what’s on in nz this summer?

New Zealand – Summer 2009 / 2010 highlights

New Zealand’s native Christmas tree, the pohutukawa, is breaking into flower marking the start of the country’s favourite season where festivities and fun are the hallmark of summer.

While universities and schools are winding down to the end of the academic year, businesses are gearing up for the Christmas party season and families have begun priming their baches and camp sites for the long holiday season ahead.

December is Santa season, and almost every city and town in New Zealand prepares a parade to celebrate Christmas. Protected from the hot sun, hat-clad, cheering children line the streets to watch festive floats, street performers, marching troupes, pipe bands and musicians bring a light-hearted touch to what has been a challenging year.

Much anticipated and always the focus of the Kiwi calendar, summer in New Zealand tends to be a relaxed affair where the emphasis is making the most of the weather and the environment.

Events also focus on the outdoors and the 2009 / 2010 season promises national and regional happenings that cover a broad spectrum from sports, music, arts and culture to food, wine, nature and the outdoors.

New Zealand 2009 / 2010 summer events

Christmas lights - Auckland Sky Tower
1 – 31 December 2009
On 1 December a celebratory lighting ceremony takes place on Auckland Sky Tower’s Sky Deck when the winner of a competition to choose the colour combination for the season, will ‘hit the switch’ and turn the city’s iconic landmark into a festive spectacle. The tower will have a green base with silver, red and green flashes for all of December.
Sky Tower – Auckland

TSB Bank Festival of Lights - Taranaki
19 December 2009 – 7 February 2010
Pukekura Park, a 52ha domain with majestic trees, unusual planting, waterfalls and lakes provides a dramatic backdrop for this lighting festival in the heart of New Plymouth. Since 1993, the annual light festival has been attracting visitors to Taranaki but the origins of the festival date back to 1953 when a lighted fountain was installed to commemorate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth ll. This season’s entertainment highlight is the only New Zealand performance by Fleetwood Mac.
Festival of Lights

Rhythm & Vines - Gisborne, Eastland
29 December 2009 – 1 January 2010
This popular New Zealand festival is internationally famous as ‘the place to be’ for the dawning of a new year, Rhythm & Vines is held in a vineyard near Gisborne, on New Zealand’s east coast – the first place in the world to see the sun each day. A crowd of 20,000 gathers for the three-day outdoor festival to hear bands from all over the world and see the new year in. Top emerging and established rock, roots, jazz and dance artists perform on the Waiohika Estate’s four natural amphitheatres.
Rhythm & Vines

Black Barn Open Air cinema - Hawke’s Bay
27 – 30 December 2009 / 2 – 6 January 2010
One of New Zealand’s best known vineyards – Black Barn – in the foothills of Te Mata Peak, Hawke’s Bay, has become a popular outdoor venue where, for nine summer nights, a big screen shows popular movies. Movie-goers can relax on grassed terraces with a glass of wine, sample local fare provided by the in-house caterers or picnic with friends while they watch.
Black Barn

Parihaka International Peace Festival - Taranaki
8 – 10 January 2010
This festival celebrates the vision and example of Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi, the founders of Parihaka – a small Maori settlement on the Taranaki coast, 55km south west of New Plymouth. Situated in a volcanic landscape, the unassuming village is a site of major historical, cultural and political importance in New Zealand. The 2010 festival celebrates its fifth anniversary.

Waka Ama Sprint Nationals 2010 - Waikato
12 – 16 January 2010
Up to 3000 paddlers, from 7 to 70 years, will descend on Lake Karapiro, on the Waikato river, for the Waka Ama – or outrigger canoe event – that’s the biggest Waka Ama event in the world. There will be 320 races in distances ranging from 250m to 1500m. This is the venue for the world rowing championships from 31 October to 7 November 2010.
Waka Ama New Zealand

see lots more events all over NZ this summer 09/10

I need to loose weight … so doing it in public

I’ve been diagnosed with diabetes!

This means I need to get healthier and loose weight so have decided to blog about it .. ‘they’ tell me I’m as sick as my secrets so will let it all hang out so to speak, and hope that reporting on my successes and failures online will keep me on the straight and narrow.

Sign up to follow and support me here — my blogspot blog.

travel writers and banned countries

Should travel writers go to, and write about, countries which whom their own country has travel warnings or sanctions against?

For instance, think about – CUBA: FIJI: ZIMBABWE: MYANMAR/BURMA and other such places.

