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!

]]> http://kiwitravelwriter.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/the-kiwitravelwriter-in-fiji/feed/ 0 kiwitravelwriter http://kiwitravelwriter.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/hanmer-springs/ http://kiwitravelwriter.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/hanmer-springs/#comments Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:01:07 +0000 kiwitravelwriter http://kiwitravelwriter.wordpress.com/?p=1724 ]]>

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!

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

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

Rugby World Cup Countdown

There is just two years until Rugby World Cup 2011 kicks off in Christchurch with the game between Argentina and England at Stadium Christchurch on Saturday 10 September 2011.

The previous day New Zealand will play Tonga in Auckland in the opening game of the New Zealand based Tournament.

To mark the start of the two year countdown, Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker unveiled a countdown clock in the city today. The clock will soon be based in Cathedral Square where it will remain until the Tournament begins – but will also make appearances at major events around the region over the next two years.

Detail of the Chalice - public art in'the square'

“It’s a constant reminder of how long we have until we showcase our city and our region to the rest of the world in this amazing Tournament,” says Bob Parker.

“The clock is well and truly ticking.”

Bob Parker said that the city had now entered a new stage of preparation for the Tournament. “We’ve completed the planning and design phases of our Rugby World Cup campaign and are now moving on to the construction and infrastructure upgrade stages – where people will start to see things happening around the city.”

See more posts under MY CITY, and RUGBY,  in the categories section, and photos of Christchurch, NZ at the top of this page.

OK confession time. What are some of your worst travel buys? What unimaginable horrors have you inflicted onfriends and family?

I posed those questions at a BBQ recently, along with, what have you have bought, traded or stolen to bring home? What embarrassing items have you got hidden under your bed, too ashamed to let them see the light of day – so bad or weird that even your best friend doesn’t know that your taste had dropped so low.

No-one confessed to a Jesus with a pulsing heart or pyramid pencil-sharpeners that I have seen available, but we did hear of two bottles of Mongolian vodka that was polystyrene-spray-packed to arrive home safely, the postage costing more than the product. The same confessor also admitted to buying a 1.5 x 1 metre, wooden-backed painting in Thailand causing more ‘how do I get this home’ problems to be solved.

One person, the host, admitted her taste was so low that one of her favourite souvenirs (now gone to the great souvenir heaven in the sky) was bought for her family by an uncle. It was a plastic donkey complete with panniers that, when the lids were lifted, became ashtrays. But wait, there is more. Into these panniers go the lit cigarettes, push the poor creatures’ ears up down or forward – I forget which- and the smoke was directed out its rear end. We all agreed she had no taste.

The next worst souvenir story, also in the nicotine addiction field, was about one that was not bought (he gets the best-taste prize). Imagine if you will; a merlion, Singapore’s half lion-half mermaid symbol, as a cigarette lighter and that plays the theme from Titanic when used! Ghastly.

A bow and arrow set was difficult to manoeuvre in and out of buses, plastic mirror and comb sets that are never used and the usual pencil sharpeners, plastic sphinx and Sydney’s bridge and the must-have-place-name-dropping T-shirts have all been admitted to.

My confessions are few as I rarely buy souvenirs – many are too difficult to carry in a backpack and I prefer to save the dosh for another day of travel – although I do try to buy something small to use as a Christmas decoration.  These tiny reminders of various countries allow me to display my tiny blue china clogs, a wooden San Francisco tram, a Buddha in a glass cage, and a verse from the Quran: at least once a year. A unique tree I think – a mish-mash to others!

Why do we buy them? Reminders of a place and time that is special to us or snobbery and wanting to produce envy in others.

Kingston Flyer - New Zealand

‘Oh have you been to Alaska?’ You are asked as you wear the thick sweater emblazoned with A L A S K A in the middle of a kiwi summer. ‘Oh yes I have’ we mutter, ‘how did you guess’ really pleased to be able to tell someone else about our travels. Alternatively we give the same item to a friend, mother, or child. Have you been to Alaska they too are asked. No I haven’t they mutter, but my mother, my friend, my son has. Envy once removed!

