Ghost stories
Fiordland National Park · The Place Where the R...
Fiordland National Park lies in the south-west corner of New Zealand’s South Island, where more than a dozen fiords bend inland through ice-cut valleys, cliff walls rise over a thousand...
Fiordland National Park · The Place Where the R...
Fiordland National Park lies in the south-west corner of New Zealand’s South Island, where more than a dozen fiords bend inland through ice-cut valleys, cliff walls rise over a thousand...
Mount Taranaki · A Mountain That Walked Here
Mount Taranaki is an almost perfect cone of a volcano standing alone on the plain, snow on it all year; Māori say it was exiled here, that it quarrelled with...
Mount Taranaki · A Mountain That Walked Here
Mount Taranaki is an almost perfect cone of a volcano standing alone on the plain, snow on it all year; Māori say it was exiled here, that it quarrelled with...
Lyttelton · The Port’s Clock and Its Hills
Lyttelton is the port of Canterbury, with hills wrapping the town into a bowl; the railway station, the wharves and the villages on the hills are joined by a single...
Lyttelton · The Port’s Clock and Its Hills
Lyttelton is the port of Canterbury, with hills wrapping the town into a bowl; the railway station, the wharves and the villages on the hills are joined by a single...
Ninety Mile Beach · Passable Only at Low Tide
Ninety Mile Beach is in fact a little over sixty miles long: a road between the sea and the dunes, drivable at low tide, covered end to end at high...
Ninety Mile Beach · Passable Only at Low Tide
Ninety Mile Beach is in fact a little over sixty miles long: a road between the sea and the dunes, drivable at low tide, covered end to end at high...
Rotorua · Ground That Bubbles
Rotorua is built on an active volcanic field: mud pools churn in the parks, steam rises from cracks by the lake, the smell of sulphur drifts along the streets, and...
Rotorua · Ground That Bubbles
Rotorua is built on an active volcanic field: mud pools churn in the parks, steam rises from cracks by the lake, the smell of sulphur drifts along the streets, and...
Reefton · The Town After the Gold Ran Out
Reefton is a gold-mining town on the West Coast; at its height it held more than ten thousand people, dozens of pubs and a newspaper of its own. When the...
Reefton · The Town After the Gold Ran Out
Reefton is a gold-mining town on the West Coast; at its height it held more than ten thousand people, dozens of pubs and a newspaper of its own. When the...
Tongariro · The Mountain Does Not Belong to People
Tongariro National Park holds three volcanoes — Tongariro, Ngāuruhoe and Ruapehu. Māori did not go up the mountains, because they are the place of gods and ancestors: the land was...
Tongariro · The Mountain Does Not Belong to People
Tongariro National Park holds three volcanoes — Tongariro, Ngāuruhoe and Ruapehu. Māori did not go up the mountains, because they are the place of gods and ancestors: the land was...
Waitomo Glowworm Caves · A Sky of Stars on the ...
In the limestone caves at Waitomo the ceiling is covered with glowing larvae, a spread of blue light like a night sky brought down underground. The light comes from the...
Waitomo Glowworm Caves · A Sky of Stars on the ...
In the limestone caves at Waitomo the ceiling is covered with glowing larvae, a spread of blue light like a night sky brought down underground. The light comes from the...
Cape Reinga · The Place You Go Down by the Tree...
Cape Reinga is the northernmost point of New Zealand’s North Island; in Māori it is Te Rerenga Wairua, “the leaping place of spirits”. They say that when a person dies...
Cape Reinga · The Place You Go Down by the Tree...
Cape Reinga is the northernmost point of New Zealand’s North Island; in Māori it is Te Rerenga Wairua, “the leaping place of spirits”. They say that when a person dies...
Larnach Castle · The Man Who Built and Carved I...
Larnach Castle, one of New Zealand’s only castles, stands on the hills of the peninsula at Dunedin. A businessman built it for his wife: more than twenty rooms, hand-carved ceilings...
Larnach Castle · The Man Who Built and Carved I...
Larnach Castle, one of New Zealand’s only castles, stands on the hills of the peninsula at Dunedin. A businessman built it for his wife: more than twenty rooms, hand-carved ceilings...
Tasmanian Wilderness · The Animal People Still See
The thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, was the largest carnivorous marsupial; hunted as a sheep-stealing pest, the last one died in a zoo in 1936, and no living one has been...
Tasmanian Wilderness · The Animal People Still See
The thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, was the largest carnivorous marsupial; hunted as a sheep-stealing pest, the last one died in a zoo in 1936, and no living one has been...
Blue Mountains · Three Stones Standing Together
At the pass in the Blue Mountains three pillars of rock stand side by side and from a distance look like three figures. Oil mist given off by the eucalypts...
Blue Mountains · Three Stones Standing Together
At the pass in the Blue Mountains three pillars of rock stand side by side and from a distance look like three figures. Oil mist given off by the eucalypts...
