When our Netjetter Ellie Levenson set off on her travels, we hoped she would provide stimulating copy which would be read by many people. We little imagined that she would manage to offend a nation.

But now, according to one newspaper, Ellie has acquired the status of "New Zealand's public enemy number one".

In her last dispatch, Ellie described New Zealand as beautiful but "essentially the dullest place on earth". Her comments were picked up by the press: the Sunday Star-Times ran the story on the front page under the headline "Young Pom thinks we're all dull" - complete with picture of Ellie sipping a lager in front of the Sydney Harbour bridge, a scene calculated to infuriate the Kiwis.

Fortunately, perhaps, Ellie left the country before the talk show hosts could track her down, but the fury in the leader pages and letters remained. A chain email urged recipients to let Ellie know just what they thought of her; a chatroom on MSN New Zealand was devoted to her. She has so far received more than 100 angry emails, some of which you can read here. Even the country's tourism minister, Mark Burton, entered the debate, saying that anyone who called New Zealand boring obviously didn't see very much of it.

Somewhat cattily, he said that this could just be a case of this writer wanting to differentiate herself from her peers. In New Zealand at least, Ellie has certainly done that.

Read the articles in full

"Skin deep": Ellie's article
Young pom thinks we're all dull
Not on your Nellie, Ellie

Further links

"Anything but dull": a New Zealand enthusiast replies
Quotes from our readers
Readers' responses on our feedback page
Netjetters 2: read more about Ellie
More about New Zealand: country page