Saturday Morning RNZ Radio

The arrival of photography to New Zealand in 1848 was more about business than art. A cumbersome kit meant photographers needed carriages or horses to lug their gear across unsealed roads to sell their wares. These early images provide a valuable insight to the country's colonial era, with stunning portraits and landscapes now being presented in a new book entitled A Different Light: First Photographs of Aotearoa. Susie is joined by Shaun Higgins who, along with fellow book editor Catherine Hammond, has pulled together the extraordinary and extensive photographic collections of three major research libraries - Auckland Museum, Hocken Collections, and Alexander Turnbull Library. The book is also being celebrated with a travelling exhibition.

Former soldier Christian Lewis had hit rock bottom and was so severely depressed he would shut himself in his flat for weeks. But one day he made an impulsive decision, setting himself the challenge of walking the entire coastline of the UK. Christian joins Susie to talk about his new book, Finding Hildasay, which explores how with just ten pounds in his pocket and a few supplies, he walked himself into a brighter future.

New Zealand's volcanoes are world renowned, and most Kiwis are familiar with our big ones such as Ruapehu, Taranaki and Tarawera. But what about our lesser talked about volcanoes? GNS Science principal scientist Graham Leonard joins Susie to chat about some of the volcanic areas around the country that people are less familiar with - from Northland's periodically active field to volcanoes buried in the Canterbury plains gravels.

You could hardly avoid the gruesome spectacle of the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp trial - it made the nightly news, but it made a much bigger splash on social media. But was there something else at play? Was Amber Heard the victim of an orchestrated campaign of misinformation? Alexi Mostrous of Tortoise Media is a London-based journalist who has previously tackled catfishing and disinformation in his previous very popular podcasts Sweet Bobby and Hoaxed. Alexi joins Susie to talk about how, with the help of a team of data analysts, he dug through hundreds of thousands of tweets to uncover the shocking revelations of his latest series Who Trolled Amber?

New Zealand poet and doctor Glenn Colquhoun has released two new books of poetry in te reo Māori, both accompanied by soundtracks. He tells Susie Ferguson about the legacy of Māori oral poetry and the long process of writing songs he could finally "take to the marae".

Kiwi scientist and champion épée-fencer Dr Matt Baker is representing NZ at fencing in the final Olympic qualifying tournament in Dubai later today. Sydney-based Baker is Scientia Research Fellow in the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of New South Wales, where he studies the molecular motor that makes bacteria swim. But today it's all about the sport and Matt is the sole NZ gladiator in men's épée. Age 41, and father of two young children, he's en garde against some up-coming young stars, all hungry for success at the Asia-Oceania Zonal Qualifier for the Paris Olympics. The men's épée starts at 4pm NZ time, streamed live.