Overlay of the camp areas, on 1940 aerial of the racecourse. 1940  September  1st Battalion, Auckland Regiment, have daily parad...

Above is how the Orange Coronation Hall looked back in 2006. Previous blog post here . Yesterday -- this is the new Orange. Tony ...

Once upon a time, there was a hill in Hamilton. It was known to Ngati Wairere as Te Kopu Mania O Kirikiriroa (the smooth belly of Kirikir...

During the course of work I did recently for the Friends of Waikumete Cemetery, and towards the end of research into dozens of names link...

From NZ Herald 10 August 1940 Sometimes, history can be about really mundane things. Like – hamburgers.  Or more specifically – w...

When squally storms turn violently electric, we all know that lightning follows – and sometimes that flash from the sky can strike wher...

These days if I, as a townie Aucklander, say the phrase "Winterless North" to my Northland friends, they'll likely roll the...

Reaching Hawera on a recent weekend trip with the committee of the NZ History Federation, during a petrol stop there, I looked arou...

NEW MOTOR RECORD. WELLINGTON TO AUCKLAND TIME: 15 HOURS 25 MINUTES JOURNEY THROUGH RAIN A new motor-car speed record between Auck...

NZ Herald  13 October 1931 From out of the desperation of the Great Depression of the late 1920s to mid 1930s, the scarcity of relie...

This originated because William McLean, a Wellington businessman and member of Parliament, imported two tiller-steered Benz cars in Fe...

What caught my eye was the bit about it being a coronation hall. I'm so used to such halls in the country being connected with mon...

East Street, off Karangahape Road, was chopped up severely by the motorway development of the 1960s-1980s. But here is a survivor I ca...

... or, things going a bit loopy in Avondale ... The image is from c.1919, and is of the house that was at 1 Trent Street in Avonda...

When I first came upon references to the Apple Farm of East Tamaki, I thought it was interesting but would be a considerably shorter story ...