Long-serving Palmerston North tour operator Margaret Jones retires

Palmerston North tour operator Margaret Jones with the flowers she received during her last South Island trip.

Long-serving Palmerston North tour operator Margaret Jones has put away her microphone, clipboard and brochures.

Retirement beckons for Jones, who established Margaret’s Golden Tours in 2013.

Her travel industry career began on Boxing Day, 1980 taking high school children on a South Island tour.

But to start at the front of the bus, we need to go back to 1978 when Jones met bus driver George Rigas while running Girl Guide trips with her sister, Jenette.

They got talking about Te Waipounamu and Jenette said to Rigas: “Georgie Porgie, how about taking us to the South Island?”

That is when the tour idea began and Jones and Rigas established Unique Holiday Tours.

Initially, they did all the meals themselves and stayed at motor camps but gradually moved to hotel accommodation with meals provided.

They built up the business focusing on holidays for adults.

For one trip they didn’t have enough people so they put an ad in the paper and filled five buses that year to the South Island. From 1998 to 2008 they did nine tours of South Island each year.

In 2008 Jones and Rigas sold Unique Holiday Tours to a bus company.

Then former clients said Jones should re-enter the industry so Margaret’s Golden Tours was born.

On May 4 this year Jones finished her last tour of the South Island, clocking up 39 years in total in the touring business.

Jones’ highlights were going over Tākaka Hill, the West Coast with its beautiful bush and, until the 2011 earthquake, Christchurch.

She enjoyed receiving gardening tips from people on the tours.

Jones had a driver while running Margaret’s Golden Tours and she would do the commentary.

She would clean the bus every night including the inside windows. “You have to work hard to keep your business going.”

Jones attended three weddings of people who met on her tours.

She hasn’t completely said adios to the touring industry as she has a small job hosting one or two tours for a local company. “You can’t fully give up work.”

The wheels on the bus continue for Jones.

In 1984, Rigas talked Jones into getting her coach licence. She still has this and is a casual bus driver for Tranzit.

“I just love talking to people and being out there.”

Jones, who has always lived in Palmerston North, has three children and seven grandchildren.

Rigas died in 2017.

Judith Lacy has been editor of the Manawatū Guardian since December 2020. She graduated from journalism school in 2001, and this is her second role editing a community paper.