My Shed

Coachbuilding art

Many of the old crafts that had been around for centuries have been almost lost in our modern age. Among them are the crafts of those who used hand tools and tapped into centuries of passed-down knowledge, the blacksmith, the wheelwright and the coachbuilder.

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Saddle

Graeme Savill, wife Jane and daughters Amy and Haley run bulls and 50 horses on their Seaview Ranch in Katikati. Graeme is a keen horse wrangler who understands horses well, having studied them intensively. He is all for making a horse comfortable and willing to respond to the rider which he does by communicating with horses in the same way that wild horses do in a herd.

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A shed full of dirt bikes

Getting off road on a motorbike and racing against others on the dirt is an adrenalin sport
and fun activity that’s been enjoyed by many for the last 100 years. It’s nothing new; the thrill of dirt bike racing goes back to before World War I, when motorbikes first became popular.

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The Bike Dude

Many people of the baby boomer generation will recall the freedom kids had in days gone by. You hopped on your bike and headed off to find your mates to explore and have fun. Building huts, playing cowboys and Indians, forming gangs, co making bows and arrows, playing war games, catching tadpoles, climbing trees—the only rule was to be home in time for dinner.

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Space to grow

New Zealand’s space programme sounds like an amusing caption or billboard slogan but Rocket Lab’s Peter Beck is absolutely serious about making our small country a leader in the commercialisation of space.

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Catalina dreaming

Anyone flying into New Plymouth airport may look twice at a hangar on the western end of the airfield with an unusual tail of a large aircraft poking out. Few would realise what’s within: ZK-PBY, a 1944 Catalina flying boat, the only airworthy one in New Zealand and a remarkable aircraft with a remarkable history.

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