Twenty kilometres east of Whanganui at Fordell you can happily get lost in another world for at least a few hours. Nicky and Clive Higgie are the owners of the Garden of National Significance Award-winning Paloma Gardens, which in itself is a work of art, spanning over six hundred hectares of exotic gardens, landscaped with tropical plants from all over the world.

It’s set out in ten distinct zones including a Garden of Death, a Valley of Tranquillity, Bamboo Forests, and several arboreta, all dotted with sculptures, and home to vintage motorcycle museum ‘Moto 71’.  Clive and Nicki Higgie have been developing Paloma Gardens since the 1970s. They join Kathryn to tell her about their life’s work.