This photo of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern embracing Wellington woman Naima Abdi, after 51 died in the Christchurch mosque attacks, went global. Photo / Hagen Hopkins / Getty Images
It's been a decade of horror, and of hope.
Earthquakes, a deadly act of hatred, and tragedy at the mine. But also a bonny future king making Kiwi pals at a Plunket playdate, and the joy of new life for our Prime Minister and her partner.
Adversity and heartache. But also laughter, strength and unity.
Through the words of those who lived it, Cherie Howie shares the stories of New Zealand's latest decade.
She was alone, didn't say a word, and he never learned her name.
But Tony Kokshoorn can never forget crouching next to a distraught woman in the Greymouth Civic Centre carpark on November 24, 2010.
The woman, along with other relatives of 29 men trapped since an explosion in Pike River coal mine five days earlier, had just been told there was no hope.
"We were expecting good news that day because we thought they were going to make a re-entry," Kokshoorn, Grey District's mayor from 2004 until October this year, said of that devastating 10th briefing for families.
Then-Pike River boss Peter Whittall started by telling the families there was good
news - gas levels had dropped and search and rescue were ready to go in, Kokshoorn said.
Cheers broke out, but Whittall began waving his hands.
"He's going, 'Stop, stop, stop. I've made a mistake, you've taken me wrong.'"
Families were then told the reason gas levels had dropped was because there'd been a second, massive explosion, and there could be no survivors, Kokshoorn said.
"Oh God, it was terrible. It was a combination of that massive expectation that somehow they were going to be rescued and then bang. And you had to come to terms with it, real fast."
As the devastated families spilled outside, Kokshoorn spotted a woman, distraught and alone, leaning against a wall.
He crouched beside her, one arm around her shoulder, the other clutching her forearm.
No words were said.
"What was there to say? She was just in a state of shock. And when you're in a state of shock, what do you do? You don't think. She was basically dazed."
The photo would go on to be part of a portfolio of six which won Herald photographer Mark Mitchell Photographer of the Year at the 2011 Canon Media Awards.
Kokshoorn knew many of the miners who died at Pike River, among them district councillor Milton Osborne.
He didn't know the woman, and the Herald also couldn't identify her before publication.
But her pain reflected that of so many, Kokshoorn said.
"That photo … it summed up the despair and the realisation that the 29 weren't coming out. They were dead."
When a shallow, powerful earthquake broke his city and his home in 2011, Simon Nicol was among tens of thousands of Cantabrians forced to begin the slow, painful process of picking up their lives and starting over.
One of the first tasks was packing up.
And one of the first items to be taken from the garage of his busted Prestwick St, Avondale property - the liquefaction-clogged house was red-stickered within a day of the deadly 6.3 magnitude thumper - was a scantily clad, saucily-posing mannequin.
It's the kind of image that brings a smile to the face of those who see it.
They're met with a smile too.
Nicol has one on his face, despite the liquefaction and sewage squelching below his gumboots and the spitty rain in his eyes.
But don't be fooled - he wasn't happy.
"You had to be tough because there was aftershock after aftershock, and you had your kids [looking up to you]. So you had to be tough."
The quake, which killed 185, led Nicol, his wife, Erin, and their kids, Finn, then 12, and Mollie, then 10, to leave their home city for Timaru after they couldn't find a rental.
The family eventually made a new home in Wellington, including for their mannequin friend.
The mannequin, which is unnamed, has a mysterious history - the family nabbed it while walking to a park one evening and seeing a man dropping it into his recycling bin.
"Could they have it?" they asked the man. "By all means," the man replied.
"He said, 'Mum hates it, so it's got to go.'"
They thought the mannequin, which has a flat back, might've come from a 1960s diner but weren't sure, Nicol said.
Whatever the less-than-PC item's provenance, it would stay part of their lives.
It would also, as in that quake-shattered city, stay in the garage.
"Erin has said, 'I'm not sure that it needs to be in the house.'"
It's the universal ice-breaker between new parents: How's the sleep going?
Cameras were clicking, officials were scurrying and everyone was on their best behaviour, but take that all away and the moment David Alve and daughter Eden were introduced to the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince George was just a meeting between two new parents and their babies.
Then aged 8 months, Eden was among nine Wellington babies chosen to join the prince, also 8 months, and his parents at a Plunket-organised playdate at Government House in 2014.
The locals arrived first and when the royals followed they slowly made their way around the room, meeting everyone, Alve said.
He and Eden were snapped with the prince and his mum because their meeting coincided with a short window in which photographers were allowed into the gathering, he said.
The sweet moment captured - two babies, in the arms of their smiling parents, meeting over a shared interest in the same brightly coloured wooden doll - went around the world, with Eden celebrated as the prince's "little lady friend".
He was standing in front of one of the most famous people in the world, but the conversation was the same as any parent would share, Alve said.
"[The Duchess] was just pretty down to earth. She asked, 'How are you finding it? How's the sleep going?'
"It was very relatable, just the same kind of conversations you'd have with other parents."
He could hear the photographers capturing the moment.
"Quite a big throng of media came in and were in one corner. There were lots of clicks and flashes. We just tried to ignore them."
Seeing the photo go global was surreal.
"You don't think about that happening to you. But it's also quite nice to hear from people we know who'd moved overseas.
"One said to me, 'I saw you in the paper in a tube station in London.'"
As for Eden, now, like her old playdate mate Prince George, a big sibling to a younger sister and a baby brother on the way, Alve wasn't entirely sure what she made of her connection to the boy who will one day be King.
Creative and imaginative, the 6-year-old was more interested in a monster-fighting princess than her old playdate prince.
"She's really into superheroes. She's particularly fond of Bat Girl or the [book series] Princess in Black, but also any number of her own superhero creations, such as Ice Girl."