OK, I so I am not as perfect as I made out. I too do have confessions to make. I did steal a small silver-plated easel that displayed the wine list, from a suburban restaurant in Budapest,   I also have bought stones and shells back from a romantic sailing trip, and I have a number of T shirts that scream where I have been.

Take only photos leave nothing but footprints – I don’t think so. I want my book of African legends, I want the T shirt that says I was staff on the Perhentians Islands’ Moonlight beach restaurant and I want my porcupine quills from a hiking track in Botswana. You might not be impressed but I am.

OK it’s your turn …confess,  what can you add to the list?

Pulua Perhentians, Malaysia

To pee or not to pee: that is often the question when you are out sailing, skiing or hiking and it’s too cold, too awkward, or too immodest to drop your trousers/pants.

Men have been always able to do this but for us women its always been a problem. At a sports show recently I was introduced to the Shewee – a device which enables women to pass urine standing up – fully clothed! (” a portable urinating device for women” the box says.

“Try it in the shower first” I was recommended and that was a helpful tip – not that there were problems but that it meant when I used it on a hiking trail it knew exactly what to do. It works! No cold rear end; no prickles in the derrière; and, no holding up the group while clothing was removed then pulled back up.

A SHEWEE in its' pretty pink pack

Coming in its own carry case, and with an extension pipe to improve directional flow, this is the ideal gift for the women traveller, skier, and hiker. I can see many women wanting to use it in Asian squat toilets as no squat required!So, when you just ‘have to go’ you can!

Q. Is this something you would use?

Please tell us some of your desperate-to-pee, ’should have had a Shewee’  stories

Visit the worlds first inner city pest-free environment

In a hidden, almost secret valley, kiwis are breeding only 3 kilometres from parliament – in the heart of our Capital city, a slice of New Zealand is reverting to its former glory with the help of a predator-free-mainland-island.

When early settlers wrote about this area they reported rich and diverse forests filled with deafening bird-song. Here, in one of Wellingtons best kept stories, a group of people, with a five hundred year vision, are restoring the area to that same condition.

I have taken a ten minute bus ride, and now, after checking my bag for mice or other predators, step through a gate in the 2.3 metre predator-proof fence and into the 252-hectare valley.

Katie and Allison, two of the volunteers guides, are taking a small group on a nocturnal tour.

“This is a listening tour” they tell us. “You  can except to hear various night birds but not see them” and so begins our walk on what they have dscdribed  as ‘a work in progress.’

The night-sky is clear and we’ve been given a torch.

‘Only use it to see the path when you need to’ says Allison ‘and make sure you have your fingers over the light to make sure we don’t disturb anything’

Karori, Wellington, NZ

Our eyes grow accustomed to the dimming half light and off we go, Katie giving us information in response to our questions.

The two reservoirs originally supplied Wellingtons residents with water and were decommissioned in the mid-nineties. There are around 10 paid staff and some 400 volunteers and the only visitor entry to the sanctuary is via the visitor centre at the end of Waiapu  Road. (on the left as you come through the Karori Tunnel

We walk, dusk turns into night, a large group of black shag are roosting on a dead pine tree and when we stop at the upper dam we hear our first kiwi. The call carries across the valley and a shiver-thrill ripples through my body. How amazing that this wonderful bird is safe and breeding so close to human activity. Standing on the dam, built in1908, now a  tree-top canopy walk, more birds call, we hear about five different kiwi and a couple of weka. Kiwi were released, over two years, in the valley ( from Kapiti Island) and the numbers have increased naturally since then.

On our walk back down the other-side of the dam we see glow-worms. I feel quite disoriented by them. They are so bright in the dark night and look like the lights of a distant city. Passing back through the weka fence (weka sometimes eat kiwi eggs) we stop to listen as another kiwi calls. Most human kiwi never get to hear this sound and I feel lucky to be hearing so many here on this city ‘island’.

