Night Stalker

This summer there’s unlikely to be quite the same demand for guided tours at Zealandia. Last year, we had a bumper crop of cruise ships into Wellington before the covids abruptly cut off that business, and I for one am not expecting it to resume in the 20/21 summer season. Maybe next year? Maybe no go.

Anyway, rather than recruit and train a new batch of guides, they have decided to train up some of the existing day guides to be able to take night tours. This involves an additional layer of training and responsibility – because the visitor centre is closed at night. This means that the night guide is the only person available to deal with any situation that may arise – you can’t just get on the radio to call up Duty Ops or other assistance as you can in the daytime. Also, a first aid certificate is required. 

Why am I telling you this? You’ve guessed it – I’m one of those guides who got the call. Starting on Saturday, I’ll be shadowing a number of different night guides over the coming weeks to pick up their techniques and learn all the procedures for night guiding. At some indeterminate future date I’ll also receive first aid training.

On Saturday evening I turned up at Zealandia, to join the Twilight Tour. It was led by Jac, one of the guides with whom I trained last year for cruise ship duties. She’s been doing twilight and night tours from the outset, and also has some work with the education team. Our night guide assistant was late, so we actually had to do a lot of the set-up that they would normally do, which was helpful as I didn’t know what all that was – checking torches, headsets, arranging the tea etc.

The first part of the tour is pretty much the same as for a Zealandia By Day tour, which I’ve been doing for the last year. The only difference is I have to check people in myself using the Visitor Centre systems, so I’m going to need to learn all about these. Otherwise it’s a welcome, introductions, short history of New Zealand, show the film, and out into the valley. This is where it gets different: for the Twilight Tour – you’ve guessed it! – it’s going to get dark. This is why we supply all visitors with red light torches (the red light doesn’t interfere with most animals’ vision). Also, as we’re looking for some quite shy creatures in the quiet of the night, we use a headset and earpieces so the guide doesn’t have to make their voice carry. But it doesn’t get dark straight away, so we spend some time doing the normal day guide stuff – looking for birds, other animals, plants, and telling the same stories. The hardest part for me was keeping quiet! I’m used to leading tours, not shadowing them, so had to keep shtum whilst Jac did her spiel. Towards the end of the tour as night fell we started looking for kiwi in earnest, and although Jac saw two briefly, I never caught a glimpse. We heard them calling, though, as well as kākā and ruru. We also stopped for a cup of kawakawa tea towards the end of the tour.

At the end of the tour, there’s also more procedures to go through as the Visitor Centre has to be secured, the events of the tour recorded on the system, and possibly take any sales of merchandise from the shop. Also, all the equipment needs to be stowed away after use. Finally, we have to leave the building securely.

That was my first tour shadowing. I’ll be doing a couple more next week, and also have to do After Hours Valley Emergency training, and do a training tour. This will all happen over the next few weeks. Watch this space!