Latest / sids.campfire / Episode 4 - Madi Ambrose

Transcript

Episode 4 - Madi Ambrose · sids.campfire

• 0:00
  I'm going to begin. Welcome.
• 0:01
  Welcome aboard Maddie. Maddie Ambrose.
• 0:04
  That is it. Well, Madison, Lee, Ambrose, if
• 0:06
  you want to go. Madison.
• 0:07
  Specific Madison Lee Madison. OK, ladies and gentlemen,
• 0:12
  welcome back to episode 4. Congratulations.
• 0:18
  This week is it's a bit different and this kind of I'm
• 0:20
  going to give a couple of Segways here, Maddie.
• 0:24
  One of them is the fact that when I thought about this
• 0:26
  podcast originally, I wanted to have people from, you know, like
• 0:30
  Rangers and scientists and, you know, people involved in natural
• 0:34
  science, history and culture. And then it wasn't too long
• 0:38
  after that and we're talking like a year ago, I thought it'd
• 0:41
  be really cool to do kind of like a side podcast projects
• 0:46
  where I talked to tour guides because A, they've got more
• 0:50
  entertainment and information and like stories, you know, and
• 0:56
  they're all talkers and I've got easy access to so many of them.
• 1:00
  So I thought that would be a really good thing to have a side
• 1:02
  kind of thing called Guide to guide, which essentially this is
• 1:05
  the first one of. And on top of that, to give a
• 1:10
  bit of a back story, I'd worked with Maddie out in the desert.
• 1:15
  And the first tour that I did after COVID, I think it was
• 1:20
  April 2021, and I ran into you at ulara and you that was.
• 1:26
  So I was just doing a random trip up there.
• 1:28
  I think I was three months into my content creation.
• 1:30
  I had a few 100,000 followers on TikTok and I ran into you and
• 1:35
  you had just started your own company so I started picking
• 1:38
  your brains and you basically told me how easy it was to start
• 1:42
  your own company and that I should probably do the same.
• 1:44
  Well. That was before you started.
• 1:45
  Since Ventures. Yeah.
• 1:46
  Well, I'd started the videos, but I hadn't started the
• 1:48
  touring. Yeah.
• 1:49
  Yeah. So you were one of the main kind
• 1:53
  of influences that made me believe starting my own Tour
• 1:55
  Company was really easy. And as that was going through
• 1:58
  the processes, and I remember picking your brains on tour, and
• 2:02
  then just as I was finishing my video trip around Australia, one
• 2:06
  of the last things I did before I left Tasmania with a
• 2:09
  completion of all of the filming was I was sitting on the beach
• 2:13
  talking to you, asking you about websites and business structure
• 2:16
  and how to actually get it up and running.
• 2:19
  So you were a big yeah, part of me getting my tours.
• 2:21
  I think that would have happened eventually, but you definitely
• 2:23
  speed the whole process up. So I think it's quite fitting
• 2:27
  that you are here. Yeah, on this.
• 2:31
  Start of the podcast well. That's it.
• 2:33
  Yeah. So, Maddie, you run a Tour
• 2:36
  Company. Started.
• 2:36
  You run a Tour Company seemingly out of thin air overnight called
• 2:40
  Wild Women Journeys. Yeah, Wild Women Journeys.
• 2:44
  You've gone international and you're running a very successful
• 2:47
  and positive business. And on top of that, you're
• 2:50
  Outback touring legend. So where do we begin?
• 2:55
  Gosh, yeah. Well, that was 2021.
• 2:58
  That was very early in wild women journeys as well.
• 3:02
  I think I would have only I did 2 trips at the end of 2020 and
• 3:07
  then that would have been, yes, early into 2021.
• 3:11
  And that was when I was really just realising, oh, this is the
• 3:14
  thing, this could really, this could really work.
• 3:17
  It could keep going. Yeah.
• 3:20
  And yeah, it was, it was during the COVID time.
• 3:23
  So it was very tumultuous in the beginning, very all over the
• 3:26
  shop. Yeah.
• 3:29
  But I, I'd guided out here for a few years before I started out
• 3:33
  here in 2017 guiding with different companies.
• 3:37
  And I just loved it. I fell in love with this place
• 3:40
  immediately fell in love with like, you know, we have 3 minute
• 3:44
  drive outside of Alice Springs where we live just on the other
• 3:47
  side of those ranges. And you have beautiful spots
• 3:50
  like this so close to town and there's no one here that is
• 3:53
  just, it's, it's such a special place.
• 3:57
  So yeah, I always loved the Outback and especially taking
• 4:01
  people around here. I love to like facilitating the
• 4:04
  journeys for people. But yeah, I think I always found
• 4:08
  that the regular tour companies were much more fast paced than I
• 4:12
  liked to be. And, you know, they didn't go
• 4:16
  off the beaten track. They stayed at all the major
• 4:18
  caravan parks and campsites and very, very busy places.
• 4:23
  So I just knew there was so many more secret gems out here.
• 4:26
  And like, if you just venture a little bit off the main path,
• 4:30
  it's just it it'll touch you even more, you know.
• 4:33
  So yeah, I guess that was where it like the sort of passion
• 4:38
  behind it came from. And then in COVID, there was
• 4:41
  just no work. So all the companies were shut
• 4:43
  down from 2020. Some of them didn't start up
• 4:47
  till 2022, and some of them never started up again,
• 4:50
  unfortunately. But yeah, there was no work for
• 4:53
  gods. So I was just pottering around
• 4:57
  on Centrelink out here. Out here in Alice.
• 5:01
  Yeah. Well, I, I was, I was overseas
• 5:05
  when it all first happened. So then I flew back to
• 5:07
  Australia, quarantined at my parents in Newcastle, and then
• 5:11
  pretty quickly bought a car and drove back to the Territory.
• 5:14
  So I had to quarantine again when I got here.
• 5:17
  And yeah, and then, but there was no work.
• 5:20
  So I was in Alice. And then I did go up to Darwin
• 5:24
  and yeah, just there was a bit more going on up there.
• 5:27
  But that was also another thing was it was so nice to be here
• 5:31
  during the COVID years in the territory when there was not a
• 5:35
  lot of people here. Like I went to Uluru, absolute
• 5:38
  ghost town, no one, no, no one. But the whole park was open.
• 5:41
  You know, you could go everywhere.
• 5:43
  It's just that there was no tourists because they couldn't
• 5:46
  get here. So especially all the
• 5:49
  international tourism was gone so.
• 5:51
  Yeah, I remember that day. Yeah, that one day where
• 5:55
  everyone basically flew out of the rock.
• 5:57
  Yeah. And then it was just empty and.
• 6:00
  It was, it was like a ghost town.
• 6:01
  Coming back. Yeah.
• 6:03
  Yeah, it was so cool. Like you could go to Uluru.
• 6:05
  What, go to the famous sunset car park where there's normally
• 6:08
  1000 people a night. And it was no one, you know.
• 6:11
  So that was, I had seen that. I'd seen the glimpse of like
• 6:14
  there's no one out here. All these famous spots are just
• 6:17
  empty. Yeah.