What do you think? Do you go to such places? Why? Why not?

Comments and discussion please

Kiwitravelwriter goes hiking in the Seaward Kaikoura Mountains

A small collection of photos of my time in the NZ Southern Alps (November 2009) hiking with the unique Kaikoura Wilderness Walks,  and the fabulous Shearwater Lodge.

This is just a little taster — watch for stories, blogs and articles of my time in these mountains.

Middle earth again … The Hobbit

Gandalf itching to return to Middle Earth

11 Nov 2009 ( this from a press release – not written by the kiwitravelwriter .. however, read here what she says about a Lord of the Rings Tour)

Sir Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, is itching to revisit Middle Earth after reading the script for the first of ‘The Hobbit’ films.

It’s been over a decade since McKellen donned Gandalf’s robes on the ‘Lord of the Rings’ set in New Zealand.

And, while he’s sworn to secrecy over ‘The Hobbit’ script, the veteran British actor says the part has his name on it and he’s longing for production to get underway.

Gandalf
To be directed by Guillermo del Toro, the script for ‘The Hobbit’ movies has been co-written by New Zealand producer Peter Jackson with long-time ‘Lord of the Rings’ collaborators Fran Walsh and Phillippa Boyens – and McKellen says it’s very attractive that the Gandalf part has been written specifically for him.

“As Peter has said, they loved writing Gandalf for ‘The Hobbit’ because they knew who they were writing him for. The other Gandalf was written for, well, just as Gandalf. There’s lots for me to enjoy, in all sorts of ways. And I couldn’t be happier. But I’m sworn to secrecy. I’m not to say anything at all about the script,” he said.

Unexpected Hobbit script
McKellen said he hadn’t been expecting to receive any pages of ‘The Hobbit’ but the script arrived out of the blue.

“I was sitting in London and a courier arrived from New Zealand, which is the other side of the world, bearing the script of ‘The Hobbit,’” he said.

“It was tied around with so much Scotch tape that even with two pairs of scissors, I only got into it half an hour later.”

He said the script had his name on every page with a warning that each page was encrypted, so if it appeared on the internet, it could be traced back to him.

“And I’m not to discuss it with anyone, any colleague, or friend, or family member or pet. I may not write in the script, I may not remove it from its plastic folder, and when it is taken from me by the courier, it will be shredded under supervision,” he said.

Production details
Although he has read the script, McKellen hasn’t yet been signed and details of ‘The Hobbit’ production are still sketchy.

‘The Hobbit’ story will be told in two films to be shot back-to-back with a predicted budget of NZ$474 million. New Zealand-based fan website theonering.net reports that the first six months of filming in 2010 will take place in the studio.

Work has begun at Hobbiton near the North Island town of Matamata with hobbit holes and hedgerows appearing on the farm site.

Scouts looking for filming locations have also been reported in New Zealand’s South Island, and it is rumoured that a creative team is already hard at work on visuals for the two movies.

Although it is thought that other actors have seen the scripts, McKellen is the only one to have spoken publicly.

“Gandalf is a fantastic part and I long to do it,” McKellen said. Both he and Peter Jackson preferred the earlier Gandalf the Grey version to his later, post-resurrection incarnation, he said.

“He was more humane somehow. He was the guy who liked to hang out with the hobbits and drink too much and smoke too much.”

20-plus takes
McKellen said he didn’t, however, always prefer the 20-plus takes Jackson often required on set to get a scene exactly as he wanted, and he wondered if Guillermo del Toro might spare his actors such lengthy repetition.

“A slight shiver went through me just then,” he said (smiling), “because I thought perhaps Guillermo might be a little quicker than Peter, but maybe he won’t be. He’s a bit of a perfectionist. But this script plays very much to his strengths and I can see where he’s put his mark already on the script.”

Although sworn to secrecy, McKellen promised a resemblance between ‘LOTR’ and ‘The Hobbit’ in both look and feel.

“Peter Jackson is still a hands-on producer,” he said. “Guillermo del Toro comes in not as a wild card but very much respecting it all.”

Jackson and del Toro
Jackson and del Toro speak the same language, McKellen said.

“They are the same person. They were separated at birth. They’re twins. They have the same attitude. Neither likes working in Hollywood. They’re both brilliant storytellers in very much the same way,” said McKellen.

