Step 9: Improve your guiding skills

Hi all!

After being harassed too many times by the Robertson family about writing in a funny secret language and them not being able to read the stories in which they star, I have now decided to write in English. So hope you’re happy now guys! ;) (Although, except for this small part, you actually don’t star in this update…Ah well..)

On January 11th I was released from the office to help guide on one of our most popular trips: The Otago Rail Trail. Some of you might remember that I did one of those during the first two weeks of my internship in 2008, but this time I was expected to help with guiding it a bit more, so that was exciting. We had a group of 11 clients and immediately from the start Kate, the other guide, and I knew it was going to be a great group as we missed the exit and had to take 3 left turns to come back to the same spot without any comments of the group, haha! It wasn’t till the last night that two clients admitted that they noticed we passed the same buildings twice… So friendly! It was an interesting mix with five Ozzies, a lovely Canadian couple, a Kiwi/UK couple and a Kiwi mom with 11 yr old son. Right from the start they all mingled well and this lasted the entire trip, so that was really good and easy for us guides.

The first day of the trip is a fairly long drive, but the fresh snow that had fallen that night on the mountains made the scenery worth looking at and the drive not so bad. Plus, the views at Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki never loose their magical feel. However, the weather wasn’t so kind to us and at the point where we were getting out of the bus to do some biking it started raining quite heavily. However, this didn’t stop the group and once we were all on our bikes the rain thankfully cleared. That night we stayed at Dunstan House, an old character hotel in Clyde, and just before going to bed we had a bit of a chat about ghosts and haunted places, which made my night one of the worst ever and the firecrackers that the local youth decided to light during the night didn’t add to that…. Haha!

The next three days were spent on the actual Rail Trail. Because I was guiding I was mostly at the back of the group or driving up the road with Kate to the rest or final point and biking towards the group. Or fixing bikes of people who decided not to do a guided trip and rent bikes (which then broke down....Let it be a lesson for them...) The first two days the weather was lovely and it was great to finally meet the owners of some of the accommodation as I always email them, but never have a face to the name. On the third afternoon I had my second go at curling (dropping the skills, Ties!), which was great fun again. One of the Canadians had actually been a curling champion with his university team, so he had a serious go at teaching us the real deal, however, we preferred to just push the stone and sweep as hell to get it into the circle, haha! Always a good laugh. The last day on the trail was pretty yukky, with quite a bit of rain to begin with and some fierce head winds. But all the adults made it to the end and absolutely loved it. After finishing the trail it was time to leave the bikes for the day and board the Taieri Gorge Train which took us from Pukerangi to Dunedin. This is such a lovely train ride, through a beautiful gorge and even the weather cleared for us to take some good pictures.

The last day meant driving all the way back from Dunedin to Christchurch, but we started by visiting the world’s steepest street and rolling some Jaffa’s (orange/choc sweets) down it. Then a quick visit to Moeraki Boulders and then on the bike again for an awesome coastal ride. Last time I only did part of this ride and with a strong headwind, so this time I actually had a look around and got to enjoy the ride. We finished in Oamaru, where a local tv station approached us to interview some of us for their broadcast that night, haha! Unfortunately, we couldn’t watch it as you had to live within 50k’s of Oamaru to see it. Around 7pm we made it back to Christchurch where we dropped everyone off at their hotels and went home knackered, but overall it had been such a good week.

Unfortunately, being away from the office for a week means two weeks needed to catch up on work again, so I am still in the middle of that… Ah well, today I was told I’m released again on the 15th of Feb to join our new Molesworth trip, so that should be good! But lots of work to do before that, so an early night for me tonight. The Buskers Festival is on this week, but unfortunately the weather doesn’t really cooperate, so it’s not so inviting to go out on the streets and see all the artists perform. I did invite Joe (Rach’s flatmate) and Babette (our new Dutch NHTV intern) Saturday night and Sunday to go and see some of the performances, so that was good fun. And last night Bronwen, Sam and I went to four stand up comedians, which was a great laugh. Hopefully the coming weekend will be good, so we can enjoy some more.

Off to bed now, hope you’re all well!!!

xx