“That’s Jackson” said our guide. “He was re-named because he is a good producer. Just like jackson the director of Lord of the Rings” After a few more minutes we hear scuffling and snuffling. It is Frodo, Jacksons son,  born in December and who I thought was a hedgehog!

I return the next day, spending some three hours viewing the valley in daylight and learning a little more. Some 3 tons of  dead possum were buried on what is now the Tui terrace, and as well as a dog who has been trained to find predators, bait stations are set up throughout the valley. Apart from a small infestation of mice early on the fence is succesful.

Heather Hapeta teaches travel writing el fresco!

Another series of tracks, hides and other viewing areas are nearly complete and this – the Fletcher Challenge Kiwi Trail – will provide many more opportunities to view our native birds. The area also has some interesting local history, including disused unsuccessful gold mine tunnels, and a class one historic building which houses the damns workings.

Lord Plunket, NZ Governor General 1908-1911, housed his row-boat here and spent many sunny afternoons fishing in the damn.

Fishing is no longer permitted but I can fully recommend you spend time in this deep, Wellington fault valley. New Zealand is fortunate to have people with 500 year visions who are gifting this to us and our descendants.

For more information

www.sanctuary.org.nz

phone 04 920 9200

A day at Te Papa is a must: after some twenty visits there I still find plenty of new things to tempt me. The virtual bungee made me scream – I could not convince my brain I was not teetering on the brink of a platform, tied to a rubber band and planning to jump into thin air, many, many metres above a river.

Naturally, the theatre is a must too and Downstage and Circa always have a production well-worth seeing: as a passionate nomad, travelling alone, I often get the very last seat so suggest you always try to see some local theatre wherever you are.  The vibrant waterfront, the City Gallery and other art spaces around this vibrant city are also ‘must-do’ activities.

But enough of the arts, how about getting out in the fresh air – and sometimes the term takes on a whole new meaning in this city of dramatic weather: although its often called ‘windy Wellington’ I like the other saying – ‘you can’t beat Wellington in a good day.’  This is so true and I’ve found it has many, many ‘good days’. Today, we are off to the zoo!

A distinctly NZ sign for the toilet

“We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo, how about you, you, you, we’re going to the zoo” I sing (not melodiously I must confess) and, recalling childhood songs, my adult children join in while my ten-year-old grandson raises his eyebrows!

My first visit to a zoo was as a preschooler and where a hippo impressed me greatly – no wonder I loved them on later travels – and still today I have that frisson of excitement about seeing animals, both native and exotic, up close.

Wellington Zoo say they are ‘the best little zoo in the world” and is open every day except Christmas Day: New Zealand’s first Zoo, it was established in 1906 and the gift of a young lion – called  “King Dick”  after Prime Minister Richard Seddon –  was officially the Zoo’s first animal and by 1912 it housed over 500 animals.

people start to gather for close encounters

The zoos history shows it has had many interesting and quirky characters including: Percy the pelican came to the Zoo in 1919 and made it into the Guinness book of records as one of the longest living birds in the world, making it to 62 years old; a grey gibbon named Nippy was the Zoo’s longest serving resident, and the oldest gibbon in the world; and in 1999, the Zoo was home to a cheeky little otter named Clyde. Clyde was very good at escaping and one day decided he would leave the Zoo and explore the nearby suburb of Newtown. He was later moved to a secure enclosure at Mogo Zoo in Australia.

turf flys towards me and my camera

No-one escaped the day we were there but we did see an otter playing with a coin that some stupid person had dangerously thrown into the enclosure (naturally we reported it to a keeper)

Our highlights included (but not only!) the noisy, augmentative, chimpanzees – including one who delighted in throwing clumps of turf at us!

We also loved Tahi, a kiwi that had been injured in a gin trap.