“And I think the script, because I have read it, plays very much to Guillermo’s strengths, as I’ve seen them. I have seen his other movies, and people act very well in them. So I think it’s all fine. And Peter will always be there,” McKellen said.

McKellen said that the role of Gandalf changed his life forever. “I can’t believe it’s 10 years for me,” said the actor, who first played the wizard in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – film one in the trilogy that began principal photography in New Zealand in 1999.

“I remember being told by a friend in Hollywood that ‘your life is going to change,’ and it has. Gandalf is an extremely famous character, and I quite like having him around the corner. He’s very popular.”

More information:

The Hobbit moves into Wellington

Hobbit fans eye up Middle Earth

Builders start work on Hobbiton

Kiwitravelwriter takes a Lord of the Rings tours

Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2010 book  says (pg35)  “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, and last time we checked the land of Maori and hobbits certainly didn’t need repairing. Once again New Zealand has been put in the top ten countries which you ‘ought to put on your agenda in 2010”

Having Middle-earth right on my doorstep, it seemed I too needed to drop in on the land of the hobbits and check out the Lord of the Rings Edoras Tour (www.hasslefree.co.nz) to see what all the fuss is about.

And here, I have to confess: until this trip I was a LotR virgin! True. As shocking as that may seem to some, I have not read the books nor seen the movies – it was almost a shameful secret – but now I know a little and I’m willing to share it with you. And, it seems these tours deep into Middle-earth are becoming more and more popular as time goes by.

The tour starts in Christchurch, and shortly after I was picked up in Cathedral Square, Rex, the driver and guide for the day, pointed out the school attended by the teenage murderers depicted in Heavenly Creatures

NZ has a great tradition of great movie making – The American Film Institute has called the New Zealand film industry “one of the wonders of the world… an unparalleled success story” see more here

It was appropriate to point out the school and site for some  of the shots used in the movie as that too was one of Peter Jacksons great pictures and Kate Winslet started her career in Heavenly Creatures:

As we drove out we watch a DVD about ‘the quest for the ring’ which gave someone like me a background to the day and the film. I also learnt Tolkien was born in South Africa ( to English parents) and that, as well as having to create a road to get to ‘Edoras’  and  the ‘rocky outcrop beside silver streams’ that Tolkien described in his books, Rex also tells us “the village took months to build, they were there filming for 3 weeks, then it was dismantled.”

So on we drove, past trout-filled lakes, through little country villages, over the Canterbury plains and glacial-formed braided rivers, passed tussock covered hills until we emerged in the ‘secret valley’; home of Mt. Sunday, 95 metres (over 600ft)  above sea-level and which was transformed into Edoras, capital city of the Rohan people for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

As dramatic music soars in the vehicle we are welcomed: “Welcome to the Kingdom of Rohan in Middle earth” – our guide makes it a momentous occasion. read the rest of the article here

Note: Hassle-Free Tours (www.hasslefree.co.nz ) also run Christchurch city tours, and an Alpine Safari which includes a jet boat, 4×4 vehicles and the TranzAlpine train so check their website for up-to-date information.

by the kiwitravelwriter,  Heather Hapeta

The Kiwitravelwriter to tutor on a Pacific Island – FIJI

Learn travel writing on a Pacific island

They pay you to do what? Like travelling? Like writing?

This course is run by the redoubtable kiwitravelwriter, well-known in New Zealand and expanding her readership rapidly. Her suggestion is compelling:

“Take a vacation-with-a-purpose, learn travel-writing, and then get paid to travel! Combine your writing and travel passions so you can earn money for even more travels by learning to write terrific stories at this travel writing workshop – and wonderfully, where all the topics we need will be right on our doorstep for us to experience – I believe authentic, ethical travel writers never write about things they haven’t done or seen.”

And of course you can also use the same skills for creating a setting in a novel, or short story, and to greatly improve your blogs, letters, and emails.

Topics will include (but not only):

• How to write specifically for various publications
• Know your market
• What works – what doesn’t?
• Where to sell your stories – locally and internationally
• Finding your own style and the secrets of style
• Use your senses; quotes; fact files
• Query letters and the taxman
• Considering other markets
• Photography and travel writing: along with exercises, daily expeditions, and lots of talking in-between.

By your last day you should have a perfectly formed (critiqued) article ready to pitch to an editor and start earning.

Course requirements: enthusiasm and curiosity are essential.

