Russell Baillie

He turned his secondhand bookshop and its annoying clientele into a hit book and now Scottish author Shaun Bythell is heading from Wigtown to WORD Christchurch. Shaun Bythell wanders into the cool of his shop looking like a man whose natural…

With its Mex-testing, mountain lion warnings and aggressive flora, Southwest Texas is a destination a little out of the ordinary as Russell Baillie discovers On the gentle morning drive out of Big Bend, a park ranger's truck…

Russell Baillie follows the path of Kurt Cobain's career on a road trip from Seattle, the home of grunge, to San Francisco. You could spend days delving into Seattle rock history. After all, it is the birthplace of James Marshall Hendrix. Though he…

It was time for the last big push. Days had been spent pondering maps, calculating distances, ensuring the gear was good to go. Now it was time for the mission: circumnavigate this country by bike. As I pedalled out into the warm morning, questions…

It's less than an hour into my Darwin mission and already I'm being stalked. Well, storked. It's been a four-hour flight from Sydney across that big red centre. I'm sitting under the eaves of my digs for the first night, adjusting the pores for a…

A late summer's morning in the Maitai Valley on Nelson's southeastern side. The sun is already high above the ridge. The pine-clad hillsides are steaming with the humid fragrance of conifer and clay. The cicadas are in deafening chorus. And just to…

By RUSSELL BAILLIE As far as pre-landing instructions go, they're short, to the point and slightly worrying. "Hold on behind the pilot's seat here," shouts a crew member into my earplugged ear, "hold on with your other hand up there. And bend your…