Elisabeth Easther talks to Susanne Kiely of Pukekohe Travel.
Tired of Auckland's traffic, I said to a friend that I'd love to work in Pukekohe and she mentioned that Pukekohe Travel's accounts person was retiring and that's how it started. There was no talk of tour leading or selling tours, I was purely bookkeeping. But, when I'd been here about eight months, the tours manager asked if I'd like to take a group to the Chatham Islands. I have to say, I didn't even know where the Chathams were before I started working here, that's how informed I was. But I said "yes that'd be lovely" and off I went with a group of 30. And I discovered I quite liked it. I have a bubbly, friendly personality and now I do lots of tours.
The thing about being a tour leader, you are on 24/7, aside from sleeping. And all that time you are giving of yourself, being upbeat, friendly, making sure everybody is okay, remembering people's names, being really nice and that's tiring but I love it. When I get back to my room, I'm just spent. I don't sit in the bar for hours each night. Sometimes I'll go for a walk but mostly I go to my room and blob out.
I didn't start travelling properly until my own daughter turned 21. She went off on her OE in 2000, she went to England and never came back so, because of that, I went to her. We started with a Trafalgar tour, five countries in 11 days — the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy — and that gave me the bug. I realised I love travel. That first time was amazing, so that's what I started doing.