It was with great regret that we learned of the passing of Lesley's Aunt Sheila during last week, peacefully after a short illness. I will remember Sheila as having a ready smile, an inquisitive mind as to my well being and work, and just a very amiable lady. The Gilberts will be in our thoughts this Thursday the 26th when her funeral takes place. This sad news overshadowed our immediate plans, of which the first was a flight in a biplane to Mount Cook. The w...

The 23rd of November 1941 was a terrible day for the Braggs of Stewart Island, a day preferably forgotton but nonetheless commemorated for its everlasting impact on a close island family. Private A L Bragg was killed during the Seige of Tobruk, while serving in the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force and part of the Allied 8th Army. He was 31. On a tiny family cemetery overlooking peaceful Bragg bay, Private Bragg is remembered with that moving epitaph beginni...

Had it not been for a decision in 1985 to keep the bulldozers out of Twizel, the area of land that is now the doctor's surgery and for that matter the town that is now home to 1,200 residents would be reclaimed as part of the MacKenzie high country. Destruction of the town (the trees were to remain) would have reintegrated the site to the vast flat expanse of nothing, home to Merino sheep, parched in the summer and a soulless place in winter. A campaign 30 year...

The next locum placement is on the horizon and we have four days of freedom before Twizel. On our whistlestop three week trip to New Zealand in 1984 there were many areas that we just did not get to, so with those memories and our guide book we have chosen an itinerary down the west coast then across into the centre of South Island. There is actually a very limited choice of routes, the intervening mountains having only three crossing points for 400 km. First ...

New Zealanders and visitors engage in various outdoor pursuits, taking advantage of a land well endowed with rivers, lakes, coastline, and mountains. New Zealand's seven Great Walks attract many trampers, on a couple of walks the numbers are such that participants are regulated to walking in one direction only. However, our choice is the Queen Charlotte Track, not a Great Walk, but a decent 71 kilometres (45 miles) including 1,700 metres (5,600 feet) of uphill ...