Guide Lines Handy guide to New Zealand

Press, 16 August 1988, Page 30

Guide Lines Handy guide to New Zealand

Travellers New Zealand. Pacific Tourism Promotions/Collins, 1988. 263 pp. $24.95. This is a reasonably detailed guide to New Zealand’s attractions, arranged by themes, and district-by-district, and with adequate maps and illustraions. It would work best for overseas visitors eager to pack as many activities as possible into limited time. The advice is generally reliable and easy to follow; where particular attractions or tours are mentioned the book names the organisers and tells how to reach them. This gives it a rather commercial flavour in that, for in-

stance, some hotels or restaurants get a good mention while others, that may be equally good, get left out. That is a minor quibble however, when the book generally works well and gives sensible advice, especially on such matters as travelling times. And New Zealanders who browse may be surprised to find how little they sometimes know about their country’s attractions, even in their own home town. But why, when space for illustration is very limited, does the book contain the same picture of a mob of sheep near Mt Cook on both page 122 and page 230?