A bridge to readers

VICTORIA BARTLE meets a travel writer who gets high on the job.

How do you spot a travel-guide writer on assignment? Someone who has written guides on Alaska and Wales, has almost finished his first book on the Yosemite National Park, and is working on the third edition of a New Zealand travel guide?

Maybe he's wearing a distinctive hat or vest - eye-catching and vaguely nerdy, covered with badges from his travels. Or perhaps he'll be bearded and rugged. Rather that than portly, tweed-jacketed and with a know-it-all booming voice.

So when Paul Whitfield - author for the London-based travel manual The Rough Guide - turned up to climb Auckland's Harbour Bridge, he was almost disappointingly normal, a regular guy in T-shirt and cargo shorts and well-travelled sneakers. And only a few months shy of 41.

People assumed Whitfield had recently flown to New Zealand from Heathrow on this latest assignment for The Rough Guide, now in its 21st year of publishing written guides for travellers in almost every country. Sure, the accent is definitely English and he writes for a British publication, but he lives a little closer to the bridge.

If he clambered on to his roof, he says, the bridge would be in view. St Mary's Bay, nestled down the seaward slope from Ponsonby, is home to Whitfield these days.

This is his second stint at being resident in New Zealand - the last was a 10-year stretch from his high school years, through chemical engineer training at Canterbury University and a two-year job at the Chelsea Sugar Refinery in Auckland.

Wiltshire-born, and having spent much of his adulthood living in England and travelling extensively, Whitfield says he still has a sense of being a tourist in New Zealand - enough to feel confident he's writing up the stuff tourists want to know.

The chemical engineering took a backseat about nine years ago when, while travelling in Morocco, Whitfield saw The Rough Guide for that part of the world, started using it and liked its style.

When he found places and attractions he enjoyed, he wrote about them and sent his notes to the guide's publishers. He sent updates and corrections, too, when his visits to already-documented places revealed things had changed.

"I wrote more and more letters - basically pestered them until they gave me a job when I turned up in their offices one day."

Just six weeks since Auckland Bridge Climb made the country's most famous bridge the second in the world to offer a climb to the top of its arch (Sydney was first), Whitfield says its high profile made it impossible to ignore. And, it seems, he is more qualified than most to pass judgment.

Probably the most-asked question at the bridge-climb base these days is, "Have you done the Sydney Harbour Bridge climb?"

Whitfield's answer to this intended icebreaker: "Yes - but not officially."

"Oh - so you did it, but not to write about?" .

Whitfield looks a little uncomfortable now, aware the other climbers in the quiet prep-room are tuning in to this conversation.

"No - I did it before the bridge climb thing opened - when it wasn't ... er, well, legal."

Prompted, Whitfield explains how he and a friend climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge arch one night - he was just 23 - with a bottle of champagne to consume at the top. It was in the days "when everybody did it", and getting past the barbed wire and other nasty flesh-cutting security devices was a matter of knowing where the broken wires were, thanks to previous climbers.

There was one scary bit, he conceded, where he and his friend had to hold on and swing out in mid-air to get past some barbed wire.

An afternoon spent at Auckland Bridge Climb's Nelson St base, getting kitted out with earpiece, safety harness and deliberately drab overalls (safety is paramount, and motorists shouldn't be distracted), then walking the 2km of metal walkways and steps will probably culminate in a paragraph in the next edition of The Rough Guide to New Zealand.

Whitfield explains his paragraphs can actually be quite long - could even stretch to 80 words - within 80 to 90 paragraphs he will write on Auckland.

After all, he has to squeeze all there is to know about the North Island into its share of a 14-chapter book - apart from Wellington, which is covered along with the South Island by British couple Tony Mudd and Laura Harper.

Research can mean long days, and it's not all high adventure and free excursions. Often it's a case of double-checking and updating what was printed in the last edition, making numerous phone calls and sometimes walking quick-smart into one museum after another to ensure there's nothing new or different to be included in the guide.

So taking a few hours to do the Auckland Bridge Climb, he says, is pleasant and exactly as its promoters market it - soft adventure, suitable for just about all ages. It's not extreme or physically demanding, though a few climbers discovered they had a fear of heights, one woman crushing her sunglasses painfully in her palm, others overcoming jitters with controlled breathing and help from their guide.

Whitfield says he's not an adrenalin junkie, and will probably leap from the Sky Tower's new skyjump only because he feels he should know from experience what he is writing about.

He's done several bungy jumps for the same reason, but prefers activities that offer "the challenge of needing to learn a skill well enough to carry out the task" - such as canyoning.

The Auckland section of The Rough Guide will include a new adventure-activities listing, Whitfield says, thanks to attractions such as the bridge climb and skyjump.

The third edition is to be published in time for next summer. If it is received as well as the second, sales could reach 45,000 to 50,000.

Auckland Bridge Climb