• 6:20
  And I had no work. And I went up to Darwin.
• 6:22
  And then I actually had a good friend up there who was an
• 6:27
  inspiration to me. Shout out to Ringer.
• 6:31
  Ringer. Yeah.
• 6:31
  And I kind of just said to him, like, I'd love to take just a
• 6:36
  group of women down to Uluru. And I just started practising
• 6:41
  yoga and getting into some mindful activities.
• 6:43
  You know, everyone found their COVID hobby baking bread or
• 6:47
  crocheting. Yeah, I know for me, it was yoga
• 6:51
  and going to those kind of classes were still going on in
• 6:53
  Darwin. So I was just very in this head
• 6:56
  space of like, oh, so beautiful to take these mindful activities
• 7:01
  to Uluru, which is just this, you know, centre of energy, but
• 7:07
  also just such a beautiful country.
• 7:09
  And I just thought that'd be so nice to bring that down there
• 7:12
  and take a group of girls, women who want to go and connect to
• 7:16
  country. And also everyone was so
• 7:19
  housebound at the time that, you know, people were really itching
• 7:23
  to get out on country or just go anywhere.
• 7:25
  Literally couldn't go anywhere. So yeah, people wanted to go
• 7:29
  somewhere. And yeah, it all kind of came
• 7:31
  together. And then I just, I put my idea
• 7:34
  to ring her and I said, what do you think?
• 7:36
  You know, how could I even start this?
• 7:39
  How could I? What about there's so much
• 7:41
  paperwork, There's so much, you know, permanent.
• 7:44
  Tape and all. Yeah, red tape and and he
• 7:48
  already had an established business, so he was, he just
• 7:51
  sort of walked me through it real simply and just told me
• 7:54
  there's absolutely no way you couldn't do it.
• 7:56
  Like, of course you can do it. Of course, you know.
• 7:58
  So I was like, oh, OK, all right.
• 8:01
  Yeah. And that, that was the beginning
• 8:03
  of wild women journey. So I was just around the first
• 8:05
  trip. I made posters on Canva on the
• 8:09
  free version of everything was the free versions.
• 8:12
  And yeah, just put a picture of a girl doing yoga at Uluru and,
• 8:17
  and put them up around, mainly around the yoga studios in
• 8:21
  Darwin and just various community halls and stuff.
• 8:24
  And within a day I'd sold out 16 spots.
• 8:28
  Like 16 girls had called me saying yeah, I want to, I want
• 8:31
  to go. That's insane.
• 8:32
  Yeah, and it was insane for me as well.
• 8:34
  And yeah, I just was like, wow, OK, cool.
• 8:37
  They all. Want to come?
• 8:38
  There's a market. Yeah, and I literally just had
• 8:40
  my mobile number down the bottom, like call me, and then
• 8:43
  my phone was just going off and yeah, I had a 16 seater bus, so
• 8:46
  that was full. And so I was like, Oh well we'll
• 8:49
  just turn the bus around and go again straight after.
• 8:52
  So I ended up doing 2 trips back to back.
• 8:54
  Yeah, great. Yeah.
• 8:55
  And those first trips were from Darwin because I was up there
• 8:58
  with the bus. So we did two days driving down
• 9:00
  the highway, 6 days around the Red centre and then two days
• 9:03
  back up. So it's a 10 day trip and yeah,
• 9:06
  it just went really well. And well, it went better than
• 9:09
  really well. Like those girls just loved it
• 9:12
  and I could see how rewarding it was for them.
• 9:17
  Like they just got so much out of it.
• 9:19
  And for me, it was just, it felt so special to be doing what I'd
• 9:25
  always done, like what I'd been doing with other tour companies,
• 9:28
  but then to actually do it my way.
• 9:30
  Yeah, yeah. Do exactly how I want it.
• 9:33
  And I didn't have a uniform, so I wasn't in a uniform.
• 9:36
  And I had no time schedule. Well, a little bit.
• 9:39
  This is it. It's just a T-shirt with the
• 9:41
  logo on the back, not a fancy uniform.
• 9:44
  I still don't wear shoes as much as I should on tours, but yeah,
• 9:49
  I just was like, wow, it's really like just travelling with
• 9:51
  friends because they were all, you know what they were mixed
• 9:55
  ages, but 18 to 45 year old Australian women, you know, so
• 10:00
  pretty much my demographic. And I just felt like, oh, I'm
• 10:03
  just taking a bunch of my friends out, you know, and doing
• 10:06
  what I would do with them if they were to come and visit me
• 10:10
  here. As, you know, just do this.
• 10:12
  Go sit in the riverbeds, go camp and have a fire and cook on the
• 10:15
  fire and then, oh, in the morning, go for a hike.
• 10:18
  It's not like 6:30 on the bus 640 where off and 6:50 where I
• 10:23
  was starting to hike. Like I was like, no way we're
• 10:25
  doing that. And so every tour was a bit
• 10:28
  different as well. I picked different campsites and
• 10:30
  just really went with the flow. And yeah, and it was just
• 10:34
  really, really fun. And yeah, and that's pretty much
• 10:37
  what what started it. And then and then it was there.
• 10:41
  I just I made the Instagram account.
• 10:43
  Even still, I have like 100 followers in the beginning.
• 10:46
  And then I posted the first few dates for the next year and they
• 10:51
  just started booking out instantly, you know?
• 10:53
  And I was like, whoa, OK, I never really wanted to be a
• 10:58
  business owner or like, that wasn't.
• 11:01
  I wasn't attracted to like, entrepreneurial ideas really.
• 11:05
  I just wanted to take people out to central Australia and go do
• 11:10
  yoga in the riverbeds with a bunch of women, you know?
• 11:14
  So yeah. That's fantastic.
• 11:17
  And that's and you've expanded that into like four or five
• 11:21
  countries now. Yeah, even a little bit more.
• 11:25
  Yeah, it after about the first year of just doing Uluru trips
• 11:31
  and sort of adapting that itinerary and finding a really
• 11:34
  perfect flow of a trip here, then it was it was a lot of the
• 11:40
  guests that were coming on the trips that were telling me how
• 11:43
  great the experience was. And them saying, oh, I wish
• 11:45
  there was tours like this in in Tasmania.
• 11:48
  I wish there was tours like this in Kakadu and other places.
• 11:51
  Like they loved this style of touring, I think especially
• 11:55
  because they were Australians and Australians don't normally
• 11:57
  book tours in Australia, right? Like you just go and do it
• 12:00
  yourself. But there is some hard to access
• 12:03
  places like Central Australia, the Kimberley's, Kakadu where
• 12:07
  you need a four wheel drive, you need, you know, logistics is a
• 12:10
  bit more tricky. So those are the places I
• 12:13
  focused on and that's what the girls were saying.
• 12:16
  I'd love to go to Kakadu, you know, but I don't want to book
• 12:19
  on one of those big bus coaches that takes 100 people around.
• 12:24
  Like, oh, I don't want to do that.