Uluru · The Rock You May Not Climb
Uluru stands in the desert at the centre of the Australian continent, a single vast sandstone rock that turns orange-red at sunrise and sunset, its walls carrying springs, caves and...
Uluru · The Rock You May Not Climb
Uluru stands in the desert at the centre of the Australian continent, a single vast sandstone rock that turns orange-red at sunrise and sunset, its walls carrying springs, caves and...
Hanging Rock · Three Who Went Up and Never Came...
Hanging Rock is a mass of rock that rises abruptly out of the Victorian plain, shaped like a tipped saddle. On Valentine’s Day 1900 a teacher from a girls’ school...
Hanging Rock · Three Who Went Up and Never Came...
Hanging Rock is a mass of rock that rises abruptly out of the Victorian plain, shaped like a tipped saddle. On Valentine’s Day 1900 a teacher from a girls’ school...
Fremantle Prison · A Wall Within the Wall
Fremantle Prison was built by the convicts themselves and used from the mid-nineteenth century until 1991; inside the walls runs a tunnel the prisoners dug beneath the sea bed to...
Fremantle Prison · A Wall Within the Wall
Fremantle Prison was built by the convicts themselves and used from the mid-nineteenth century until 1991; inside the walls runs a tunnel the prisoners dug beneath the sea bed to...
Beechworth Asylum · Those Kept Inside
Beechworth in Victoria once had an asylum built in the gold rush years. Besides the mentally ill it took in people society had thrown away: refugees, orphans, sick immigrants and...
Beechworth Asylum · Those Kept Inside
Beechworth in Victoria once had an asylum built in the gold rush years. Besides the mentally ill it took in people society had thrown away: refugees, orphans, sick immigrants and...
Wittenoom · The Town Taken Off the Map
Wittenoom lies in a gorge in Western Australia and once thrived on asbestos mining: miners, their families and the whole town lived in the dust, and more than a thousand...
Wittenoom · The Town Taken Off the Map
Wittenoom lies in a gorge in Western Australia and once thrived on asbestos mining: miners, their families and the whole town lived in the dust, and more than a thousand...
Monte Cristo Homestead · A House Built to the R...
Monte Cristo Homestead, at Junee in New South Wales, is Australia’s best known “haunted house”: a Victorian home with angels and crosses standing in the garden, the furniture still in...
Monte Cristo Homestead · A House Built to the R...
Monte Cristo Homestead, at Junee in New South Wales, is Australia’s best known “haunted house”: a Victorian home with angels and crosses standing in the garden, the furniture still in...
Port Arthur · A Penal Settlement on the Cape
Port Arthur sits on a peninsula in Tasmania, a place where Britain sent its worst convicts: water on two sides, dogs and sentries sealing the land side, so that once...
Port Arthur · A Penal Settlement on the Cape
Port Arthur sits on a peninsula in Tasmania, a place where Britain sent its worst convicts: water on two sides, dogs and sentries sealing the land side, so that once...
Bryggen · The Row of Houses That Burned Many Times
Bryggen in Bergen is a row of coloured wooden houses. German merchants of the Hanseatic League lived here for centuries, storing dried cod and grain, with long narrow timber warehouses...
Bryggen · The Row of Houses That Burned Many Times
Bryggen in Bergen is a row of coloured wooden houses. German merchants of the Hanseatic League lived here for centuries, storing dried cod and grain, with long narrow timber warehouses...
Dovrefjell · The One Road Through the Mountain
Dovrefjell has always been the crossing between northern and southern Norway: no trees on the plateau, the wind turning whenever it likes, and winter storms able to bury the road...
Dovrefjell · The One Road Through the Mountain
Dovrefjell has always been the crossing between northern and southern Norway: no trees on the plateau, the wind turning whenever it likes, and winter storms able to bury the road...
Trolls · Turned to Stone by the Sun
The mountains of Norway are full of troll legends: they live in caves, do not come out by day and fear light — caught by the sun, they turn to...
Trolls · Turned to Stone by the Sun
The mountains of Norway are full of troll legends: they live in caves, do not come out by day and fear light — caught by the sun, they turn to...
The Huldra · The Girl in the Forest Without a Tail
The huldra lives in the woods and the mountains. She looks like a young woman, plainly dressed, sleeping on the moss; the only difference is a cow’s tail behind her....
The Huldra · The Girl in the Forest Without a Tail
The huldra lives in the woods and the mountains. She looks like a young woman, plainly dressed, sleeping on the moss; the only difference is a cow’s tail behind her....
The Draug · The Boat Did Not Come Back; the Man...
In the legends of the northern coast, the dead buried at sea become the draug: dressed as a fisherman, rowing a half-sunken boat, coming in towards the fishing village at...
The Draug · The Boat Did Not Come Back; the Man...
In the legends of the northern coast, the dead buried at sea become the draug: dressed as a fisherman, rowing a half-sunken boat, coming in towards the fishing village at...