A travel book of vivid encounters with the New Zealand's people and landscape along its famous long trail. When journalist Geoff Chapple wrote a newspaper article that set out a vision for a 2600-km hiking trail the length of New Zealand, he never imagined that he would become the trail blazer. Over five years he talked to farmers and landowners, seeing where the route might be possible. He then walked every step of an adventurous and remote off-road trail from Cape Reing...

New Zealand’s many distinctive landforms are packed into a small space. Geoff Chapple, author of Te Araroa: The New Zealand Trail, set out on a year-long journey to find out why, and to seek out the shifting forces that shape them. For company, he chose to walk with geologists and the artisans who work the rock. The journey took him back through geology’s global history and onward from end to end of New Zealand. Terrain is the result – a lucid, personal a...

‘At 2.40pm Patu charged. A human tank. The first time during the tour that a protest squad charged police lines with the intention of breaking through ...’The Springbok rugby tour of New Zealand in 1981 provoked the biggest mass protests in New Zealand history. For two months tens of thousands of New Zealanders took to the streets every week to register their opposition to the tour.In When the Tour Came to Auckland, Geoff Chapple, author of 1981: The T...

Award-winning writers Geoff Chapple, Claudia Orange, Anne Salmond and Dick Scott explore pivotal moments in New Zealand’s history in this bundle of BWB Texts. These four works are combined into one easy-to-read e-book, available direct and DRM-free from our website or from international e-book retailers. In When the Tour Came to Auckland Geoff Chapple describes the startling scenes as the Springbok rugby tour of New Zealand in 1981 comes to a violent conclusion.In What Happened at Waitangi...

Have you ever dreamed about walking the Camino de Santiago? Join Peter Murtagh, acclaimed Irish journalist, and his teenage daughter Natasha on their epic pilgrimage across the Way of St James and experience their life-changing adventure with them.If you’ve ever wondered what a hike of 900 miles involves, physically and emotionally, look no further than Buen Camino! You will be transported to Northern Spain, to bull-running and fiestas, to prayers and anci...

An earthy, entertaining collection of yarns about twenty larger-than-life outback characters. Meet Ron Canlin, who one day began sculpting the sandstone walls of his opal mine. Ten years later, every drive and tunnel in Ron's claim is full of wonderful sculptures - the eighth wonder of the world. Or Peter Venables, with his flowing white beard, puffing his pipe like a character from the pioneering 1800s, whose teams of Clydesdales plough, sow and harvest the crops they eat. Or Janie Marsha...

NOW A MAJOR TELEVISION SERIESThey call Adelaide the city of churches. What they forget is that every church has a graveyard - and every graveyard is full of skeletons.Adelaide, an elegantly designed, civilised city, where the inhabitants are known for their love of the arts, good food and fine wine, is also the place where many of Australia's most bizarre and macabre crimes have taken place.The cases in this book show that Adelaide ...

It is one of Australia's most iconic images. On 17 April 1993, the Indigenous AFL footballer Nicky Winmar stood up against racial abuse and made history. Facing the Collingwood crowd that had taunted him all day the St Kilda player pulled up his shirt, pointed to his chest and declared: 'I'm black and I'm proud to be black'.Published the next day, the photos of Winmar's gesture sparked an intense debate that forced the AFL, the fans and the nation to confront their prejudices head-...

Voiceless is an Australian think tank promoting respect and compassion for animals. Part of that endeavour is the awarding of the Voiceless Writing Prize sponsored by Australian Ethical Investment. With a prize pool of over 20,000 it is one of the largest awards of its kind in Australia. Judged by an expert panel, the prize is awarded for Australian writing which advances the public's understanding of animal sentience, human-animal relationships and the ethical treatment of animals. Th...

A stunning historical debut novel of gothic proportions, telling the tale of a father's obsession and the dark consequences. "The skin was smooth and bright as porcelain, but looked as if it would give to the touch. What manner of wood had he used? What tools to exact such detail? What paints, tints or stains to flush her with life?" So wonders the window dresser Colton Kemp when he sees the first mannequin of his new rival, a silent man the inhabitants of Marumaru simply call The Carpente...

This is not a book of documents, snippets or worthy speeches. Instead it presents the original essays and the moments of insight that told us what Australia is and could be.These are the essential statements – from historians, reporters, novelists, mavericks and visionaries – that take us from Federation to the present-day, and tell a story of national self-discovery.There is the Frenchman who saw that Australia was a 'workingman's paradise', and the histor...

This book is the first comprehensive account of how Australia attained the world's highest living standards within a few decades of European settlement, and how the nation has sustained an enviable level of income to the present. Why Australia Prospered is a fascinating historical examination of how Australia cultivated and sustained economic growth and success. Beginning with the Aboriginal economy at the end of the eighteenth century, Ian McLean argues that Australia's remarkabl...