• 12:25
  And oh, but I don't have my own 4 wheel drive and all my friends
• 12:29
  not into camping or like, oh, my partner wouldn't want to do
• 12:32
  that. So they, yeah, they were just so
• 12:34
  like, oh, if you could offer this in other places, we'd love
• 12:38
  to come done. So yeah, that's what was me
• 12:40
  started ticking OK. And it was like, where do I want
• 12:43
  to go next? You know, where would I like to
• 12:45
  take people? And yeah.
• 12:46
  And I had been, I'd guided in Kakadu before.
• 12:49
  So that was the easy, logical next step was Kakadu.
• 12:54
  And then so I did a few Kakadu trips and then the next one was
• 12:57
  the Whitsundays sailing adventure that we started,
• 13:00
  remember? That that was nice.
• 13:01
  I wasn't there, but I saw I saw the photos.
• 13:04
  I hope not. Yeah, that was one of our really
• 13:07
  popular trips as well. And that kind of came about
• 13:11
  because there was a yoga teacher girl that came to work on one of
• 13:16
  my trips and she loved the whole vibe of it as well.
• 13:19
  And then she said to me, Oh, my brother runs a boat company, a
• 13:22
  charter boats in Airlie Beach. If you wanted to take a group of
• 13:26
  girls out to the islands, that'd be a great destination.
• 13:30
  You want to move this way. Yeah, it's it's on and off the
• 13:33
  smoke. It's got a bit of a few tears
• 13:35
  going on. You want it?
• 13:36
  Is it? There no, it's.
• 13:37
  You're right, I'm. All right, I'll, I'll.
• 13:39
  It's. A emotional story, isn't it?
• 13:40
  Just keep going, let it out. See Safe space.
• 13:46
  Is does that happen a lot on your tours?
• 13:48
  Yeah. Because even I'm sure the
• 13:49
  dynamic with yours is, I'm sure it's completely unique being
• 13:53
  just women. Yeah.
• 13:54
  But I've found from my experience of trying to provide
• 13:57
  that same kind of, you know, the time, giving people the time and
• 14:01
  the space, which they don't get. And I find people get so
• 14:04
  emotional. They do.
• 14:05
  Yeah. And that just people go through
• 14:08
  things they've been holding on to for years, if my last tour.
• 14:11
  So everyone's got their own story of what they're going
• 14:13
  through. Do you find that?
• 14:16
  Quite. A lot here.
• 14:17
  And how does that compare in the Outback to the trips overseas?
• 14:20
  Is there that emotional aspect as well?
• 14:23
  Yeah, I would say I think that just kind of it does happen
• 14:26
  naturally. Like you say, when people step
• 14:29
  outside of their usual life and their busy life and just their
• 14:33
  set routine and they go somewhere.
• 14:36
  It immediately gives you this reflection where you can see
• 14:39
  your life from the outside more, you know, and see how you what
• 14:42
  does your day to day normally look like and who are the people
• 14:44
  you hang out with normally? And and so you can reflect on
• 14:48
  yourself and then it's, yeah, if whatever, it just gives you
• 14:53
  space for that. And whatever's in your mind, it
• 14:54
  can come up, you know, and some people will keep that to
• 14:58
  themselves more. And you can see if people are
• 15:01
  just processing things on their own and some people are more
• 15:05
  wanting to share it. And yeah, I think that is really
• 15:07
  nice about the women's trips is women are we're we're very vocal
• 15:12
  where we communicate a lot, you know, girls pretty easy or not
• 15:16
  all girls, but definitely women will talk quite gladly.
• 15:19
  I think probably a lot more natural talking comes out on
• 15:22
  women's trips than does on men's trips.
• 15:24
  Like, yeah, especially if there is that space being held where
• 15:29
  someone does start to touch on, Oh yeah, I'm not really happy
• 15:32
  with my job. Or then the other girls will be
• 15:35
  like, why not, you know, they'll, they'll go into that,
• 15:39
  you know, whereas depending on the space and the people and the
• 15:43
  intention, they're just some spaces will like hold that, you
• 15:48
  know, and, and so, yeah, I see it a lot on the women's trips
• 15:52
  that that does happen and being away from your phone, we don't
• 15:56
  have reception a lot, you know, we're just going back to basic
• 15:59
  so much that it it definitely does hold that space.
• 16:03
  And yeah, I wouldn't say that's like my main intention with
• 16:07
  trips is to it definitely wasn't in the beginning.
• 16:11
  Like it wasn't to these. They're not personal development
• 16:16
  trips. They're not like mindset camps
• 16:18
  or anything like that. There is that as well, which is
• 16:20
  another thing. But I guess yeah, it's it just,
• 16:25
  it just happens. And I actually, I love it.
• 16:28
  Like I think, man, if I can create this space to help the
• 16:31
  girls even more to come home, Like, wow, I'm, I'm a changed
• 16:36
  person after that trip. I've just changed.
• 16:38
  That's why they're coming back for 23478 tours.
• 16:41
  Yeah, yeah. Cheaper than therapy?
• 16:43
  Yeah, so and I, I think Central Australia is the strongest trip
• 16:47
  for. That yeah, that's what I wanted
• 16:48
  to get into as well. More than other places.
• 16:50
  I really feel, because even, you know, tours that I've run around
• 16:54
  the country, nowhere has the effect that this part of the
• 16:58
  world does. Yeah.
• 16:59
  Just feel like there's something out here that just is.
• 17:01
  It's like the great level of. It is.
• 17:03
  It's like a a blank canvas. In a way.
• 17:06
  Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing to fill it
• 17:09
  with but yourself and the people you're with, you know?
• 17:12
  Yeah. Yeah, and it's probably because
• 17:13
  it is one of the trips that has the least interruptions.
• 17:18
  Like I like to make it feel like we're in a bubble and we're
• 17:21
  leaving society and we're going out into the Bush.
• 17:25
  And I don't want anyone to pop that bubble.
• 17:26
  Like, I really hate that I have to go fuel up at service
• 17:30
  stations and go into the Isles of Lollies and Chocolates and
• 17:36
  cell service comes on when you get close to El Dundo.
• 17:39
  And, you know, I wish we could just bypass that to keep the
• 17:41
  bubble even more. But yeah, the more you like, the
• 17:46
  less interruptions, the more we just get in our own flow state,
• 17:49
  you know? And the group connected with the
• 17:52
  group. So, well, yeah, yeah.
• 17:54
  And a lot of the other trips that we do in other places, like
• 17:59
  we'd run Nepal hikes and India, like North India cultural
• 18:04
  immersion trip. And you know, there it's a
• 18:08
  totally different intention with the trip.
• 18:11
  Like we're there to more learn about the local people, the
• 18:14
  villages, the culture and be there and witness and learn from
• 18:19
  that. So we're more of like, we're
• 18:21
  more focused on the outside world.
• 18:23
  You know, we still have our little bubble of safety and that
• 18:26
  like we're a group together. We're women, we're supporting
• 18:29
  each other, We're here experiencing this together.
• 18:33
  So there will still be those connections, forms and people
• 18:36
  opening up. And yeah, but it's, it's less,
• 18:41
  yeah. We're meeting so many other
• 18:42
  people throughout the day. You're walking through cities
• 18:45
  and towns and you're going to markets and villages.
