A gem in the heart of Christchurch is Riccarton Bush (sometimes called Deans Bush). It’s a patch of original kahikatea forest, just a …

A rare plant fossil in the Miocene Manuherikia Group of New Zealand, is Phyllocladus (the Celery Pine). This is a strange conifer which, instead …

Many of the real advances in science seem to come from a sudden ‘insight’ ( think Archimedes and “Eureka!”) – and there …

Back in the late 1980s I had the pleasure of meeting the English scientist David Bellamy. Bellamy was famous at the time as …

I was crouched in a long boat somewhere up a rainforest-swathed river in Kalimatan, Borneo, when I saw it – a ‘living’ …

Women, so I’ve read (and seem to observe), are significantly more likely to take ‘selfies’ than men. It doesn’t seem to matter …

In five years or so  in and out of Mongolia, I’ve criss-crossed thousands of kilometres by 4WD Landcruiser. But I’ve only taken …

The most famous ‘little log cabin in the woods’ is probably the one in which Abraham Lincoln grew up in Kentucky. It …

Canungra is the perfect place to stop for a snack on the drive up to O’Reilly’s/Lamington National Park in southeastern Queensland. On …

It happens so often. I chance across a place in a city – then fruitlessly search high and low for it again. …