At 3000 feet, cruising at 130 knots in calm conditions and with clear blue skies, you are in a different world to the one you left on the ground. You are away from all of the nasty things that happen at ground level, and down below everything is neat, ordered and in its place. The [...]
A glorious early spring morning and I’ve got the nose of the Blue Streak (my Nissan Pathfinder) heading up the Waitaki Valley and into the Lindis Pass. This is one of my favourite drives. The Waitaki Valley with its three interlocking lakes, burgeoning vineyards, dairy and sheep farms all hemmed in with snow-capped mountains, is [...]
Ned Slattery, ‘The Shiner’, was a swagman who marched the roads lesser travelled in Otago and Southland in the closing years of the 19th century. Allan Dick follows in his footsteps along one of those roads less travelled. If you look at a map of the South Island and contemplate it, you become aware that [...]
I was, I suppose, the token Sheila. A woman among men. Many men, as it happened. We assembled at Christchurch’s Sudima Hotel for the early morning briefing. When I say early morning, I mean somewhere between breakfast and morning tea. Along with the proffered indemnity sheet to sign and information about the defibrillator and other [...]
It was sometime in mid-1954 when our parents announced to the assembled Dickettes – brother Colin, sister Janice and myself, ‘we’re shifting to Brighton, we’ve bought that shop out there’. At that time there were five shops at Brighton, but I knew exactly what shop they were talking about. Since moving to Dunedin from Auckland [...]
The ‘H’ word used to strike terror in my heart. They were horrific things to be avoided at all costs. Now I find them exhilarating … as long as they are not too narrow, boulder-strewn, or on the edge of a precipice. Hills are of no consequence to an e-biker, a mere blip on the [...]
My refusal to use satnav is well known. My friends think I’m crazy, but I think they are the ones missing out. A traveller flies into Christchurch, picks up a campervan or rental car, dials ‘Queenstown’ into the satnav and sets off, ignoring road signs, the view, the towns and villages along the way – [...]
The Otago Central Rail Trail (OCRT) is the cycle trail model that the Government sought to build on as an ideal example of job and business creation. In 2009, PM and Minister of Tourism John Key, called a job summit in order to seek new areas of growth as New Zealand sank into the mire [...]
Apart from meeting Mayor Dave Cull, staying at The Chapel and discovering Mazagran and its excellent coffee and customers, what else did I do in Dunedin? Because I had written about the Peninsula six months earlier, I largely kept away this time, although I did go down the other side of the harbour to [...]
Before I get started, let me make a disclosure about Dunedin. I love the place. Dunedin is the best city in New Zealand. It has natural beauty and wildlife in abundance, it has a sensational location, it has an overwhelming sense of occasion and history, the finest historic architecture in New Zealand and a [...]