• 18:48
  And it's more like we're going to come home and debrief about
• 18:50
  our day rather than talk about what's going on at home, you
• 18:54
  know, whereas here it's, it's like we're still in Australia.
• 18:58
  We're we're just here to reset kind of and to.
• 19:01
  Be in. Nature.
• 19:03
  Yeah, yeah, a little bit for sure.
• 19:05
  I actually, you know, I I've had some topics like it was, you
• 19:10
  know, every time we chat, you know, there's a million things
• 19:12
  to talk about. And given this situation, we can
• 19:15
  go off from a lot of angles. But I thought, oh, you know,
• 19:17
  I'll quickly Google Maddie. Yeah, you know, before.
• 19:20
  So I had a quit ChatGPT all that came up was from the website but
• 19:24
  it did mention something about you having like having a
• 19:29
  certificate in Group leading and what was it?
• 19:35
  NLP new listing and you wrote logistic programming no?
• 19:41
  I think chat JB needs to let you go ahead, no?
• 19:45
  We can just cut that out I. Haven't done any I've never done
• 19:48
  any like counselling or mindset courses at all.
• 19:50
  OK. And it's something that I
• 19:51
  actually would like. I've thought about it,
• 19:53
  especially after the first few trips when I did start to see,
• 19:58
  wow, girls are really opening up here and they're sharing a lot
• 20:01
  and. Like, like they're sharing
• 20:03
  traumas, past traumas, they're sharing like relationships that
• 20:07
  they're not. So that's not healthy.
• 20:10
  And then I was kind of either witnessing this between people
• 20:13
  or I was part of the conversations.
• 20:15
  And then I was like, I don't know if I'm equipped to deal
• 20:17
  with this. I'll be in the bus I.
• 20:20
  Like I I can, I can definitely support and console, but then I
• 20:26
  was like, it just started happening so much that I was
• 20:29
  like, oh, should I do a quick crash course in counselling?
• 20:34
  But no, I haven't ever done it. The thought crossed my mind a
• 20:37
  few times, but no, the only qualifications that I've done is
• 20:41
  science, Bachelors of science in ecology.
• 20:43
  Oh cool. Yeah.
• 20:44
  And there's. Something we can talk about as
• 20:46
  well. Yeah.
• 20:47
  Yeah, I was actually thinking when I was thinking about this
• 20:49
  during meeting you for this today.
• 20:51
  I thought your boyfriend would be great to have on the actual
• 20:54
  SIDS Ventures podcast. He was, he sounds.
• 20:56
  Love to be a part of it. Absolutely.
• 20:58
  If I thought that, you know, if I thought of that a couple of
• 21:01
  weeks ago, I would have tried to organise it.
• 21:02
  Yeah. But I would love to get Jono.
• 21:04
  Yeah, Johnny. Yeah, Jonathan.
• 21:06
  Johnny, yeah, I would love to get him on next.
• 21:08
  I'll be back down in. Oh, he would.
• 21:10
  He would be the perfect person for it.
• 21:12
  Like he. Yeah.
• 21:13
  Anthropology. Anthropology and human evolution
• 21:17
  and cultural knowledge is his passion, but also he he could do
• 21:21
  a star talk that would wow everyone.
• 21:24
  You know, I think he's just started guiding out here and I
• 21:28
  think he was born to be a tour guide.
• 21:29
  Like he just he's got the entertainer, the host and the
• 21:34
  education down pat, you know, Yeah, cool.
• 21:37
  Yeah, definitely. He could.
• 21:38
  And he actually wants to start. Yeah, he wants to start making
• 21:41
  videos kind of like yours, like educational things and maybe do
• 21:45
  multi part series along from he doesn't know yet.
• 21:48
  He's figuring it out, but. Yeah, we should definitely cross
• 21:51
  paths next time. Yeah.
• 21:53
  And just to backtrack for the listeners, you mentioned Ringer
• 21:56
  before. Yes, I'm leaving Alice in 2
• 21:58
  days, driving straight up, going straight to ring his house.
• 22:03
  Ah, so I'm actually gonna. He's gonna be.
• 22:05
  He's gonna be. There you go.
• 22:06
  Teaser. Yeah, told you a little I.
• 22:09
  Think it'll be a 3 or 4 hour. Oh my gosh.
• 22:11
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He can talk the air off anyone.
• 22:15
  Let's. Get some battery packs and.
• 22:17
  Tangents will go on and on. You'll have to rope him back
• 22:21
  into line. But yeah, he, he's been an
• 22:24
  inspiration for me. I met him pretty much when I
• 22:27
  started guiding just briefly, just through crossing paths here
• 22:31
  and there back in 20/17/18. And then, and then we really
• 22:37
  became friends through the COVID years.
• 22:38
  And he, yeah, inspired me with starting my business.
• 22:40
  But he used to guide in South America for the big overland
• 22:45
  companies that do like six month tours starting in Rio, drop off
• 22:52
  in Lima. And it's just one truck.
• 22:56
  You got 16 people and it's a bit hop on, hop off.
• 22:58
  So they'll do some people will be there for certain segments.
• 23:01
  But him and his ex partner used to do the two of them driving
• 23:04
  around this big truck. And I heard his stories when I
• 23:08
  was I was 19 when I started guiding here.
• 23:10
  So I was hearing his stories of like, yeah, we were in Colombia.
• 23:14
  And then the, like, people came on with guns and we had to floor
• 23:18
  it out of there. And then we got to the border
• 23:20
  and we didn't have visas. And so we had to bribe our way
• 23:23
  through. And, and I was like, wow.
• 23:26
  And this is all on a tool. Like you're getting paid to do
• 23:30
  this kind of adventure. I was just absolutely
• 23:33
  gobsmacked. So yeah, he was one of the
• 23:35
  people that inspired me just to start travelling on my own and,
• 23:39
  and start really going to wild places and.
• 23:44
  You were working as a guide when you met him.
• 23:46
  Yeah, yeah. And then you went solo
• 23:48
  travelling after that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:52
  I think it was around those years.
• 23:53
  Yeah. I would have.
• 23:54
  I started guiding and I just started meeting lots of guides
• 23:57
  as well. Who had done like mad adventures
• 24:00
  overseas. But yeah, I reckon I would have
• 24:02
  met him. And then he told me about
• 24:04
  overland guiding and I wrote that down in my notebook because
• 24:07
  like dream job one day. Absolutely.
• 24:11
  And I've literally written a resume to send to them a million
• 24:14
  times and I've just never sent it because I know like the
• 24:18
  commitment. Now you've got people setting
• 24:19
  your resumes. Yeah, well, yeah.
• 24:21
  And now I'm like, I'm already running my own tours everywhere
• 24:25
  now. So as fun as it would be to do
• 24:28
  these like 6 month big overland tours where the responsibility
• 24:33
  is, my level is only the guiding part and not the not the admin
• 24:38
  part. That would be really really nice
• 24:40
  to do that one day. But wild women journeys is too
• 24:44
  good to give up on now. So I'm going to stick this out.
• 24:47
  It's like 1 dream, the dream and the next dream.
