My Favourite Holiday: TV presenter Sarah Mack picks New Zealand as her top destination

A NEW STV series, The People’s History Show, on Tuesdays at 7.30pm, takes a look back at the nation’s past.

It’s the latest project for popular presenter Sarah Mack, whose CV includes Scottish Passport, Landward and The One Show.

Sarah, 43, lives on a farm in Aberdeenshire with husband David and children Harry, Seb, Jamie and Robbie.

THERE are places you so want to go back to but life takes over and you never quite manage.

They become once in a lifetime experiences, like our African holiday.

David organised our honeymoon in a hut on the coast in Tanzania, and it was a wonderful three weeks, very quiet and just so special.

But my absolute favourite place is New Zealand.

After university I lived there for a couple of years and it was one of the happiest times of my life.

I worked as a barista in a coffee shop and I came back thinking I’d do the same here, but my life took a different direction.

As it turned out, David was also in New Zealand about the same time, although our paths didn’t cross.

A couple of years ago we went back, this time with the kids, and it proved to be a life-changing experience.

We stayed with various Scots friends and people we knew in Wellington and a place called Wanaka on the South Island, which I fell in love with.

There’s a real affinity with the Scots.

The Kiwis have such a positive attitude we came back full of that enthusiasm and it helped us press ahead with plans we had for the farm.

Funnily enough, I went back to the same coffee shop – more than 15 years on – and the guys that ran it were still there.

It was great to catch up and time fell away while I was over there and I was ready to party again.

It was so different to my childhood holidays which were always to the Mull of Kintyre, where my folks have a caravan.

My grandparents went, then my parents and having now taken our kids that’s four generations of our family who have holidayed there.

My memories are of there being six of us squeezed into a caravan – and having my first can of Top Deck shandy!