Wild Walks: Sixty Short North Island Walks - Mark Pickering

As the title suggests, they cover 60 relatively easy walks in the North Island with the emphasis on visiting places with natural history values or, in some cases, with interesting historical stories to tell. Each walk is illustrated with a simple but clear map, along with anintroductory section providing directions to the beginning of the walk, estimated walking times and points of interest along the way.Mark Pickering writes in a very interesting and accessible way and he provides many side bars discussing a particular species, features of the landscape or stories associated with the particular place - some of them delightfully quirky. (A random sample: 'Kea: A loveable, laughing, crying, clownish, cruel and unforgettable bird, the mountain parrot - sheepkiller and tourist tormenter - puts on a show while its mates nip behind and rip bits off windscreen-wipers and anything else their inquisitive beaks can get around.');The books are particularly popular with tourists, many of whom probably never take any of the walks but who are attracted by the books' compact size and great colour photographs (many of them by Nic Bishop, a prize-winning nature photographer), which together make them a wonderful souvenir of the 'real' New Zealand.