People who pushed the limits in 2025

In 1962, Dunedin farmer Alan MacLeod said to his family of six, 'how about going for a drive?’

Little did they know the 'harebrained scheme' MacLeod had cooked up would see them travelling the world in a homemade house truck a year later.

In 2000, Beth Rodden, then only 20, was on top of the world. One of the world’s greatest free climbers she and three others were tackling a sheer face in Kyrgyzstan - then a nightmare began.

Kyrgyzstan was an "alpine haven" for the kind of big wall, free climbing she loved to do at Yosemite Valley in her native California.

"I just remember having this swollen ego, this swollen pride in that somehow I was winning in life," Rodden told RNZ’s Nine to Noon.

Then she and her fellow climbers heard gunshots.

A random Instagram post led Sacha Willetts down a rabbit hole that introduced her to a whole new sport.

When the Thames-based competitive skipper told her whānau she had made it to the world championships – the first New Zealander to do so - there was initially a laugh in disbelief.

In just two years, the 40-year-old went from skipping as a hobby to competing in top ranks, winning medals in Australia, and qualifying for the world championships in Japan this year.

Dave Alexander spent nine years building a turbo-charged lakester speed machine in his Mangatāwhiri garage.

Back in July, the 72-year-old set off to the US to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah as part of a mission to break the land-speed record in that class of vehicle.

"Nine years is pretty long time to be working on it. My wife thinks I live down there, but, yeah, it is a labour of love. It's just one of the bucket list things, something you've got to do," Alexander told RNZ's Nights.

A Taupō family of six walked the length of the country along Te Araroa trail, homeschooling all the way, having never done an overnight hike before.

A jubilant Courtney and Andrew Williams and their children Elliot, 6, Skye, 9, Summer, 11, and Oliver, 13, finished the 3048km walk from Cape Reinga to Bluff in April, in 218 days.

Their journey started September 2024, stretching from mountains to city streets, farm paddocks and native forest.

"I can't kick to the head, because I can't reach that high now, but I can take someone's knee out," 86-year-old martial arts teacher Mary Patu told RNZ.

From her backyard in one of the poorest parts of Christchurch, Patu teaches martial arts for $2 per class.

The price of Patu’s classes haven’t changed since she opened her dojo (practice room) almost 40 years ago. In that time, she estimates having shared the art and discipline of Okinawa-te with about 3000 students.

"We do everything to help this community," says Patu, from her home in Aranui. "They say it's a poor area, but it's what you want it to be."

Zoe Johnston was perched on a saddle from the age of three with her equestrian mother.

So, it's probably a no-brainer that her horse riding skills led her to the high school rodeo finals in the United States.

The Wakatipu High School student grew up surrounded by horses on their 25-acre rural property in central Otago, where her mother ran a riding school.

But it was the family’s farrier who introduced her to rodeo – a sport where riders showcase their roping, speed, turning and stopping skills. Johnston began competing at the age of nine.

In 1982, broken-hearted and with a "lousy degree", 23-year-old Elspeth Beard set out on the solo adventure of a lifetime.

Beard became the first British woman to circumnavigate the globe by motorcycle on her trusty BMW R60/6 touring bike.

"I had this slightly crazy idea in my mind, wouldn't it be amazing if you could actually ride a motorbike around the world, which now seems a bit daft.

"But in those days, without the internet or anything, the world seemed a much, much larger place," she told RNZ's Saturday Morning.

Thanks to a hi-tech inflatable raft and a support crew, 'Yak' can once again paddle down a raging river.

A canyoning accident six years ago meant Yak, an international whitewater kayak guide, thought the sport he loved was over for him.

Now back into whitewater and using his brain to "push" a packraft like he once pushed a kayak is something Yak says he thought he'd never experience again after his accident - and will now never take for granted.

"We only have one life. I might be in a wheelchair, but I'll spend as much time out there living life."

Three men undertook a daunting east-to-west adventure crossing the Main Divide on the South Island lugging 30kg of gear.

Charlie Murray, Jasper Gibson and Nick Pascoe made their way from the Matukituki valley across rugged terrain to the Tasman Sea via the Volta Glacier.

The seven-day journey was undertaken with pack raft, skis and on foot.

"At times we were scrambling on house-sized boulders, or car-sized boulders, and having to navigate through those areas," Gibson says.

"We had three days of scrambling like that. And some of it was pretty harrowing, some of it was like a house of cards, you touch one stack of rocks and it would all fall down."