The first successful summit of the world’s highest mountain, Mt Everest (or Chomolungma, as the Tibetans call her), inextricably linked two people: Sir Edmund Hillary, Order of New Zealand, and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. The pair were brought together as part of the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt.
Breakthroughs in space travel are standard fare for Rocket Lab, the pioneering satellite-launch business started by New Zealand rocket enthusiast Peter Beck in 2006. In 2009, it became the Southern Hemisphere’s first private company to reach space.
Another space pioneer from Aotearoa New Zealand is Sir William Hayward Pickering, Order of New Zealand, the original Rocket Man. His name graced the side of Rocket Lab’s fourth Electron rocket, and their first mission for NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites programme named: ‘This one’s for Pickering’.
Ruby Tui burst onto the world stage at the 2012 Oceania Women’s Rugby Sevens Championship in Fiji. Selected through the high-performance programme Go 4 Gold, she’d only been playing rugby for two years, but Ruby was determined to succeed.
Kupe is the legendary Polynesian navigator who discovered Aotearoa New Zealand. A thousand years ago, he made an epic journey from the eastern Pacific across the ocean to a new land. Kupe is a figure integral to many Māori narratives and histories, and a significant cultural icon.
Miranda Harcourt was born into a well-known New Zealand acting family in 1962. The daughter of Dame Kate Harcourt and her husband Peter, she grew up surrounded by actors, musicians, and writers at her parents’ parties, at recording sessions at Radio New Zealand, and at rehearsals at Downstage Theatre in Wellington.
