Travel Directory Kudos

If you belong to the NZMCA you’ll likely recognise this book, it should have arrived in your mail box sometime during the last few weeks. This is the Association’s ‘bible’, the Travel Directory. It contains thousands of parking sites for members covering every region in New Zealand and every type of camping site from freedom camping, DOC & commercial campgrounds to NZMCA’s own parks, POPs (park over properties) and CAPs (costs apply parking) the last three being available exclusively to members only. It also lists all the dump station sites around the country.

If you’ve been following my blog you might recognise the photo too. The view is looking from Mt John out over Lake Tekapo towards the Southern Alps. It was a lovely surprise to find out just a couple of weeks before the directory went to print that one of my photos had been selected for the cover. This is a great honour as the directory is only printed every two years which means that 50,000 plus books will be in a prominent spot in every member's mobile home until the next print.

And the photo?  I had a quiet chuckle when I found out that this was the photo chosen. I took it hanging out the window of the ute as we headed up Mt John. A quick moment in time, with David beside me, telling me to concentrate and keep an eye on the edge. We’d just about been run off the road by the motorhome when it passed us, insisting it had the middle of the road. The driver ignoring or not being able to read the sign that said “give way to uphill traffic”. It’s always the way; the photo you least expect gets all the glory. Here’s the link to the blog post and the photo.

Also waiting for me in the mail when we got back to Tauranga were copies of a few more publications that had purchased my photos awhile ago. Two Tide Times books with one of my photos as their cover and a page in the Tide Time Calendar. It was sheer coincidence that out of the seven regions, the two book covers I scored were for the Bay of Plenty (the province I’d lived in for the past 25+ years) & Hawkes Bay (my home province).

The calendar page was taken of harness horses training on the beach at Waikouaiti just north of Dunedin, the Bay of Plenty photo was taken at the popular Kaituna Cut near Maketu & the Hawkes Bay photo is of the Veronica Sunbay on Napier’s Marine Parade.