Tour guide Susanne Kiely loves travelling to Vienna. Photo / Getty Images
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.
As a woman travelling on my own, I found it extremely empowering. In the office we see couples come in, and I watch their body language. Sometimes he's really in charge and she's a mouse, or the other way round, or other times they both want to be in charge and talk over each other — the dynamics of couples travelling is really interesting. When I first started travelling, my husband had no interest at all, but he was absolutely fine with me going. But when you're travelling, you see all these amazing things and you want to share it with someone special, your partner in life, so a lot of times I did feel sad I didn't have anyone to share it with. But I love it now because I'm doing overseas tours as well.
Since joining Pukekohe Travel I've grown enormously as a person. Here, I'm allowed to be me, and I meet so many interesting people. Occasionally a client may be challenging but to be honest, they're the minority. I have one couple who've been on about 15 tours, mostly with me. You start to get a wee following, because you form relationships on these things. With each tour, I have a welcome speech and I always thank people for travelling with us. We know they have choice, and they've spent a lot of money to have a nice holiday so it's my job to ensure that's what they have. We always say, if there's a problem and we don't know about it, we can't fix it. If someone has a room with a bath and not a shower, they need to come and tell us. I never go to my room without putting things right.
When I went to England a couple of years ago, my daughter was pregnant with her second child, and they were there in arrivals with a big sign, flowers, balloons. There's something terrible about arriving in a country and having no one meet you, there's something so sad about it. A great place to be is the arrivals lounge at Auckland Airport, watching people coming in and seeing the happiness, joy and love on people's faces.
My favourite places in the world are Vienna and England as I have children and grandchildren in both those places. But, from a tour leader's point of view, I love the Chateau and Wellington. And I love our trains. I was on the TranzAlpine the other day, it's so just beautiful. I'm very widely travelled now, but I really love New Zealand.
Further information: see pukekohetravel.co.nz
Want more holiday inspiration? Sign up to our new Travel Insider newsletter here.