• 24:50
  I'm looking at the next dream before I'm even finished with
• 24:53
  this dream, you know? And I have to remind myself the
• 24:56
  grass isn't greener on the other side.
• 24:58
  Just enjoy this current journey. Yeah, I think you got a pretty
• 25:00
  good thing going on. Yeah, but yeah, so that was how
• 25:04
  that was my connection with Ringer.
• 25:06
  And yeah. And then I always wanted to do
• 25:08
  overland guiding. And then he started his own
• 25:11
  company in Australia, Overland Odds, which is school charters.
• 25:15
  They're all school group camping, cultural immersion
• 25:18
  trips up in Kakadu. So, yeah, he started that and
• 25:22
  then, yeah, now he does that full time and he's got a wife
• 25:25
  and a little Kitty and another one on the way and yeah, well, I
• 25:29
  hope that was public knowledge. We can, we can.
• 25:32
  I think it's far enough. Yeah.
• 25:35
  Few years in, you'll hear about that.
• 25:36
  More to come. Yeah, teaser, you got to ask the
• 25:41
  South America stories. Yeah.
• 25:43
  We'll and he did an African stint as well.
• 25:46
  Cool. Yeah.
• 25:48
  I can't wait to listen to that ask around for everyone that
• 25:50
  knows him say what should I ask Ringer?
• 25:52
  Yeah. Everyone will know something.
• 25:53
  Oh my God, yeah. Something about something, yeah,
• 25:56
  might not potentially come out. Ask him about the story when me
• 26:00
  and him were canoeing in Kosciusko National Park and with
• 26:05
  Niall as well, and someone fell off a water Cliff, off a
• 26:09
  waterfall. Yeah, OK with a canoe.
• 26:11
  And it was all yeah, that's the story.
• 26:12
  Ask him about. So did your background in
• 26:18
  ecology and your interests in that through school, Was that a
• 26:20
  part of what brought you out here in the first place?
• 26:26
  Not really. So I the ecology sort of came
• 26:30
  after Central Australia, after I moved here, yeah.
• 26:33
  I had started a Bachelors of Science straight after high
• 26:38
  school, so when I was 18 in Sydney and I did it for one year
• 26:45
  and I was very uninspired by it. So I don't know, just the
• 26:49
  classroom setting was really not for me.
• 26:51
  So after I did the first year and then I was like, I did enrol
• 26:58
  in the second year and I was sitting in the very first day's
• 27:00
  classes in the big lecture hall with 800 people and I was just
• 27:04
  like, take me anywhere that. Year I.
• 27:07
  Don't want to be here. Yeah.
• 27:10
  And so my first thought was just defer uni.
• 27:14
  I was like, I don't care, I'll come back to this.
• 27:16
  I don't want to be here. And I knew because I was also
• 27:18
  like, I would failed a few subjects from my first year and
• 27:22
  I just wasn't that committed. And I almost felt bad, like I'm
• 27:26
  getting really bad marks. But it's not because I'm dumb,
• 27:29
  it's just because I don't want to be here, you know.
• 27:31
  So I was like, oh, I'm just going to defer for a year.
• 27:35
  And then essentially I took a gap year, just have a break.
• 27:39
  Well, now the sun's gone, we can just rotate this way a little.
• 27:42
  Bit I haven't been breathing oxygen for a while.
• 27:46
  Probably look baked. You don't look that bad, it's OK
• 27:50
  or sit there. Woof.
• 27:57
  It's an emotional day. It's.
• 27:59
  Been a long one. That's pretty.
• 28:02
  We can clip this bit out. No.
• 28:05
  The authentic. Yeah, gotta keep the thing,
• 28:08
  which for those of you not watching, I'm just getting out
• 28:11
  of a bit of an onslaught of smoke, smoke.
• 28:15
  And it's been a bit intense. So I've done some shuffling.
• 28:18
  We've done some shuffling. Yeah, it's nice.
• 28:22
  Good for the sinuses. It clears you out.
• 28:25
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 28:27
  So yeah, I started a science degree.
• 28:30
  Didn't love it. I took a gap year and then I
• 28:33
  came here and that was when I during my gap year, I was
• 28:36
  looking on seek.com. You know what jobs are out
• 28:40
  there, Something to take me far away from the city.
• 28:43
  And. Go do something crazy and wild
• 28:46
  that I'd have stories to tell from.
• 28:47
  So yeah, actually Outback tour guide and I was like.
• 28:49
  That's exactly how I found. It it's how everyone finds it, I
• 28:52
  think just. Like, just need some things like
• 28:54
  be a tour guide and Alice Springs.
• 28:56
  All right, Yeah. OK, 2.
• 28:58
  Weeks 2 weeks later Alice Springs.
• 28:59
  Yeah, and, and it's actually there.
• 29:02
  There's always a deficit of tour guides out here.
• 29:04
  The companies pretty much have continual advertisements on the
• 29:08
  computer running and literally anyone who sends a resume.
• 29:12
  Unless you have some very worried.
• 29:15
  Criminal record. And even if you do.
• 29:17
  Yeah, they will give you at least a trial.
• 29:21
  They call. Everyone and then everyone,
• 29:24
  they'll pretty much say, Yep, fly out here and we'll put you
• 29:28
  on a familial trip and then we'll put you on a training trip
• 29:31
  and we'll see how you go. And I, I've noticed that they
• 29:35
  almost never have to fire people because people will fly out here
• 29:40
  and then they will do the first few trips and if it's not for
• 29:42
  them, they won't be able to bear it.
• 29:44
  They'll be like, I couldn't think of anything worse than
• 29:46
  doing this and I'll get there. There we go.
• 29:51
  Yeah, you're. Still in Bluetooth range.
• 29:54
  Yeah, yeah, I could walk 100 metres away, it'd be fine.
• 29:58
  Yeah. So they're always hiring.
• 30:01
  They'll always take anyone. And then, yeah, if you're not
• 30:08
  right for the job, you yourself will be like, oh, I don't want
• 30:11
  to do this. Yeah, exactly.
• 30:12
  It's it's like running a marathon.
• 30:14
  It's, it's hard work for sure. It's long.
• 30:17
  You start at 4:00 AM. This is for commercial tours, by
• 30:20
  the way, not SIDS adventures and wild women journeys.
• 30:23
  Well, we do have a lot. Of there's a few early mornings,
• 30:26
  but we don't yeah, bust it like. Yeah, they do.
• 30:28
  Yeah. Yeah, there's.
• 30:29
  It's not. Limits to human ability.
• 30:32
  Yeah, it's not the three day compact.
• 30:34
  Wow, wow, wow. There's nothing worse than that
• 30:36
  trip. Yeah, well, I, I, I think
• 30:39
  there's a place for it, but it's for international tourists who
• 30:42
  are here, here being Australia for three weeks and they want to
• 30:46
  hit Sydney, Melbourne, Darwin cans, Great Barrier Reef, Great
• 30:50
  Ocean Road and Uluru. You know, then it's like, OK,
• 30:53
  well you can only do 3 days and we will try and fit in
• 30:56
  everything we can. Yeah, exactly.
