This may sound like a strange question, but my husband and I travel quite a bit, and we try to purchase souvenirs/items from each location that they are famous for (ie, Glass from Venice, Pearls from Tahiti, Nutcrackers from Germany, etc). I know that New Zealand is famous for their products associated with the Sheep industry - but is there anything else that they are known for? Also, what about Fiji? I assumed there would be locally crafted articles (we also collect art of all types). We don't leave for about a month - so I'm looking for that one more detail to obsess about..... Appreciate any ideas... Thank you.

Hi, We too would be interested in this question. We are leaving Dec.1 for 7 weeks to New Zealand. I have been thinking about sheep skin rugs and am wondering where the best place to purchace them would be. Wendy

Hi Debi and Wendy<BR>Like yourselves we like to bring back home special things that we find. One piece of advise that I would pass on from bitter experience &quot;When you find it - buy IT!&quot; The number of times that we have seen something we like but said &quot;We'll pick that up in ??? and have never seen it again.&quot;<BR> To NZ and looking beyond sheep skins and woolly slippers!<BR>1. Clothing - you will find excellent clothing in exotic fibres like angora goat, possum fur, alpacas etc. All hand made and good value. Also clothing for fishing, shooting and hunting that makes ecxcellent gifts for the outdoors types. Check out Tirau, a tourist shopping cente on SH 1 about 90 minutes south of Auckland, plus all of the tourist towns, Rotorua, Taupo, Queenstown<BR>2. Maori art and artifacts. Well-crafted in wood and/or bone they make attractive reminders of your NZ holiday. In particular the Maori woven flax kits that can be put on the wall or used daily, are real works of art. And the bone pendants in presentation boxes are worth looking at. Look in the Auckland Museum, Rotorua, Taupo and Queenstown.<BR>3. Pottery and glass - some excellent pottery and world-class blown glass - some of the best I have seen in the world. Check out Hoglund Glass in Parnell shopping area, Auckland. Also has a lot of excellent art galleries and quality shopping.<BR>4. Wine- I must as a part-time winemaker give our NZ wine a plug. In all of the wine growing areas you wil find excellent wine packed for both export and presentation and if you have drunk it all before you leave you will find a couple of excellent wine shops at Auckland Airport.<BR>5. And if you haven't eaten enough of our excellent meat and saefood teh you can at the airport get special frozen export packs tha will keep for round two days in transit. Imagine getting home to face having to eat 22 dozen scallops washed down with an outstanding Marlborough Sauvigon Blanc!<BR><BR>Well that should bring the shopiholics out of the woodwork!<BR><BR>Kerry

Kerry, your response was terrific! We'll be staying in Auckland and will definitely look up the places you recommended. The friends we're staying with had brought home some New Zealand wine before - the kinds you can't find in the US - and I agree with you, it was wonderful. The blown glass particularly intrigues me - we collect art. One question - what is a &quot;woven flax kit&quot;? I know I want one after your description of how good it is - but what exactly is it? Thank you VERY much. I'm sure both Wendy and I will use your advice well....

Hi Debi and Wendy<BR>Pleased that I could help.<BR><BR>As to the Maori woven flax kits,(keti in Maori) They are a taditional Maori basket for collecting food. They are made by collecting flax from the swamp, scraping, dyeing and weaving it into things that are best described as those flat shopping bags that fashion shops hand out however they are all in natural materials with clever dyeing and patterns of natural brown/green fibre and that which has been dyed black. As a child in the country I can recall the old Maori women in the street doing their shopping with them and we always used them for gathering shellfish, but of late they have become a collectable art form, and a fashion statement with then being made into those trendy little backpacks that girls wear like turtles!<BR>Do look because there are some excellent well-crafted examples available that you will want to keep.<BR><BR>If you are passing this way let me know as Anne and I delight in showing visitors, and pointing out, the wide selections of crafts available in the Coromandel and Bay of Plenty. Drop me a line. <BR>And later today I'm going to post the offical weather forecast fot the summer that will no doubt interest you.<BR><BR>Kerry

Fiji has some interesting items - I'd suggest getting a nicely-carved wooden kava bowl. Other items would be a traditional (allegedly) cannibal's fork or a war club.

Alf, thank you for the Fiji input - my list is growing.... In Fiji, do they also do wood carvings? I like the thought of a kava bowl, the cannibal stuff - just a little depressing for me, but I wondered if they did wooden sculptures (not sure the correct term).. Thanks for the input.