But the young visitor from the other side of the world wasn't completely out of her mind, Alve said.
"We've told her [about the meeting], she's seen photos. Sometimes she asks when she's going to see him again."
Behind Jessica Murray is a house wrenched apart in the midnight darkness by a freshly-woken faultline.
In front of her is a baby with a dirty nappy.
New Zealand's notoriously shaky isles had cranked up yet again and this time it was the central and eastern top half of the South Island that copped the full force of nature's power in 2016.
At Bluff Station, a 13,800-hectare farm inland of Kēkerengū, itself midway between Kaikōura and Blenheim, Murray was clinging to a bedroom doorway in a farm cottage.
She'd become stranded when the full force of the complex series of quakes, which began with a magnitude 7.8 shake north of Culverden and would kill two, struck as she tried to get to her sleeping children.
"The predominant noise was things falling and smashing in the house … there was water pouring from the ceiling as the header tank spilled over."
Murray and her husband, Hamish, bundled up Lucy, 2, and Margot, 1, and began driving the 500m to the farm homestead, where her parents-in-law lived, but the ruptured faultline soon blocked their path.
"We walked the rest of the way. The moon was huge and we stepped over downed power lines in the driveway … and I remember the smell of petrol because the bowser had fallen over and it was spilling down the driveway."
It wasn't until morning she saw what had happened to a farm worker's neighbouring house, on top of the Kēkerengū faultline, which crossed the land between the cottage and the homestead.
As she took in the shocking sight journalists and a GeoNet scientist arrived by helicopter.
"They said the house [above the faultline] was the most spectacular thing they'd seen as they'd flown down the coast."
A reporter asked her to be in a photo to give the house and faultline some perspective.
Her main thought wasn't the broken house behind her though, but her baby daughter.
"Margot had a dirty nappy and I was conscious I needed to go and change it!"
Later, she'd read hundreds of wellwishers' comments after the photo was published online.
"However, one comment was 'Oh look, the earth is opening up, let's stand the baby next to it.' I can still remember it word for word three years later.
"Someone else wrote, 'Yeah, it's not very clever is it?' Then a whole lot of people came out in support for me. One comment was, 'Even worse, the baby has mismatching socks!'"
Initially, she was upset someone thought she'd intentionally put Margot in a dangerous situation, Murray said.
"Then I was angry at myself for letting this get to me. I knew that my baby was safe, photos can be deceptive."
She was the most famous newborn in the world, and Libby Cain was among the first to get a cuddle.
The Auckland midwife helped bring Neve Gayford, the first child of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Clarke Gayford, into the world.
But cuddles were in demand.
"I love newborn babies so cuddling Neve was a treat," Cain, a midwife of 26 years, told the Herald.
"She was a lovely baby. So many people wanted cuddles with her so I really only got to hold her when there were things to do with her in a midwifery capacity."
It was the day after Neve's 2018 birth when Ardern asked if Cain would be in a photo she planned to share with her roughly 700,000 Instagram followers.
"I think Clarke took the photo and I was pretty tired, I wish now that I had had time for a full makeover because it went viral," Cain said.
"While I did think it was going to be seen by a few people, I couldn't have ever imagined so many people would see it."
The response was surprising but lovely.
"I heard from a lot of my friends and family as no one really knew I was the midwife for Jacinda and Clarke until then. I have family in England and France and they loved seeing it in the news.
"For the first week I was extra busy fielding calls from friends all over New Zealand and my social media usage was off the chart. Someone even started a #fansofLibby - ridiculous really as I was just doing the job I love."
Being involved in Neve's birth and the first six weeks was something she'd always remember.
"It was pretty special … every pregnancy and birth is amazing and I have always felt privileged to be involved with them. The emotion in the room before and after a baby is born is pretty intense.
"Being able to share my knowledge and experience with Jacinda and Clarke was certainly up there with life experiences, especially with everything else that came with it, like security and media interest."
Everyone who came to the Wellington Islamic Centre two days after 51 worshippers were shot dead at two Christchurch mosques was either crying or needed a hug, Naima Abdi says.
Jacinda Ardern was no different, the woman famously photographed in a warm embrace with the Prime Minister told the Herald.
The photo would bounce around the globe, from news media to social media to the exterior of the world's tallest building, Dubai's Burj Khalifa.
Many saw it as a simple act of compassion from Ardern, comforting a member of a community devastated by an act of hate.
And it was, but the comfort went both ways, Abdi said.
She was standing by the door because so many people needed encouragement to come in, with some even standing on the other side of the road.
"Most of the New Zealanders felt guilty, so I was trying to make them feel comfortable enough to come in. [I wanted them to know] in every society there's always good people and bad people."
By the time the Prime Minister arrived Abdi had already hugged "a million people", she said.
"Everyone that came through the door was crying or needed a hug. Jacinda, she was in tears as well. She had tears in her eyes. She wanted to cry but she was trying not to."
They embraced after the Prime Minister "stretched out to me", Abdi said.
It was a long, full hug which lasted about a minute, she said.
"It was a 'hold on to this moment' kind of a hug and she said, 'We'll get through this together.' I said 'I know we will.'"
The mum of three, a Geneva Healthcare support worker who also volunteers for the Muslim Association and refugees' NGO Changemakers Forum, didn't realise her photo was being taken.
But Abdi, who came to New Zealand as a refugee from Somalia in 2009, was in no doubt as to who benefited from the embrace.
Everyone.
"I'm more emotional [in that moment] because every new face, every new tear brings new tears to your eyes. But we were both [needing a hug].
"And the response [to the photo], that was amazing. The world acknowledged the support and the love we have in New Zealand."
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