the Tongariro Northern Circuit, the Kepler Track and the ever popular Abel Tasman Coast Track. “Fresh air, exercise and…
Villa Away from Chateau
Auckland entrepreneur Nick Wood sold internet service provider Ihug in 2003 to Perth company iiNet for $80 million and set up Distinctive Holiday Homes (DHH), a luxury destination club with property around the world….
Dream with Opera
Auckland five-star boutique hotel Mollies– owned by opera fanatics Frances Wilson and Stephen Fitzgerald– has received a coveted ‘Hideaways of The Year Award’ and is one of Harper’s ‘Longtime Favourite Hideaways…
The Final Lap
Celebrated Taranaki-born swimming coach Duncan Laing – who held a four-decade coaching tenure at Dunedin’s Moana Pools has died – aged 77. Laing is best known for coaching swimming star Danyon Loader to gold in the…
Caged Art Debut
Auckland artist Sharon Finn is illuminating Sydney’s Simmer on the Bay with her first exhibition, ‘The Gilded Cage’, a collection of bejewelled chandeliers and bodiced mannequins, one adorned with antique watchfaces . For the…
Father of Oceania
Soccer administrator Charles Dempsey, life member of both New Zealand football and world football body FIFA, has died, aged 86. Dempsey was instrumental in both the founding of the Oceania Football Confederation in 1964…
Chocolate Carbon Credits
New Zealand graphic designer Giles Barker and his wife, trained chef Vanessa Kettelwell established confectionary company Bloomsberry & Co in 2001 and already they’ve have had their chocolate bars whipped out “from under…
Geometric on the Bay
The 1931 Napier earthquake devastated the Hawkes Bay region, but two years later Napier was rebuilt and an Art Deco masterpiece. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Rebecca Lancashire pays a visit and “wanders the city…
The Highest of Achievers
Colin Murdoch, inventor, pharmacist and self-taught engineer, a man who designed something the world could not do without, has died in Timaru, aged 79. Murdoch led an extraordinary life; creator of the disposable syringe,…
Together at Arms
A new sculpture of a New Zealand digger will be unveiled on the Anzac Bridge in Sydney. The digger will stand guard on the other side of the road, opposite its Australian equivalent, thus…
Sydney Sees Red
Established in 1953, the Royal New Zealand Ballet had humble beginnings, performing nationwide with a company of three and a pianist. Now 32-strong, and with an international reputation to boot, the RNZB…
West Coast Purity
Sydney Morning Herald writer Anthony Dennis travels to the South Island’s West Coast and marvels the glow-worms beneath a “pristine sky … so starry it looks as if it’s been attacked by a…
Hollywood Holidays in Aotearoa
NZ was allegedly the holiday destination of choice for a slew of A-list celebrities over the summer. Bill Gates spent Christmas quad-biking at Ahipara with his son, while actors Jack Nicholson and Charlize Theron reportedly spent time…
Renewing Friendships, Broadening Horizons
Helen Clark was the first foreign leader to meet with Kevin Rudd in his new role as Australian prime minister. The pair met for a casual lunch at Rudd’s Brisbane home, where they discussed climate change ahead…
Age No Barrier
Sir Bob Charles made history at this year’s NZ Open by becoming the oldest man to make the cut on a major non-seniors tour. The 71-year-old New Zealander finished four under par and tied…
NZ Proposes Winter Games
An interim board is developing a proposal to launch the inaugural New Zealand Winter Games in 2009. The aim of the Winter Games is to provide elite winter athletes from Pacific Rim countries with off-season training…
