Steve Boyd has lived around the world, but he sings Wanganui's praises, especially Castlecliff which he said was the best place to live.

The Castlecliff Seaside Holiday Park was booked out for Christmas with campers and holidaymakers who stayed in the little huts.

But Mr Boyd had seen a 45 per cent downturn in European travellers, thanks to the troubled European economy, through our winter months.

Mr Boyd has managed his "bucket-list job" at the holiday park for the past three years but is heading to Christchurch in three months' time to return to his electrical engineering trade.

Wanganui is a place of opportunity and the best central location in New Zealand, he says, but again wondered why Horizons did not operate buses to transport the visitors in the city to the motorbikes and jetsprints.

Mr Boyd also wonders why those in the tourist industry in Wanganui do not work together more.

He then looks at all the positive aspects to the seaside suburb, and names those community groups working in the suburb or working to make Castlecliff a better place: Yes to Youth, the Coastcare Castlecliff who are replanting the sand dunes, and the artist who recently moved into the former Buywell supermarket building on the Matai/Rangiora St intersection.

He has nothing but praise for the Castlecliff Surf Lifeguards.

"Over the past two years I have only had to help rescue two girls who were on the sand bar fully dressed when the tide came in and pulled them out to sea." Luckily one of the lifeguards was packing up at the end of the day and with Mr Boyd, they managed to bring the two girls ashore.

- WANGANUI CHRONICLE