Travel

At Easter we decided to catch up with relatives and check out New Plymouth. We took our bikes to enable us to explore the Coastal Walkway.

As long as I can remember, I've kept a bottle of lavender oil on hand to ward off coughs, colds and insect bites; to clean and heal wounds; to assist sleep and diminish anxiety; and simply because I love the intoxicating smell of this magical floral herb.

Derek Greslewski, author of My Trout Diaries, A Year of Fly Fishing in New Zealand, takes a close look at the Tongariro River loop track, through trout-fishers' paradise

Do you think of huge, bustling Beijing as a city with eco lodges at its doorstep?

You know you're in for a different sort of dining experience when the place supplies disposable plastic gloves. We've come up steep, narrow stairs to a tiny box of a restaurant lined with white plastic walls.

Best to take a half-empty suitcase if you visit Shanghai. The shopping is vast and varied, from to the very best brands in the world to fake knock-offs you can bargain hard for.

When even our kids can't ride a bike without a helmet, the wind-in-hair sensation is a feeling they'll never know. For grown-ups it's just a memory.

If you're going to try the most famous Chinese dish in the world, then what better place to go than the place that keeps on winning awards for the best Peking Duck in Peking?

It's easy to think of reasons why China might not be on your places-to-see list. It's so big and so foreign, huh? All those vast cities, language you don't understand, food you might not warm to?

When you're a tourist it's hard to get in amongst the lives of people in other countries. You see them hurrying about on their daily round but there are few glimpses of their quieter times.