Rotoroa Island

It’s back: Votes are open for the Dirtbag Bird of the Year 2019

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RNZ is set to announce the Bird of the Year for 2019 on Monday morning. In honour of this event, and our finest terrible birds, Sam Brooks brings you the third edition of The Spinoff’s alternative contest: New Zealand’s Dirtbag Bird of the Year. Reacquaint yourself with last year’s Dirtbag Bird of the Year finalists … Read more

The drinkless isle: Why I set my novel at the rehab centre on Rotoroa Island

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Christchurch writer Amy Head on the setting for her new novel – Rotoroa, an island near Waiheke, where the Salvation Army ran a rehab centre for alcoholics. When I first learned about Rotoroa, an island east of Waiheke where the Salvation Army ran a rehabilitation facility between 1911 and 2005 (known early on as an … Read more