Sam Olley's pick of the perfect NZ beach is in the deep south

A strong South Island thread runs through TVNZ's Dunedin-based reporter Sam Olley's summer choices for beaches, music and books.

My pick of the perfect Aotearoa beach would have to be Curio Bay in the Catlins. There are so many Hector’s dolphins. Once when I was surfing there, they came so close around and under my board I was terrified I’d fall on them. My flatmate told me if you scream underwater, they come over to you faster. Yet to test this. She might have been tricking me but she was in her hospital scrubs at the time so seemed more trustworthy. As a disclaimer, there were non-fatal shark attacks at Curio Bay in 2014 and 2017. But there are also yellow-eyed penguins and a petrified forest you can see there that is over 170 million years old!

We Can Make A Life, by Chessie Henry. It won the 2019 Ockham Award for best first work of non-fiction and it's a really brave book. It covers how Henry and her four siblings became closer as the 2011 Christchurch earthquake and the CTV building collapse, the Kaikoura earthquake, a triple-fatality car crash, depression, family separations and disability directly affected her family as she grew up. I’d say it is equal parts uplifting as it is sad, though! I spent my teens in Canterbury at the same time as Chessie Henry, so it really struck a chord.

For a lighter read, and if you find yourself on the beach with just a phone, I've also been enjoying lots of great music features, like journalist Grayson Haver Currin's recent piece on Tame Impala’s lead singer, Kevin Parker, published in GQ and available online.

Fiji Baby by Goodshirt. The first line is “When I went to Hamilton I said ‘just pretend it’s a holiday’” so perhaps not a favourite for Waikato people, but it is a beautiful song!

Down here, there have been super talented bands formed by Dunedin students over the past decade, making surf rock. Shuggah Doom by Soaked Oats and Mellow by Marlin’s Dreaming are old faves. I need to put them back on repeat now it's summer because I listened to lots of Irish music over winter, mainly Kneecap and Fontaines DC, probably because a cold Irish winter sounds a bit like Dunedin’s.

Also essential to mention Brat by Charli XcX! 10/10. Behind the ‘brat summer’ slang. Some parents of young people might find the album confronting but it is certainly educational! And won three Grammys.