Add notebooks and pencils; a camera; perhaps your laptop or an audio cassette – and, as we are on a Pacific island – sunscreen and swimming costumes are highly recommended!

Check out this link for more info re course and of  course the fabulous resort – I hope to see you there!

Off to Hanmer Springs for the day

 

want to bungy jump from here?

take a hike up Conical Hill

Conical Hill

one of the 360 degree views form the top of Conical Hill

Ti Kouka - NZs 'cabbage tree'

Hot mineral pools are a must do

post office long closed!

 

 

tips for traveling alone from kiwitravelwriter

Considering travelling alone? Some tips from a biased-in favour-of-solo-travel by a passionate nomad.

I love to travel alone for many reasons: high on the list of advantages to solo is the freedom to decide when, where, and how I will travel. Solo travel means 100% pain and 100% pleasure

Navratri festival .. longest dance festival in the world

Of course there are downsides to being alone; it often costs more for accommodation and you always have to make all own travel decisions, read the map alone, and always be totally responsible for your own actions and this can be tiring!

However, you also can always stop to eat where and when and what you want. The augments – or heated discussions – I have heard over this simple topic are amazing in their ferocity and frequency.

Being alone also means there are no safety nets as you walk the tightrope of lone-travel. However being alone does not mean being lonely.

I am approached by locals more than when I’m spending a day with another traveller. It seems that I am less threatening alone so locals  – who often are keen to practice their English or just talk to someone with a different background – will approach me. So I believe you will meet more people on your own, have direct contact with those who live in the country. You needn’t be lonely.

even monks are tourists

I travel without reservations or plans so I also need to approach locals for information in a way that is not required by tourists. It is also a great way to get to engage with other women who are often in the background, virtually invisible, in many places.

When I ask a couple for information it is the woman that I address my query.  Frequently it is the man who replies (often women, in non-English speaking countries, have limited English) but, by being a woman talking to a woman, I have made myself more acceptable and non threatening, less inappropriate, in their eyes anyway.

Interactions with these locals give me a different perspective on the country than when I sit and talk with a fellow traveller over a Turkish coffee, a Malaysian long-tea or a Thai curry. (favourites of mine)

Conversations with other travellers are useful, fun and interesting too, but are better kept for evenings at the hostel, tent or hotel.

If, when travelling alone, you feel lonely one can always join someone for an hour or a few days. Once I even joined a group of ten in a truck to travel in Botswana and Namibia, not because I was lonely but for convenience. Although I got to fabulous places and saw great sights, I did not get to have interactions with the very people I came to meet. A big group is too intimidating for most people to approach; this truck tour convinced me lone wandering is my preferred style.

Finally the other really great travel companion for me is my journal and a good book. They add some consistency to life when all else is changing – constantly!

So what other advantages are there, for me, in living a nomadic lifestyle on foreign roads?

There is no compromise in the experiences I have, I can stay as long or as short as I wish, so the ability to be flexible is a wonderful asset.   I have developed skills and strengths that I did not know I wanted, needed or were lacking, and my experiences – both the pain and the pleasure- are intense, undiluted by the thumb sucking security-blanket of others.

So that’s why I’m a sole traveller? Maybe because I feel more of a soul-traveller that way: or maybe it’s because I am totally selfish and self-centred and want to grasp the intensity all to myself. And it’s that very intensity that makes me a passionate-lone-nomad.

Only in New Zealand would you see this sign

Kiwitravelwriter included on 101 Most Awesome Adventure & Travel Twitterers

Just had to pass this information on

(after all there are another 100 travel writers you need to know about, not just me):

Hi Heather,
Congrats! You’ve made our “101 Most Awesome Adventure & Travel Twitterers You Should Be Following” list!
You can see the list here:  http://abroadening.com/161

We worked hard to compile a list of awesome people like you who embody passion, adventure, and share their best traveling tips via Twitter.

I love connecting with new globetrotting friends who love travel and adventure as much as I do, so connect with me at http://twitter.com/abroadening

(and if you’d like to share the 101 list on twitter, here’s a handy link: http://bit.ly/travel-list)

Travel wide and live dangerously!

Markus Mindaugas
m@abroadening.com
twitter.com/abroadening
abroadening.com

If you like my writing, my book is for sale HERE

Join me on my FACEBOOK PAGE The Kiwi Travel Writer

Heather (L) joins in the fun of Thai Buddhist new year festivities