When you’re on the wrong side of 40, recovering from knee surgery, having never run further than five kilometres at any stage in your rapidly middle-aged life, and then someone suggests competing in a marathon in just four months time? You surely laugh. And then swiftly say no. That is unless, of course, the setting…
Category: Pacific Islands
In Search Of Giants – Wild Adventures In The Jungles Of The Solomon Islands
Legends and myths thrive in the Solomon Islands, but perhaps none so captivating as the stories of giants who live deep within the jungles of Guadalcanal. So the rumours tell, a race of giants as tall as 10-15ft inhabit the mountainous forests of the island’s interior, only occasionally leaving their homes by the cover of…
Suva Has One Of The World’s Great Colonial Hotels & Too Few Kiwis Know About It – Reviewing The Grand Pacific Hotel
Always a sucker for a historic hotel, as soon as I heard Fiji’s 1914-built Grand Pacific Hotel had been given a multimillion dollar refurbishment to celebrate its centenary, I knew I had to go there. Five years on from that Suva stay and as we grapple with what tourism will be post-Covid-19, I wanted to…
Luxury With A Conscience: Fiji’s Refurbished Shangri-La – My NZ Herald Review
Last week the NZ Herald published my ‘Room Check’ article about one of the oldest and largest luxury resorts in the South Pacific, Shangri-la’s Fijian Resort & Spa on the Coral Coast. Fresh from a US $50m refurb, the property – as located on its own causeway-linked private island – has everything from stunning white…
A Food Festival On 1 Of The World’s Largest Coral Islands – The KaiNiue Food Fest
I’ve never been to Niue and it’s on my list. A Pacific Island nation that sits on one of the largest coral islands in the world (Niue is roughly the same size as the island of Penang in Malaysia at 261 square kilometres), a population of just 1600, a mild tropical climate where average daytime…
Man-Made Islands On A Stunning Lagoon – My Top 60 Malaita, Solomon Islands Photos
Langa Langa Lagoon, Malaita. There were so many things I saw in the province of Malaita in the Solomon Islands that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. A grass-runwayed airport with jungle either side and the sea at both ends for starters. But the sight of naturally blonde-haired locals playing bamboo panpipes with old flip-flops/thongs/jandals…
The Best Jungle In The South Pacific – My Top 50 Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands Photos
Near Tenaru Falls, Guadalcanal. The Solomon Islands may be poor, in some cases, desperately so. And they may also be surprisingly expensive too. Then there’s the not insignificant matter of the civil unrest from the turn of the century. But none of this means you shouldn’t go, nor does it mean there aren’t some very…
My Top 50 Favourite Photos Of 2015 – A Travel Writer’s Year In Review Including Fiji, Australia, Malaysia & New Zealand
Monkey Bay, Tioman Island, Malaysia. 2015 had me swashbuckling / cramping up embarrassingly through Malaysian jungles, spearfish snorkeling / ripping my swim-shorts in the butt-crack region in Fiji and hiking the lush and rocky landscapes of Victoria’s Grampians National Park. While getting chased by a kangaroo. For every premature self back-pat, something unexpected or awkward…
Why Fiji’s Mango Bay Resort Was Just What I Wanted
A beachfront bure at Mango Bay Resort. Going to Fiji on a Monday and coming back on a Friday seemed like one of those half-baked, I-haven’t-had-enough-sleep ideas I was surely going to talk myself out of. And yet it progressively seemed less and less silly. There were soon-to-expire air-points to get me there, the cheap…