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Newsletter of Hiking New Zealand - No. 11 - September 2003
In this newsletter
Toitu he kainga; whatungarongaro he tangata……. People are transient things
but the land endures (from the native Maori people of NZ).
Kia ora and welcome
Hi and welcome to the latest update from Hiking New Zealand. This year we made the milestone of being in business for 10 years. As well as having a big party to celebrate the event we also officially began operating as Hiking New Zealand Ltd. On a similar note, Malcolm O'Neill has re-branded the North Island safaris under the name Active Earth New Zealand. We still work very closely together and sell the North Island trips through our website. For more information on what Malcolm is up to see his website www.ActiveEarthNewZealand.com.
We have enjoyed a very mild winter here in Lyttelton this year. After a brief cold snap, with snow down to sea level a few weeks back, its been generally blue sky days and sunshine; great news for those on our winter trips. Spring trips are excellent if you enjoy fewer tourists and the ice and snow provide fantastic opportunities for photos, snow fights and bum sliding. So why not come join us for a spring safari, they are great!
· Michelle sadly left us in October 2002 to pursue other goals in life; we all miss her zanyness, energy and enthusiasm.
· Greg took over from Michelle in mid October and is doing a fantastic job. He's the new administration person and the one you are most likely to communicate with. He is also studying for a Postgraduate Diploma in E-Commerce specialising in web programming, so he can sort out any web-site problems too.
· Dan, operations manager, has just returned from giving a talk to 400 delegates at an Eco-tourism conference in Japan. All went well and he now has a pile of great reading… pity he can't read Japanese.
· Mark is about to take a year off with his partner (and ex guide) Margaret. They have just had a baby girl, Rata, on 8th September and are all doing well. They plan to travel around New Zealand for a while in a campervan in search of more special places to take Safaris. Mark recently spent 2 weeks in Papua New Guinea hiking in the highlands and is considering running some trips here in the years to come.
· Stan (that's me) is new in the office. Guiding since 1999 and recently recruited to office duty in June, my job is to have all safari gear in tip top order. So we now have Stan and Dan in the same office; not good for a number of reasons, maybe I need a new name (suggestions welcome). They can't stop me guiding though - you're all too much fun to give it up entirely!
· Malcolm O'Neill has been very busy designing brochures and posters for Active Earth. He did manage to get away to Tasmania to do some tramping and kayaking in June. Malcolm can now be contacted directly at mo@ActiveEarthNewZealand.com.
· Joe Fagan is now the operation's manager in the North Island for Active Earth. Joe has been on a cruise this winter for winning the sexiest guy award in some radio show competition!
· Puma, the office cat, is our quality control officer. She likes to keep an eye on our work by getting between us and whatever we are doing.
Did you know?
Eels may be among the longest-living animals; a 10kg eel could be as old as 60-70 years. Scientists have found eels in Lake Rotoiti (Nelson Lakes National Park), with an estimated age of more than 100 years.
2002 Winner Eco-Tourism and presented with a Distinction Award.
2001 Winner Adventure, Finalist Eco-tourism.
2000 Winner Service to the Environment, Finalist Adventure.
We've now won awards in the New Zealand Tourism Awards for three years running and have been presented with a Distinction Award in recognition. As a result we have been banned from entering the awards for the next two years! A lot of effort goes into submitting entries for these awards so it's a great reward for all our hard work.
We are very proud of our web-site and are continually working to make it the most comprehensive site for New Zealand hiking information. Our site was given a major upgrade in June 2003. The new layout has made it more user friendly and we have introduced some exciting new products. So if you haven't had a look recently, check it out at www.HikingNewZealand.com. And if you have any questions please email us at . We're really keen for you to use the web-site guest book. It's a great way for those of you who have been on a trip to help promote us via an interactive media. We would love to see you having some fun with it, be creative, tell us some stories, share moments or anecdotes. We rely heavily on word of mouth so if you did have a great experience with us then please share it with others.
Our new flagship
As part of our commitment to continually improve the quality and value of our safaris, we are proud to announce the arrival of a brand new Ford Transit mini bus complete with our newly designed trailer. Both provide greater comfort and space for you while on the road, and more importantly look very impressive.
Being experts in outdoor adventure, we are in an excellent position to promote, sell and answer your questions about other outdoor adventure trips in New Zealand. We are now involved with a number of other tour operators who provide equally high standards of safety and excellence in outdoor experience. This means we can offer you a range of exciting new adventures. We have also added some great new trips of our own.
· The Eastern Epic is a new 10-day Safari that we started last season and are very pleased with how this trip has been going so far. Daryl has been guiding it and believes it's our best. It does have a lot of uphill hiking, so you need to be fit. Its graded medium+, which means challenging for some of us!
· The Far North is a new 5½ day Safari being run in the warmer top end of the North Island. This is our easiest trip and a great introduction to New Zealand's outdoors. Bookings for this trip are looking good and we think it has huge potential.
· Malcolm has just put on a new North Island Adventure. It's an easier 8-day comfy accommodation tour only sold through the web sites. This one is brand new, so how about being the first to go on it!