• 30:57
  But yeah, it's wake up at 4:00 AM and then cook the breakfast.
• 31:03
  You go for a hike, drive 600 kilometres.
• 31:07
  You cook the. Change a tyre.
• 31:09
  You change a tyre, you're on your own, you got 25 people with
• 31:12
  you, whatever. It's very hard, yakka.
• 31:15
  So yeah. And also just being centre of
• 31:18
  attention. You're the guide, you're the
• 31:20
  leader. You talk the talks.
• 31:21
  You have to repeat the spills and learn the knowledge and.
• 31:25
  Be responsible for be responsible health and safety I.
• 31:28
  Don't think guides are that responsible.
• 31:30
  Yeah, there's different. Levels take on the
• 31:32
  responsibility at least. You might not be responsible,
• 31:34
  but yeah, yeah, it's a big job. So people will just, a lot of
• 31:40
  people, I'd say 50% of guides that turn up here to start the
• 31:44
  job don't stick with it. Or they will just get through
• 31:47
  six months and then they'll be like, yeah, I'm out of here.
• 31:50
  Done. So yeah, that's pretty much how
• 31:52
  the job intake works and. It's just a random lottery,
• 31:56
  right? Yeah.
• 31:57
  And and that's. How it was for me, I guess
• 31:59
  that's how it was for you. You were started in Adelaide
• 32:01
  though, right? Or I started up here.
• 32:03
  Oh, you did start? Yeah.
• 32:04
  I flew into Alice and started running those three day tours.
• 32:07
  For adventure tours. For the rock tour.
• 32:09
  Oh, you started with rock. Tour I started in the deep.
• 32:12
  End I started at the bottom, now we're here.
• 32:13
  Yeah, sorry. No, I'm glad I've never worked
• 32:17
  for adventure tours. I always it was always been a
• 32:19
  bit of a code of mine to only work for family businesses.
• 32:23
  Oh. That's nice.
• 32:23
  And especially in the touring industry because the big, the
• 32:29
  big companies, you know, they run like you have to write
• 32:32
  everything. You know, how many KS you've
• 32:34
  done, how many litres, how many there's like it's everything is
• 32:37
  so structured and kind of it's like a mctour for me.
• 32:41
  But to run when I've worked with like Kimberly Venture Tours or
• 32:44
  Groovy Grape, like all these, you know, or even the rock tour
• 32:47
  to start with, it's a different kind of family.
• 32:52
  Yeah. You just have a lot more freedom
• 32:54
  to, you know, run it rather than to be a cog in the wheel of it.
• 32:59
  Yeah. So I was running three day tours
• 33:01
  with the Rock Tour. I kept crossing Groovy grape
• 33:04
  trips at the rock. They were so much happier.
• 33:08
  Their groups were so happy, like, and on top of that, like
• 33:11
  I've, I grew up on the coast. So after three months of just
• 33:15
  doing circles in the desert and crossing these guys who were
• 33:18
  going to the beach, you know, going back to the coast every
• 33:21
  two weeks, you know, I just, I ended up basically quitting,
• 33:25
  jumping on a Groovy Grape bus and going down to Adelaide and
• 33:28
  worked with them for about 10 years.
• 33:30
  Yeah, I can totally see why the Adelaide to Alice is one of my
• 33:33
  favourite routes for sure in Australia, yeah.
• 33:38
  You have a trip and the timing and to have like 6 days instead
• 33:42
  of three just. A little bit longer.
• 33:45
  And yeah, I feel like it's only night 3 for groups that don't
• 33:49
  know each other. Generally I find it takes about
• 33:51
  3 days to open up. And then so for that to keep
• 33:54
  happening, like just get to know them, they go, just get to know
• 33:56
  them, they go. To actually connect with people
• 33:59
  on those longer trips was really cool.
• 34:01
  And from the tour guide perspective, it takes them three
• 34:03
  days to learn where everything. Goes in the.
• 34:05
  Camper trailer. Sometimes.
• 34:08
  How to? Roll a swag.
• 34:10
  Where Where do I get a teacup from the teacup box?
• 34:13
  Where do the pots and pans go? Yeah, with the other pots and
• 34:16
  pans. Yeah.
• 34:17
  Shout out to my last tour group. How do I chop this carrot?
• 34:22
  I don't know. How do you chop a carrot at
• 34:24
  home? So yeah, it takes three days for
• 34:26
  them to get to a point where it's like comfortably flowing
• 34:29
  and and then if it's a three day tour, well, goodbye and now
• 34:32
  start again and another 20 people and you repeat yourself
• 34:35
  again and again. So yeah, longer tours are great
• 34:39
  and even. Well, that's something you can
• 34:41
  talk to Ringer about because he taught me a lot about group
• 34:45
  dynamics. Because when he said six month
• 34:48
  tour with the same 15 people, I was like, what if you get?
• 34:52
  That's a commitment. What if you get a few like, you
• 34:55
  know, people clashing personalities in there and
• 34:57
  you're on a tour for six months together, How do you get around
• 35:00
  that, you know? And he said at all, there's
• 35:01
  ways, you know, and he said there's there's a three day
• 35:05
  meltdown and then there's the 17 day meltdown and then there's
• 35:08
  the 35 day meltdown. And just through each of those
• 35:11
  you have to like bring the group back together.
• 35:14
  And he said by the end, it's like a family.
• 35:16
  And it's like, you know, you've got the weird auntie and you've
• 35:19
  got the annoying bratty teenager and you've got the grandpa that
• 35:23
  complaints about everything. And but that's a family dynamic.
• 35:27
  It's like you can't be surrounded by people you you
• 35:30
  connect with beautifully all the time, all the time.
• 35:32
  You know, same in a company. If you've got colleagues, you'll
• 35:35
  have some colleagues get along with and some you don't.
• 35:37
  And you just have to learn to work together still.
• 35:40
  So yeah, that's what he taught me about group dynamics is
• 35:44
  doesn't matter if you have a few people that are different or
• 35:47
  just don't get along as well like you, you find your way
• 35:51
  through it. So yeah, exactly.
• 35:52
  And you learn something. Yeah, everyone learn something.
• 35:55
  I think tour guides, good tour guides are very diplomatic
• 35:59
  people. You know, we can literally
• 36:02
  change our tone to talk to anyone.
• 36:05
  Like some people, some customers will want all the knowledge.
• 36:09
  And so you put on your best like, educated voice with them
• 36:12
  and you just flood their ears with facts and everything.
• 36:15
  And then other people will just want you to be funny and, or
• 36:20
  just like they just want to talk shit and they don't want to
• 36:23
  listen to any of your spiel. They just want the, they just
• 36:26
  want the banter, you know, So you'll be banterful with them
• 36:28
  and then you'll, you know, adapt to the different personalities
• 36:33
  all the way. Yeah, 100%.
• 36:36
  Yeah, yeah, As you would know, I guess your groups are with Sid's
• 36:43
  Ventures. What you you get all types of
• 36:45
  people from all around the world or.
• 36:47
  Yeah. All ages and.
• 36:50
  In terms of demographics, like, you know, 18 to 80 and, you
• 36:55
  know, all different people from all walks of life.
