By THERESA GARNER
Prime Minister Helen Clark is on holiday in Norway, where she skied 37km cross-country in darkness and drove a scooter on a moose-spotting expedition.
Her Christmas holiday - kept secret apart from the fact she would be skiing - was revealed in the Norwegian newspaper Gundbrandsdolen Dagningen at the
weekend.
A beaming Helen Clark, with her husband, Professor Peter Davis, riding pillion, was pictured sitting on a snow scooter bundled up in winter clothes in minus 15 deg temperatures about to go moose spotting.
The paper reported that after attending the world premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Helen Clark went to Norway and took to the slopes of Kvamsfjellet in the Rondane National Park in complete darkness.
She had not seen any reason to brag about it.
"I have done a lot of skiing in New Zealand in much tougher terrain, but it was a wonderful trip, I have to say."
Helen Clark's previous holidays have included climbing Tanzania's Mt Kilimanjaro and part way up Mt Aconcagua in Argentina.
She had intended to go to Turkey for Christmas but, because of security warnings in place after the November suicide bombings there, had to change her plans, the newspaper reported.
Helen Clark told the paper she had always thought Norway would be too cold and that the days were too short but that the "wonderful" trip had changed her mind.
She gave a plug to Whale Rider, which screened in Norway over Christmas, but most of the interview focused on The Lord of the Rings and a tax loophole that made filming in New Zealand attractive to the producers.
She said she did not know if New Zealand had made money out of Peter Jackson's trilogy.