· We are very happy with the bookings for the new great hikes and are extending the range to include the Abel Tasman, Queen Charlotte, the Grand Traverse (Fiordland and Mount Aspiring National Parks), the Hollyford and Stewart Island
. · We've also added a Winter Ski Touring package, telemarking in the Mackenzie Basin.
· We've added three new expeditions to the Sub Antarctic islands and Antarctica; nine days in the Sub Antarctic islands of New Zealand, nineteen days Birding Down Under in the Sub Antarctic Islands of Australia and New Zealand, and an epic 29 day South to Antarctica experience of a lifetime. See our trip profile below on this one.
· Our other safaris are all going great and we continue to get awesome feedback on them. What more can we ask for!
Trip profile: South to Antarctica
Antarctica and the Sub Antarctic Islands are fantastic parts of the world to go to and who better to talk to about it than the people who live in the country that's closest to it. Mark has been to Auckland Island and believes it's one of the best trips he's ever done, and he has done a few. Friends that have been all report a sense of specialness, fragility, and of feeling privileged to have had the experience. The South to Antarctica expedition is run in conjunction with the Polar Research Vessel Akademik Shokalskiy. The people running this trip have been operating, working and playing in the Antarctic region for over 25 years and have been offering tourist cruises since 1992. They are dedicated to providing innovative and exciting itineraries that ensure an experience to be remembered forever. There is one South to Antarctica expedition departing this season on January the 4th. This 29-day journey visits a number of Sub Antarctic Islands off the south coast of New Zealand. The expedition visits Ross Island, McMurdo Sound and Possessions Island with attempted landings at Cape Adare, cape Hallett, Terra Nova Bay, Franklin Island and the Ross Ice Shelf. The region offers spectacular scenery and a wide variety of sub-Antarctic and polar wildlife including seven species of penguin, Fur, Elephant and Weddell Seals, the rare Hookers Sea Lion, Orca's and Whales. A vast array of Island and sea birds may be encountered, including tomtits, fernbirds, bellbirds, Red-crowned parakeets, flightless teal, Cambell Island Shags, Cape Pigeons, Antarctic Terns, Gulls, Sooty Shearwaters, Petrels, Albatrosses, and Ice Bergs! The expedition will also visit a number of scientific bases and historic sites. Have I managed to whet your appetite? There's a lot more info on this trip and the other new adventures listed above on our web-site.
Under water record holder
Did you know that the Bladder Kelp (Common around New Zealand's Coasts from Cook Strait Down) is the fastest growing plant in the world! It can grow up to ½ a metre a day, reaching its full height of 35 metres in just 3 months.
A new camp
We are currently in the process of setting up a new campsite in the Buller River Gorge for both the West Coast Wilderness and the Eastern Epic trips. We've found a wonderful little place not far out of Murchison that will give us an insight into classy rustic living in the Buller region. Our host, Nadia Jowsey, will provide us with a fresh, organic, locally grown seasonal meal in her house. Imagine sitting around a large wooden table, dried flowers hanging from the ceiling, a crackling wood burning stove and Billy Holiday singing in the background - Café atmosphere with a friendly, family attitude… sounds good….
Behind the Scenes of Guiding at Hiking New Zealand
Working for Hiking New Zealand has been the most challenging and rewarding job I have ever had. As we are sole guiding on trips, there are many times during safaris that guides need to be able to organise and plan on the fly. But support for guides is excellent and for every day guiding there is a days work in the office ensuring trips run smoothly and safely, optimising the experience for all. This is achieved through well-established operations systems with checklists for vehicles, trailers, equipment, and hire gear that ensure our high standards are maintained. Our comprehensive safety plan is audited internally every year and externally every five years. We have golden rules and operating procedures that set up clear guidelines for how guides must operate in the outdoors. We also have a hands on approach to training; we run an annual, comprehensive, four-day risk management weekend that all guides are required to attend and trainee guides go on actual safaris with a fully trained guide before they run a trip themselves. Guides are also provided with lots of options and contingency plans so they can easily change things to accommodate the unexpected and 24 hour office back up is available if needed. The level of support given means that unplanned events become fun and exciting rather than a guides worst nightmare; a great advantage of being pre-emptive and pro-active with trip management. Unplanned events often end up being a highlight, a credit to the people we have running trips, the office support they have and you, the people that we attract to Hiking New Zealand. So, it is a challenging job with a lot of responsibility, and it has a lot of operational support, and that's all part of what makes it a great job. Running trips for Hiking New Zealand is an amazing experience that I, for one, wouldn't have wanted to miss.
Fitness and training for your Safari
People are often unsure of how fit they need to be to do one of our Safaris. Our trips are graded from easy to fit, so that makes it easy doesn't it? Not really! Unfortunately people's impression of fitness varies from one person to the next since we all use different benchmarks. The web site has tables that provide information on how we grade our trips and should give you some idea of the level of fitness required for each of the grades. In general the fitter you are to start with, the more enjoyment you will get out of your trip. If you are concerned about your fitness and want to prepare yourself for the safari the web site also has some good tips on how to go about doing this (see Hiking & Fitness).