• 36:58
  I think the connecting thread is that they're all mad.
• 37:02
  Yeah, yeah, that's the best. Yeah.
• 37:05
  And they all just get on and they just click.
• 37:07
  And I think, you know, because there's, you know, people come
• 37:11
  for the trip and whatever, but you know, there's an element of
• 37:14
  my kind of character and humour that, you know, attracts a
• 37:18
  certain breed of people. So it's, it's, I haven't had
• 37:24
  many problems. I've had a couple of, you know,
• 37:26
  because you get them just people that come with the wrong
• 37:29
  intention or the wrong attitude. But generally speaking, like
• 37:32
  they're all just, you know, like family on the 1st morning, which
• 37:35
  is so much fun. And that's one of my favourite
• 37:38
  things apart from designing my own itinerary.
• 37:40
  You know, must be the same with you.
• 37:41
  Like instead of having a random group of people coming in
• 37:44
  through a travel agency that half of them don't even know
• 37:47
  what they're doing, to have people knowing what they're
• 37:49
  getting and having that intention just changes the whole
• 37:53
  experience. Definitely.
• 37:55
  I found that massively wild women journeys as well.
• 37:57
  It's like because we do our own marketing, it's it's us through
• 38:02
  Instagram, just sharing the day to day.
• 38:05
  And so that you naturally attract a much more like minded
• 38:10
  audience than if someone's Googling Uluru two or three day
• 38:16
  adventure or something like how many people everyone's Googling
• 38:19
  Uluru tour. So you you will get all types of
• 38:22
  characters on a standard tour. But yeah, ours are much more
• 38:25
  like, yeah, I definitely see that attracting similar people
• 38:29
  and then they get along even better.
• 38:31
  And, and I also think our we really mean you both advertise
• 38:37
  what you get. What you see is what you get,
• 38:39
  you know, so I do, I do say there's going to be days without
• 38:44
  toilets, you know, there's going to be like we are sleeping in
• 38:47
  swags the whole time. There's no option of upgrading.
• 38:50
  There's no like, you know, I'm very upfront about what the
• 38:55
  experience is and therefore you don't get unmet expectations.
• 39:00
  Like, whereas other tool companies can really ramp up to,
• 39:04
  to try and get that broader audience and just get more and
• 39:07
  more bookings. They will, they do options of
• 39:10
  upgrades and downgrade more like standards.
• 39:12
  And, and then the camp, they, they show how flashy the camps
• 39:16
  are. And then sometimes they're not
• 39:18
  that flashy when you get there or like, you know, there's a lot
• 39:21
  more discrepancies with what people are expecting and how is
• 39:26
  it advertised, Whereas a small business is just.
• 39:29
  Yeah, just got this is. We share what it is.
• 39:32
  Yeah, exactly. I had AI was working for the
• 39:34
  Kimberly Adventure Tour years ago and a woman came on and it
• 39:37
  was a very similar situation. They say like we do it
• 39:40
  authentically, we do it rough. Like this is how we do it.
• 39:43
  Like, you know, there's there was no secret about it.
• 39:47
  And a woman came on, left a really bad Google review, and
• 39:50
  the owner of the company jumped on.
• 39:52
  And this, the metaphor was stuck in my mind that he was basically
• 39:56
  saying, look, you know, you've basically come in to order a
• 39:59
  hamburger with no cheese. And we've very clearly said that
• 40:03
  we have lots of cheese. And every, every one of our
• 40:07
  hamburgers is full of cheese. And you've basically just
• 40:09
  complained that you've got a hamburger with cheese and we're
• 40:11
  all about the cheese. Yeah, that was it.
• 40:14
  That was like. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 40:16
  Oh. That's brilliant.
• 40:18
  Yeah. Google reviews.
• 40:24
  Yeah, yeah. I had a really good question.
• 40:26
  I can't remember what it was because I was just getting
• 40:28
  carried away. I think that's another thing
• 40:36
  that I learnt very early with Guiding, especially with those
• 40:40
  big companies, is that you can't please everyone you know.
• 40:44
  And when you when you start dealing with hundreds of people
• 40:47
  in a month and a lot of them are leaving Google reviews of you,
• 40:50
  like, do you remember your first bad review?
• 40:53
  That was, Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 40:56
  Me too. And it's like such a knife to
• 41:00
  the gut, especially when you're you're 20 years old and you're
• 41:03
  out there putting your heart and soul into this business and
• 41:06
  you're just being so authentic. And you're like nervously
• 41:09
  stepping into this leader role. And then someone just shoots you
• 41:12
  down in a Google review and said Maddie was this and this and she
• 41:16
  was not the right guy for this role.
• 41:18
  Wherever, whatever they say, and.
• 41:22
  You're like, oh God, that's. A bit so heartbreaking.
• 41:25
  We used to with Groovy Grape, they used to have written forms
• 41:29
  and we were supposed to get them back to the group.
• 41:30
  They would write on them, put them in a folder, and then like
• 41:34
  you'd just look at them at the end of the tour.
• 41:35
  And it got to the point where I know a lot of tour guys just
• 41:38
  refused to hand them out anymore because it's just so
• 41:40
  heartbreaking. It is, as you say, like when
• 41:42
  you're a bit younger and you like put everything into.
• 41:45
  It Yeah. It's like, oh.
• 41:46
  Fragile ego and personality, putting it on the line here and
• 41:50
  then. Yeah.
• 41:51
  Yeah, for sure. But then I think you, you do get
• 41:55
  a thick skin to that pretty quickly.
• 41:57
  And even though like, our job is to be a people pleaser.
• 42:00
  Eventually you'd see them like kettle and it doesn't matter at
• 42:02
  all like you know, to some to some extent like on those.
• 42:05
  Kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 42:08
  It does start to become numbers. But yeah, I think you just
• 42:11
  realise as well as you don't like personally, every single
• 42:15
  guest that comes on your tour, then every single guest is going
• 42:18
  to like you. You know, I like your
• 42:20
  personality is what it is. And the thing about humans is
• 42:23
  we're all different. So some people will just not
• 42:26
  like you, you know, And and you then see that in your Google
• 42:30
  review and then I guess you just learn after a while, like can't
• 42:33
  please everyone. You know, they wanted a six foot
• 42:37
  tall man with a knife on his belt and someone to crack a whip
• 42:41
  on top of the Canyon. And I wasn't that so whatever.
• 42:45
  And then that 6 foot tour guide over there, he's going to get a
• 42:48
  good. Review.
• 42:48
  You know, whatever it is, yeah, yeah, you do get a thick skin
• 42:54
  from it. Yeah, yeah, eventually.
• 42:57
  Yeah. So what's your what's your next
• 43:01
  plan with touring and your business and life in general?
• 43:06
  Life in general. Well, I just bought a house here
• 43:11
  in Alice Springs, so yeah, that's my current focus of this
• 43:16
  year is renovations. I think I bought the cheapest
• 43:21
  house in Alice Springs so it's. Definitely not the worst.
• 43:26
  So yeah, it's needs. It's been a fixer wrapper.
