M is beautiful. He smells of the bush, and his dark curly hair partly obscures a weather beaten face. Beneath his clothes you sense quiet, efficient muscles which might once have been a surfer’s. He wears badly ripped jeans, that show a colour tattoo of a map of the world on his right thigh. You […]

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Mount Holdsworth is a couple of hours north of Wellington. It is not named after the late British jazz guitarist, Alan Holdsworth, though it is every bit as impenetrable. As you go north over the flat alluvial valley, the ridge to your left rises, part of the great fault-line that drives relentlessly across New Zealand […]

Read more "Rock steady! Or not…"

How fast does sound travel? I’ve walked 9 miles around the Kaikoura Peninsula today, stopping off for lobster and salad at a roadside café. They’re playing Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young – and Cat Stevens. Everywhere, from the bars and cafes in downtown Wellington, to the little seaside towns, on the radio, you can get […]

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The world is full of happy idiots. I should know. I’m one of them. Maybe you’ve known this but were too polite to say. Thank you for sparing my feelings. I got off the train, guitar in one hand, rucksack in the other. No I didn’t feel like Paul Simon on Warrington station about to […]

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So I’m walking down the road in this wayward northern settlement of Rawene. It’s 30 degrees and the wide Hokianga river is still, the sky is a deep blue and the herons and pied cormorants line up on the mudflats ready for the next fishing opportunity. I’m off to the boardwalk over the mangrove trees […]

Read more "Mission Accomplished"