Naomi Arnold set off to walk from Bluff to Cape Reinga and Rebecca Hayter swapped city life for country living and a career immersed in yachting for the land. Hear from these two award-winning journalists and authors, who embarked on two very different journeys, united by a yearning to reconnect with the landscape of Aotearoa and themselves. Chaired by Samantha Gee.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
Naomi Arnold is an award-winning Nelson journalist who has written for most New Zealand magazines and newspapers including New Zealand Geographic, North & South and The Listener. She occasionally contributes to international outlets including The Guardian and The Washington Post. She started her writing career at the Nelson Mail in 2009, where she wrote features for five years before becoming a freelance writer and author. She has written the critically-acclaimed history of New Zealand astronomy Southern Nights (HarperCollins), World of WearableArt: 30 Designers Tell Their Stories (Potton & Burton), and is co-author of new release Force of Nature, a history of Forest & Bird, with renowned Nelson author David Young (Potton & Burton). Her next book, a memoir about walking the length of New Zealand on Te Araroa, is forthcoming from HarperCollins.

Rebecca Hayter grew up in the rural community of Golden Bay and loved sharing her classmates' farming lifestyles. However, she was also passionate about writing. She graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English in 1985. She then began writing for Boating New Zealand and bought a 26ft yacht which provided an unofficial course in DIY - skills that would later prove useful on her lifestyle block. Rebecca joined Boating New Zealand as yachting editor in 1998 and became its first woman editor a year later. She led a major overhaul of the magazine to win 2006 Editor of the Year - Supreme Overall Winner. After more than 12 years over two terms as editor, she resigned to return to her rural roots and buy Oceanspirit, the small farm which would be her home for the next seven years. She now lives in Nelson, keeps her launch Nantucket at Waikawa and continues to write about boats.

Samantha Gee is RNZ’s regional journalist for the top of the South Island and describes herself as being happiest when outdoors, preferably close to a body of water. She has been a journalist for more than a decade, starting out with the Nelson Mail in 2014 before making the shift to radio in 2021. Her work takes her to many parts of Te Tauihu where she covers floods, fires and everything in between. Her favourite stories to tell are those about people and the environment. She counts bathing in a tarn on Mt Owen and climbing Mt Kenya among some of her highlights in the outdoors in recent years, but finds the same kind of joy, closer to home, when walking in the Grampians or swimming in Tasman Bay.