New Zealand's maritime climate is incredibly changeable and very difficult to predict. The weather on land can change considerably if an approaching weather system shifts direction by as little as 5 degrees. Working out what's going to happen requires the following ingredients: know how to read the weather map, have a bit of a handle on how the weather works, have some experience with the local conditions and what tends to happen given the predicted movement of the prevalent weather system, know a bit about what different clouds do and keep an eye on which way the clouds are going. Put it all together and, hey presto, you then know exactly what the weather MIGHT do. Sound simple? Actually, it's a bit of an art; so, if all else fails, just have a look and see what's coming, if it looks bad, get out of the hills! The best advice is, always be prepared for the worst, know the forecast and be prepared to turn back or batten down the hatches. The weather is probably the most dangerous thing in the wilds of New Zealand - it makes up for what we lack in dangerous and exciting animals - and not being prepared for it accounts for the majority of deaths in the outdoors. So, next time you think your guide is making you carry too much extra junk on this beautiful sunny day, remember, in NZ, there is good reason for it; it can snow in the hills any time of the year… and often does!
When is the best time of year to come and do a trip?
Well, it depends on what you're after. If you want to come when there are fewer travellers about then winter is good but can be pretty cold. If you want a bit more time up your sleeve then the longer summer daylight hours might suit you better but there will be more people about. If you want the best of both worlds then the shoulder season is a good time to come; there's fewer people than summer and days are not as short as winter. We can get stormy weather at any time of the year, however we often get more settled weather patterns in winter with lovely clear frosty starts and sunny days with little wind. However, if you're after warmer weather your best bet is to come in January to March… no guarantees though. See http://www.weather.co.nz/ for more information on New Zealand weather.
As part of our philosophy of minimising our impact on the environment, we recycle as much as we can on our trips. In New Zealand we can recycle plastic containers (numbers 1 and 2 only at this stage), all paper and cardboard, tin cans, aluminium cans, foil and glass. All that doesn't leave much to throw away. My partner and I recycle as much as we can and compost all our food and green waste. Each month we put out approximately one shopping bag of rubbish - not surprisingly this is mostly packaging. The items that are recycled must be washed clean, as food and other contaminants cause problems in the recycling process and are also a health hazard. Give it a go at home, you'll be surprised at what you can do. It's fun, especially when you go to the recycling station and put all those valuable resources in for re-use, doing good for the environment in the process. Better than just filling a hole in the ground! For more information on recycling in New Zealand see http://www.recycle.co.nz/index.html. For an international link to information on recycling and resource conservation see http://www.iucn.org/.
We have done another analysis of your response to our questionnaire on your favourite book and movie. The results are surprisingly similar to last years so we're giving you the top 10 this time to give you twice as many books to choose from.
This season's top 10 books:
1. Lord of the Rings
(1st last year)
2. The Alchemist (3rd last year)
3. Touching the Void (2nd last year)
4. Tuesdays with Morrie (5th last year)
5. Harry Potter (4th last year)
6. Jonathan Livingston Seagull
7. To Kill a Mockingbird
8. Papillion
9.
Bird Song
10. Into Thin Air
And top 10 movies:
1. Lord of the Rings (2nd
last year)
2. Shawshank Redemption (1st last year)
3. Braveheart
4. Amelie
(5th last year)
5. A beautiful Mind
6. Life is Beautiful (4th last year)
7. Pulp Fiction
8. The Matrix (3rd last year)
9. The Big Blue
10. Memento
That should give us all some viewing and reading to do, thanks for the feedback…..
Favourite quotes
· So tomorrow .......... we get up early, get bitten by sandflies, get wet feet, walk uphill for 6 hours, and then get beaten at cards. So why did I enjoy myself so much? Claire, UK
· Strange soups, skinny dipping soirees, sarcasm, stimulation and snuggly sleeping arrangements... A truly mind broadening experience. Susan, UK
Travel tips
If you were going to be doing some flying around New Zealand while you are here, a good plan would be to visit the Air New Zealand website. There are cheap flights targeted to New Zealanders but you can book them too if you book directly through their web-site: www.airnz.com. You do need to book early to qualify for the discounts.
Frequent Fliers
At just thirty grams the tiny Red-Necked Stint is as light as a sparrow, yet each summer manages the incredible feat of flying from the Arctic to New Zealand - a distance of 10,000 km. The Red-Necked Stint takes the East Asian Flyway with stopovers in Japan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Australia, before arriving in New Zealand. Try pricing that one!
New Zealand's a great destination
New Zealand has always been a great destination for a holiday, especially for those of you on the other side of the planet. What better place to get away from it all than as far as you can get! And with only 4 million people, yes we have recently hit the 4 mil mark, in a country the size of California, it's pretty easy to get away from it all. With world politics the way it is New Zealand has become an even more popular destination; it must be one of the safest places to live and travel. If you haven't been yet, get over here and if you have already been come on back; it's the place to be and we've got lots of new trips for you to check out. Incidentally, about 5% of our business comes from people coming back and doing more trips. That's it from us this time, keep getting out and enjoying the wilds.
Cheers from
the team at Hiking New Zealand.
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