Hello Kerry, Your input is just great. I loved the weather report, sounds just like at home. I fiqure if we bring a little of warm cloths and some hot weather stuff we will be fine. My daughter has her set on me bring her back a sheep skin rug for in front of the fire place. Any good suggestion on where to find a nice one at a good price would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks, it's people like you that make this such a great forum. Wendy

I don't believe that Fijians carved 'tiki' figurines such as those found in Polynesia. Most carvings are variations on the kava bowl (tanoa), war club (totokia), or utensils.

You can also buy Jade in NZ. I bought a beautiful necklace and matching earrings for a reasonable price in Rotorua. Also, Maori wood carvings are popular there as well.

In some literature on NZ, I read something about the green stone being something special in NZ - does that mean Jade? I wondered when I read it since I've never heard of something called &quot;greenstone&quot;. So far, I have sheep something (fuzzy and warm), kava bowl from Fiji...... Thanks again!

We brought back carved &quot;greenstone&quot; (Jade) from NZ, also beautiful kauri wood objects (including &quot;swamp&quot; kauri - ancient trees fished from bogs?) and Maori designed themes. Also don't forget All Black rugby shirts. The best, though, was wine from Hawkes Bay and art deco antiques from the awesome (and sooo affordable) antique shops in Napier, which, by the way, should be on your itinerary.<BR><BR>Carved wood items are all over Fiji, some sold by hustlers, especially in Suva. The main thing we brought back was sulus - the wonderful, colorful fabric &quot;skirts&quot; worn by everyone - men, women, tourists, everyone. They're very evocative of Fiji, plus they fold flat in your luggage. We did bring back cannibal forks, though, for all our friends in banking and real estate. Don't put them in your cabin luggage, for heaven's sake.<BR><BR>

Hi Wendy<BR><BR>Where to get your NZ sheepskis from? There are wholesalers all over the country and a lot will depend on where you are touring. For example if you are heading down SH1 as I mentioned there is a wonderful sheep skin shop in the form of a huge sheep constructed out of corrogated roofing iron at Tirau - it is certainly worth a visit. Another wholesaler is at Putarau, and yet another at Otorohanga where the Kiwi Display area is.<BR><BR>If you drop me your itinerary I may be able to suggest the easiest to you to purchase one from, however at the end of the day, and your trip there is always the sheepskin shop at the Auckland Airport.<BR><BR>Kerry

Tiki's and sheepskin are big items from NZ - jade if you can afford it. If you really want different, get a Maori body tattoo!!<BR><BR>Fiji -<BR><BR>Tanoa - that's the kava bowl, good because you can get everything from the smallest to life sized<BR><BR>Totokia - also mentioned before, the throwing clubs, if you see some cheap ones, best to pass on them, the true ones to buy are an investment<BR><BR>Tapa - this is masi bark cloth, stencil designs painted on, and should be on everyone's list, has gotten more expensive but just too cheap for hand made art.<BR><BR>Tabua - whale's teeth were once used as money, and the real thing is absolutely priceless, you can get replicas which aren't cheap themselves, but are very Fijian<BR><BR>Cannibal forks - yep, quite a conversation piece, but small and easy items to buy, more rarely seen are the long wood picks made to break open the skull for eating the brains (freaked out yet??)<BR><BR>Lali - the real Fijian wooden drums are quite large and can be heard for miles, but you can get wooden carved ones of a size you can take with you<BR><BR>Pottery - there are generally inexpensive forms of clay pottery in various shapes, the cheap is generally for tourists but if you look around you will find some more artistic vendors to buy from (but the market will mostly be the cheap stuff)<BR><BR>Outrigger canoes - (many different Fijian names for various types of canoes so I won't bore anyone with that, all the ones sold are ones with sails) some are very small but inexpensive that they will carve a kid's name on, to much larger ones with more intricate details<BR><BR>There are many smaller items of this kind that I consider more &quot;touristy&quot; things, some of those outriggers are in that category, some not: bure's (replicas of traditional Fijian houses), wood turtles, pairs of cheap knives with &quot;Fiji&quot; carved in them, tiki wood salt and pepper, salad bowls, etc.<BR><BR>Someone mentioned the hustlers - defiitely be ware buying on the street! In Suva go to the market for that kind of stuff, and Nadi to one of the shops. Or if there are ships in the harbor in Suva, you can avoid the crowd (and the rise in price it brings) by going to the craft co-op. You'll need to ask for directions, but it's an easy way to get quality without bartering even if you won't get rock bottom prices.<BR><BR>

You guys are great! I now have a good list - and the cannibal fork is DEFINITELY not on it - of course, Geoff, I may have nightmares about it - but it's off the list!! Thanks to everyone for the great suggestions, plus taking the time to provide descriptions which is extremely helpful.