10,000-kilometres from home (10,851 to be exact) and there I was, playing cricket by the sea with a bunch of locals and in that moment, life couldn’t have been much better. In a Sri Lankan holiday that included everything from seeing elephants in the wild to cycling through tea plantations to exploring ancient cave temples,…
Tag: Travel
In Search Of Giants – Wild Adventures In The Jungles Of The Solomon Islands
Legends and myths thrive in the Solomon Islands, but perhaps none so captivating as the stories of giants who live deep within the jungles of Guadalcanal. So the rumours tell, a race of giants as tall as 10-15ft inhabit the mountainous forests of the island’s interior, only occasionally leaving their homes by the cover of…
Walking On Water – Langkawi’s 6-Star St Regis Hotel
This article was originally published in Let’s Travel Magazine in 2017 and is reprinted with kind permission. Please see letstravelmag.com for more.
The 5 Unmissable Must-Do’s Of South Taranaki – My Latest NZ Herald Feature
Last Sunday the New Zealand Herald published an article of mine about the awesomeness of Taranaki, specifically the sights of South Taranaki. While I may not have used the word “awesomeness” in the feature, I hopefully gave a sense of why this province – and in particular its less-visited southern district – is so rewarding….
The Luxury Eco-Staycation You Never Knew You Could Have – Auckland’s Warblers Retreat
When you think of the word “staycation”, chances are you’re picturing a night or two in a nice CBD hotel in the city in which you live. But when thoughts turn to treating yourself to some kind of retreat – the sort of place where you can be immersed in nature, hear the birds, go…
Rainforests, Rafting & A Brand New Luxury Beachfront Hotel – The Bay Of Plenty’s Best Hidden Gems
A huge part of the entire ethos of the Roxborogh Report is writing about hidden gems – be they in travel or music. Sometimes, those gems are hiding in plain sight. As in, the Bay Of Plenty already happens to one of the best known holiday regions in New Zealand – especially for Kiwis travelling…
Piha’s Jaw-Dropping Mercer Bay Loop Track With Riley Roxy In The Backpack
How is it you can be pushing 40, consider yourself outdoorsy, have lived in the same city roughly three-quarters of your life, and still find jaw-dropping walks you haven’t even heard of, let alone done? Well firstly, I’m grateful that’s the case given seemingly all I want to do these days is discover new walks…
Suva Has One Of The World’s Great Colonial Hotels & Too Few Kiwis Know About It – Reviewing The Grand Pacific Hotel
Always a sucker for a historic hotel, as soon as I heard Fiji’s 1914-built Grand Pacific Hotel had been given a multimillion dollar refurbishment to celebrate its centenary, I knew I had to go there. Five years on from that Suva stay and as we grapple with what tourism will be post-Covid-19, I wanted to…
The Surf, Sand, Scenery – Not To Mention Golf – Of Coromandel’s Matarangi Resort
I could wait until once the Covid-19 lockdown has finished to publish this article, but the dream of travel is something I’m all about right now. If nobody on Planet Earth can holiday at this precise moment in history – and realistically, nobody can – we shouldn’t deny ourselves the pleasure of a bit of…
Road-Tripping New Zealand’s Pacific Coast Highway In A Luxury Motorhome – My Top 50 Papamoa To Gisborne Photos
It’s one year since my wife and I baby-mooned up a storm while driving roughly 600-kilometres in a Mighway Motorhome from Papamoa to Gisborne and back again. We took what’s known as the “Pacific Coast Highway” for leg one, before taking the more direct route through the Waioeka Gorge for the return leg home. Both…
How The Bee Gees Got Me My Start In Radio (& Other Cracking Yarns) – Being Interviewed On Newstalk ZB’s ‘Real Life’
Last month I was interviewed on the Newstalk ZB show ‘Real Life With John Cowan’ where I got to indulge in my multiple obsessions with things like cricket, Malaysia and the Bee Gees. Specifically, how a childhood in Malaysia still shapes me as an adult, how cricket was crucial in making me love New Zealand, and how…
Luxury With A Conscience: Fiji’s Refurbished Shangri-La – My NZ Herald Review
Last week the NZ Herald published my ‘Room Check’ article about one of the oldest and largest luxury resorts in the South Pacific, Shangri-la’s Fijian Resort & Spa on the Coral Coast. Fresh from a US $50m refurb, the property – as located on its own causeway-linked private island – has everything from stunning white…