It was 6.30am and my wife woke me to say America was being attacked.

As I watched the unbelievable happenings of 9/11 on TV, it dawned on me. ‘My God, Keri (my sister) and John are there! She told me a month ago she wanted to look at New York from a high building she had been reading about.’

My wife looked at me (with a ‘w-h-a-a-a-t’ look) as I let out a loud moan and started to cry. Dialling the phone, I said, “Keri and John are there. I gotta find them. They’re in New York this week.”

I was petrified. The most dreadful feeling I think I have had in my life. It was horrible. My stomach ached. I couldn’t stop crying. I stood over the TV aghast at the thought that MY little sister, from a hick countrytown here in Australia was there, in the middle of this, this horrifying, shocking world catastrophe. I thought, ‘What about the people involved. Inside the buildings. How terrible. Their lives were turned upside down in one sickening moment.’ I cried for them. Really for myself I suppose (don’t you just get so-o-o-o selfish when something like this happens? then the most stupid thought went through my brain, “We’re Maoris, we don’t have ANY thing to do with this!”) My New York family phone didn’t ring, couldn’t get anything from them. So I just sat on the edge of the sofa, watching. And crying. Crying my eyes out. Dialling New York again and again. Thinking the worst that could happen.

Six hours later we finally found them. They were safe. In the LA airport waiting to come home. They went up in the Towers on Friday. This was Tuesday.

How close was that?. I walked out on to the back deck of my house and looked thankfully at my back yard. The trees, the bbq, the lawn, the garden. And I was so thankful that my kids could enjoy this living in a safe country. Thankful for their safety. Thankful for the security of the people I love.

I started writing then. Back in 2001. About living in a safe country. At that time, it was the safety of the South Pacific. I grabbed every news headline about events that made places unsafe. Jakarta. Islamabad. Jerusalem. Lebanon. Then closer to home, the Bali bombings, Australians killed! Then the London Tube and again, Jakarta. Too close. I went through two laptops over the years but always kept going.

In June 2009 New Zealand was voted THE safest country in the world. Suddenly I felt like I had authority to write about the subject.

I have now written a 220 page book on New Zealand for people who are looking to emigrate overseas, away from their homeland and the possibility of a new life where the kids can play cricket and games out on the street without anyone watching them, where the local supermarket becomes a social gathering place and not a hurried weekly have-to, and you actually know the check out girl’s name! Where the locals look at you and help you to the car with the shopping bags, and then want to chat as if they’ve known you all your life!

The book profiles 30 New Zealand smaller towns, it’s for those who are ‘first-lookers’, people who don’t know what New Zealand is like, people who think, “I’d like to live in a small town like this one, 70,000 people plus, without the traffic hassles, no population problems, more than 15 days of summer weather, and wear a t-shirt all year ‘round, and a garden, and a decent school system, with a cheaper cost of living - oooh yes! and a nearby sandy beach. With real summer weather. And a not too cold winter.”

It’s a book that families should read before they make a decision to move anywhere in the world.