Travel tips – Best places to have a midlife crisis »
If you’re bored with your life and looking to shake things up,Lonely Planet has come up with 10 destinations where you canreinvent yourself and feel young again
History burns deep on the wild west road »
Can you see the smoke coming from the ground in the valley over there?” Matthew Lysaght said, pointing into the hills alongside the road. “That’s a fire in the old Strongman Mine. It’s been going for years now and the smoke leaks…
Central Otago: Caffeine-fuelled on the rail trail »
A southerly was splattering rain into our faces and our bikes as we left Lauder on Day Two along the Otago Central Rail Trail. It was also distinctly uphill towards the Poolburn tunnels and viaduct. (So much for our motto of not doing…
Engine failure forces Qantas plane to land at Sydney Airport »
A Qantas passenger plane has safely landed at Sydney Airportafter it encountered engine problems shortly after it took-off fromSingapore
Gore: Great brew of memories »
I’ve driven through Gore’s main drag quite often, but never seen the need to stop. After all, once you’ve made the obligatory duelling banjos joke and realised it’s not Gold Guitars weekend, what is there to stop for?Quite a lot,…
Phuket: Like a limestone cowboy »
In complete darkness, lying on my back, the only thing I can hear (apart from my pounding heart) seems to be the sound of air being slowly let out of a tyre … phhhhhssss. But there are no tyres here, deep in the caves of Koh Panak,…
A rail ride of a lifetime »
Clearly there’s something about train travel that exercises a particular charm over New Zealanders … even though these days there aren’t a lot of opportunities to do it.This week we’ll publish the final story in a series about…
Japan: Land of rising fun »
It’s fair to say that Yumi isn’t a wash-and-go-kind of girl. The tiny 16-year-old is dressed in a frilly Alice in Wonderland dress, red- and black-striped fishnet stockings, gold stilettos and layers of eye-wateringly bright vests…
Syria: On the road to Damascus »
My friends gave very clear instructions: “Take a yellow taxi to Bab Sharqi – it won’t cost you any more than two hundred Syrian pounds ($5) – and then lose yourself in history.”I do as my friends suggest, and enter the old city…
Cafe Cezanne , Ponsonby »
We came here because it had been some time since Leanne’s last visit and we’d heard there were new owners. Parking was , as expected, like hens’ teeth but we struck it lucky on a back road. We walked in and immediately thought…