Saturday, April 28, 2007

Reading New Zealand: From the Writer's Notebook...


From the Writer’s Notebook by Lydia Monin (Reed Publishing, 2006)

Subtitled Around New Zealand with 80 authors, this travel book provides an interesting insight into historic New Zealand through the eyes of famous writers such as Mark Twain, Zane Grey, Anthony Trollope, and Agatha Christie etc, etc.

Focusing both on the visiting writers preconceptions of New Zealand - for example, before Mark Twain visited New Zealand, he thought that New Zealand and Australia were connected by a bridge - and on their actual impressions of New Zealand, this book is a fascinating journey around New Zealand in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Friday, April 27, 2007

The NZ Charity Golf Tour...

There’s a guy called Ricky Bartlett wandering around New Zealand playing golf. He aims to hit every golf course in New Zealand - all 385 of them - within the year. You do the maths. He will have to play golf once or twice a day for a whole year. That’s an awful lot of golf….

So you have to ask yourself why someone would create such a challenge. Either you’re a golf nut or you’ve got a mission.

Ricky’s got a mission - to raise money for charity. To be specific he’s raising money for four charities - SPCA, Amnesty International, The Cancer Society, and Ronald McDonald House Charities.

He’s been playing for the past 269 days and has raised 45,644.38...

Want to know where Ricky is now ? Check out the Where’s Ricky map…he could be at a town near you…

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Another New Zealand blog...

I discovered a new New Zealand blog the other day called An Argentine-American Living in New Zealand.

He offers an immigrants perspective on New Zealand, complete with dictionary entries...

Who knows what a chilly bin is ?

Christchurch Tour Guide Blog up and running...

I've got a new blog up and running called Christchurch Tour Guide.

Part of the Home Turf Media network, it will be focusing on all things Christchurch.

My theme - to show Christchurch with the 'eyes of a tourist and the knowledge of a local'.

Stop by. Tell me what you think...