As we entered the Ross Sea we lef the band of large ice bergs behind us, and entered a fairly calm Ross sea. I kept a morning vigil on the bridge looking for whales. it was not until mid afternoon that we saw our first, a small and rapid antarcticRead more
Heading south from Macquarie Island we have had some relatively calm seas, pretty remarkable for this part of the world. Leaving the Roaring Forties which gave us a pretty slow rolling sea the fifties gave us a small taste of what it had to offer with some mild five-metre seas. PassingRead more
Day 6: last stations off the Otago Peninsula sampled. We are ready to move towards the Auckland Islands. We have been blessed with good weather conditions for the last six days which allowed us to complete quickly our diversity survey between 50m and 1200m depth off the Otago Peninsula. WeRead more
Titi Island is a 32 hectare slab of schistose tuff and sandstone tilted upwards towards the north, with a moderately steep forested slope opening up to a breathtaking façade of high cliffs overlooking Cook Strait. Shearwater surveys on the island in January provided an opportunity to record local plant communities.Read more
We arrived at Macquarie Island – the sheltered waters in the lee of the island provided a welcome relief from the open ocean we had crossed between here and the Auckland Islands. The cool subantarctic summer did not detract from the spectacular wildlife – elephant seals and penguins everywhere! Until 1920Read more
Zandra Rhodes is the first fashion designer I became aware of as a child. I think I must have been 10 or 12 when I saw a picture of her in a magazine. I was captivated by her pink hair. I had never imagined that grown-ups could look like her. Certainly none of the mums inRead more
Over the last couple of weeks, we have been busy installing an updated selection of works in the Collecting Contemporary exhibition on Level 5. Collecting Contemporary is an exhibition featuring some of the contemporary New Zealand art works that Te Papa acquired between 2006 and 2011. Read more about CollectingRead more
I awoke to find that the boat had moved over night to the bottom end of the Auckland Islands, into Carnley harbour, with Adams island to our south. Adams island is home to Gibson’s wandering albatross – DNA research is currently being carried out to determine if Gibson’s Albatross is distinctRead more
Day 2: sampling off Otago Peninsula. Our survey onboard the MV Tranquil Image has started after a rough transit from Wellington to Dunedin. After a very successful day 1 deploying camera and traps in the shallow (50 and 100 m), today we have started exploring the deep canyons of theRead more
I visited Enderby in 1995 as part of the DOC Sealion project. The project is still going today. Sadly the most noticeable thing on my return was the much smaller numbers of sealions and pups. It is very saddening to hear from Louise Chilvers (DOC’s sealion biologist) that the populationRead more
Usually February 14 is a day where the lovers of the world get to indulge their romantic sides in the buying of fine food, nice flowers and maybe even jewellery of sorts, St Valentine’s Day at Te Papa has a second layer of celebration attached. It’s our birthday! So, asRead more
Kapiti Island is one of New Zealand’s premier bird sanctuaries. It is home to nationally important populations of little spotted kiwi, kaka, North Island saddleback, stitchbird and North Island robin, as well as other threatened bird species. The island was considered to be free of all introduced mammal pests afterRead more
After leaving the port of Bluff, we took our sunset cruise down past Stewart Island on towards the Snares, our first port of call in Our Far South. The first marine mammal spotting of the trip was a small pod of Southern right whale dolphins, these spectacularly sleek animals haveRead more
While in the mid-twentieth century many young women continued to pursue the dream of a white wedding, complete with a full-skirted Cinderella gown, Dawn ‘Velma’ Harris of Auckland was not amongst them. When she married James Turner on 27 May in 1961, she walked down the aisle of St AndrewsRead more
Tayloria mosses belong to the wonderfully named Splachnaceae family, and grow on dung and carcasses! Such substrates are unusual for mosses, and Tayloria has several adaptations for its specialist life-style. Mosses reproduce by spores, which in most cases are dispersed by the wind, and may or may not land inRead more