Although treated at the Whangarei Bird Recovery Centre and Massey University Wildlife Ward he eventually had to have his leg amputated: after his leg healed, and with his chances of survival in the wild being zero, he went to live at Wellington Zoo as an advocate for his species.

The zoo investigated having a prosthetic leg made for him and Weta Workshop (of Lord of the Rings fame)  along with the New Zealand Artificial Limb Centre made him a prosthesis – he learnt to walk with it but it soon became apparent to his keepers that he was more comfortable without it.
Now, Tahi is the most famous one-legged kiwi in the world, he has had a book written about him (Tahi: One Lucky Kiwi) and he has appeared on television and in magazines all over the world.

African dog

Wellington Zoo has around 500 animals comprising over 100 species: and to be able to see the city right on the doorstep is one of its charms – I would love to live nearby and hear the animals and birds roaring, calling, tweeting. (you can have zoo sleepovers and really be part of the zoo!)

Some of the residents are critically endangered – Sumatran tigers or Campbell Island teals – and others are unique in New Zealand to Wellington Zoo (the Malayan sun bears and White cheeked gibbons).

We were able to get up-close to big cats and giraffes as part of a Close Encounter, and learnt about favourite animals at one of our daily talks. Having been fortunate enough to have seen them in the wild, I especially loved watching the endangered African dogs tearing their food apart.

For visitors to Wellington: the zoo is easy to get to on bus routes #10 and #23

More info here and here

A new study from the British Met Office states that catastrophic climate change, previously thought to be 100 years or more over the horizon, could occur within 50 years. Meanwhile, in the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate negotiations in December, the European Union is calling for 10 and 20 percent carbon dioxide emission cuts for aviation and shipping.

Why should the New Zealand tourism industry care? I argue that we all have an urgent responsibility to act on climate change, because if we don’t, we are going to spend the rest of our lives dealing with the increasingly dire consequences – consequences which will include droughts, floods, tropical diseases reaching New Zealand, and sea level rise that will make investing in coastal property – including those parts of our major cities that are just above sea level – a really, really bad idea.

But just suppose you don’t care about that. Suppose all you want to do is turn a buck from international tourism. So far, you’ve been lucky, relatively speaking: international aviation, on which inbound tourism to New Zealand depends, was exempted from the Kyoto Protocol, the current international agreement on climate change policy that expires in 2012.

This exemption is unlikely to last forever. Not only is international aviation a rapidly growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, but because most emissions from international aviation occur high in the atmosphere, the effect of aviation emissions on the atmosphere is magnified. The aerospace industry has been lobbying vigorously against the inclusion of aviation in future international climate agreements. As recognition grows of the effects climate change is having, and how rapidly those effects are increasing, it’s most unlikely that aviation will escape the net forever.

That is going to increase costs, and in a price-sensitive tourism market, long-haul travel will be especially sensitive to cost increases. But carbon charges are not the only likely source of cost increases: although the recession which began in 2008 caused international oil prices to drop, the International Energy Agency predicts that another sustained rise in oil prices is not far away. Airlines hedge fuel prices where possible, but those price rises will ultimately have to be passed on to passengers.

As costs increase, New Zealand’s battered “clean and green” reputation will come under increasing pressure, partly from the very emissions that result from flying round the globe to get here. If I were involved in the tourism industry, I would be protesting vigorously to the Government every time it or its agencies propose investigating conservation lands and national parks to see if it can mine them, or digging up farmland to mine highly-polluting lignite. Those things do nothing for New Zealand’s international image, quite apart from the damage they cause in their own right, and as the 10-20% Pure New Zealand campaign shows, people are noticing the contradiction.

The credibility, and ultimately the existence, of New Zealand’s international tourism industry depends on vigorous and public action to combat climate change and find genuine alternatives to present unsustainable transport methods. Better to get to grips with the issue now than have it get to grips with you in the near future.

Tim Jones is a Wellington writer, editor, and sustainable energy and climate change activist. For more on Tim and his writing, please see his blog Books in the Trees.