A RENOWNED and celebrated trainer, writer, model and presenter from Australia is in the country for a holiday at Savusavu's Daku Resort.
Solweig Walkling is a Pilates instructor in Australia, and also does modelling work with fitness magazines and TV shows and has a huge fan base from around the world in the cyber social network.
Pilates exercise is a physical fitness system developed in the early 20th century by Joseph Pilates and popular in Germany, the UK and the US.
Ms Walkling is an athlete with extensive experience in endurance events and earlier this year she broke her foot and has been doing a lot of swimming to rehabilitate it.
During her stay she will also be part of a yoga retreat at the resort.
Apart from that she has also been part of other resort activities.
According to Daku Resort spokeswoman, Delia Rothnie-Jones, Ms Walkling only learned to swim eight years ago, but on this trip to Fiji she participated in a 10-kilometre ocean swim in Savusavu on Saturday, September 1.
"She originally planned to compete at the famous Mana 10-kilometre swim but has switched her focus to Savusavu and she planned to swim from Daku Resort to Jean-Michel Cousteau Fiji Resort (JMCF) and back," said Mrs Rothnie-Jones.
"Since arriving in Savusavu, Solweig fell in love with the tranquillity of the place and was reluctant to take the journey to Mana, that's when the idea of the Daku- JMCF swim was born," she said.
Ms Walkling talked with Daku Resort owner John Rothnie-Jones, who suggested that she do the swim locally.
"Solweig Walkling is a great swimmer and a great person for the inaugural Savusavu 10-km ocean swim and we will be asking her back next year to present the awards.
"We're already planning for it," Mr Rothnie-Jones said.