West Coast

A look at the Rural Education Activities Programme (REAP ) - an innovative education initiative launched in New Zealand in 1979 . This unique 'cradle to the grave' education programme was set up to… Audio

High winds have grounded the four helicopters that were earlier searching for a lost chopper at the top of the South Island. Audio

Covert tactics are being brought in to tackle the problem of drink driving on the South Island's West Coast. Audio

Official Information Act (OIA) documents show it has been safe to enter the Pike River Mine for nearly a year. Nicholas Davidson is the lawyer for the Pike River Families. Audio

A West Coast community has just made a stretch of highway safer for blue penguins by erecting a 2.6km fence between Punakaiki and Fox River. Inger Perkins speaks to Simon Mercep. Audio

Jools and Lynda Topp have been performing as the Topp Twins for over thirty years, and go on tour across New Zealand in October and November with The Grand Ole Topp'ry show. Audio

Donna Swift is a social anthropologist, reseacher and educator, from the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology. Donna recently won the Sonja Davies Peace Award for her work in the area of girls… Audio

A long tradition of whitebaiting on Westport wharf has come to an end after the council faced the threat of prosecution. Audio

The whitebait season has begun in most parts of Aotearoa but if you live on the South Island's West Coast, you'll have to wait another week and a half before you can legally fish for the delicacy… Audio

Alwyn Owen explores the lighter side of New Zealand's poetry of patriotism which was fashionable during the latter half of the 19 century and the early 20th. Our patriotic versifiers were eclectic… Audio

Pete the Bushman with tales of his life as a hunter gatherer in Westland, owning his own town, and new book: Pete the Bushman. Hunting tales and back-country lessons from a wild West Coaster. Audio

Professor of Migration Studies at Auckland University of Technology and a member of the panel that wrote the report, Our Futures/Te Pae Tawhiti: the 2013 Census and New Zealand's Changing Population.

Writer, filmmaker, former professional fly-fishing guide, founder of the Wanaka Flyfishing Academy, host of the Trout Diaries podcast, and author of new book, Going to Extremes: Adventures in Unknown… Audio

It's been confirmed 120 jobs will go when Westport's Holcim concrete plant closes in 2016. Audio

After more than twenty years of pleading, a long-awaited overhaul of medical facilities on the West Coast is finally under way. Audio

Historical biographer and author of a number of books, most recently Fitz: the Colonial Adventures of James Edward Fitzgerald. Audio

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, George Davies, along with his mates Curly and Big Mac, gave up the struggle to survive in the city and travelled to the Howard goldfield in the Upper Buller… Audio

Entrepreneur turned modern-day monk who tells his story in the memoir Boundless: a Wayward Entrepreneur's Search For Peace. Audio

Otira is an old railway town sandwiched between the West Coast's rugged mountains, nestled at the bottom of the Otira gorge. It was founded in the 1860s as a Cobb & Co coach stop for prospectors… Audio