• 43:29
  So I kind of dedicated this six month season of, of doing that
• 43:35
  and doing and still running wild women journeys, of course.
• 43:39
  And then probably come September, October, I'll be
• 43:45
  leaving Alice again as it starts to warm up and I don't know what
• 43:49
  this summer's got in hold for me.
• 43:51
  I've definitely got a few Nepal trips that I'm going to be
• 43:56
  hosting in October, November. And then, yeah, so there'll be
• 44:01
  some international travel and keep.
• 44:05
  I want to start building some new itineraries, scouting out
• 44:07
  some new locations for wild women.
• 44:12
  Yeah, yeah. But I reckon, Yep, this season
• 44:17
  is is pretty committed to here in Alice.
• 44:19
  And. And just with wild women
• 44:22
  journeys, I'm just trying to, I'm not trying to grow it
• 44:26
  necessarily. I really don't want to be doing
• 44:29
  more trips than what we're doing right now.
• 44:31
  I just want to make it even better, you know?
• 44:34
  So just working on where we're at now with everything, with
• 44:39
  what we share on social media and we're our little team of
• 44:44
  Girl Guides is amazing. And I just want us to keep, keep
• 44:47
  running the trips we're running now and just get them even more
• 44:51
  solid and flowing well. And yeah, cool.
• 44:54
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's nice when it gets cleaned
• 44:57
  up and runs. Yeah, efficiency, yeah.
• 45:01
  So I'm. Just learning what that would.
• 45:03
  Mean, but let's not go into business.
• 45:07
  That's a whole other podcast. You need a different a different
• 45:11
  one, yeah. On the way over here, we're
• 45:12
  talking reservation systems. Yeah, like what's the pros?
• 45:16
  And cons software, yeah, GST, yeah, I'm.
• 45:23
  Just learning about that as well.
• 45:24
  Yeah, Yeah, that was that was definitely a shock moment for me
• 45:29
  in my first year or two. I didn't know anything about
• 45:32
  business. I still don't.
• 45:33
  Yeah. And and then you find yourself
• 45:36
  running a business. Yeah.
• 45:37
  It's like, Oh my God. Yeah, it's accounting.
• 45:39
  I said this to Gus W the other day.
• 45:43
  He was referring to equity and something else and something
• 45:45
  else. I was like, dude, I don't even
• 45:47
  know what that means. Yeah.
• 45:48
  And he looked at me a bit strange.
• 45:49
  And I was like, to be honest with you, like, until I was 36,
• 45:53
  I didn't use the word capital to refer to anything but a city,
• 45:57
  like a little literally. And he's like, whoa.
• 45:59
  I still wouldn't use capital for any.
• 46:01
  But you just used the word capital to refer to finances.
• 46:03
  Yeah, I never, literally never. I knew it, but I'd literally had
• 46:07
  never come out my mouth when I actually referred to capital
• 46:10
  involving. And I was like, should I be
• 46:13
  starting a business? Just see what happens.
• 46:16
  Yeah, go for the artistic angle. So we might start to wrap it up.
• 46:22
  But what I might do, this just kind of popped into my head for
• 46:27
  me personally, like I've just learnt every tour.
• 46:30
  It was kind of like Groundhog Day in.
• 46:33
  You've seen the movie. OK, great movie, you should
• 46:36
  watch it. But this guy basically lives the
• 46:38
  same day again and again and again.
• 46:40
  But instead of getting, you know, frustrated with it, he
• 46:43
  realises that he can learn from, you know, what is happening and
• 46:47
  better himself. And I found that on tours that
• 46:51
  after every trip I would learn something about my limitations
• 46:54
  or I'd learn something about people or, you know, I would,
• 46:57
  you know, get a lot of lessons out of the experience.
• 47:00
  So I'm wondering if there's one thing in particular that you've
• 47:04
  learnt from touring that has had a huge effect on your life for
• 47:09
  the way you see the world. Biggest lesson from touring?
• 47:21
  Could be one of the top 10 doesn't have.
• 47:23
  To be yeah, I think it's probably just that when things
• 47:27
  go wrong, it's not really wrong, you know, like like in one sense
• 47:37
  that there will always be a solution always like what
• 47:40
  problem has ever not had a solution?
• 47:42
  You know, it will always or it'll just become not a problem
• 47:45
  anymore. You know, that's fine and people
• 47:52
  enjoy a problem, a challenge. Like when we get a flat tyre,
• 47:56
  that's often the memory that people take home and tell the
• 47:59
  story to the most of. We were stuck on the side of the
• 48:02
  highway for like 2 hours and the guide couldn't figure out how to
• 48:06
  change the tyre and the flies were crazy.
• 48:10
  You know, like that's part of the story when things go wrong
• 48:13
  and even like when new passengers come on the tour, the
• 48:16
  first thing they'll ask us is, oh, what's the wildest thing
• 48:20
  that's ever happened on a tour? What's the biggest injury that's
• 48:22
  ever happened? Whatever.
• 48:23
  So like it's I I secretly love when things go wrong.
• 48:28
  You. Know.
• 48:29
  It's a new story to tell around the campfire.
• 48:34
  Cool. Is there anything else you want
• 48:35
  to add before we wrap it up? I'll put all your details and
• 48:40
  like links and stuff down in the description below so people can
• 48:45
  track you down through socials of the website.
• 48:47
  Yeah, no, that's not it, man. That's all.
• 48:51
  I guess if anyone ever wants a change of career, become a tour
• 48:55
  guide. Even if it's just the three
• 48:58
  weeks, Yeah. Go on seek.com and type in our
• 49:00
  back tour guide. Yeah, it's a it's a great change
• 49:06
  in your life. I think everyone should do it,
• 49:08
  like mandatory military service. Yeah, everyone should.
• 49:12
  Maybe not everyone, but I think it's just such a rewarding
• 49:15
  experience you learn so much about.
• 49:18
  It teaches you leadership skills, your personal skills.
• 49:22
  It's just mechanic, first aid stuff, everything.
• 49:25
  Social dynamics problems, when to say something and when to say
• 49:29
  nothing. Yeah, yeah, Just to back this is
• 49:33
  something I remembered before when you were getting advice
• 49:37
  about like how to deal with groups.
• 49:39
  I think from Ringer when I first started out here, like I was
• 49:43
  obsessed with perfecting, perfecting tour guiding, you
• 49:47
  know, and I just to me, like, you know, there's the knowledge
• 49:51
  and there's there's all these things which you can study and
• 49:54
  perfect over time. But it was the social dynamics
• 49:57
  that was really that was the mind bending lesson.
• 50:01
  So I used to pick all like all tour guides brains about, you
• 50:05
  know, their experiences or how they deal with particular group
• 50:08
  dynamics. And I used to just sometimes
• 50:11
  just get there. Like one major piece of advice.
• 50:14
  And did you ever meet Tom Hanson Bushy?
• 50:17
  No, I asked him. I was like, like, what's like,
• 50:21
  tell me about group dynamics? He's like, shit.
• 50:23
  There's only one thing you should never do.
• 50:25
  Never get angry with a group as a whole, otherwise you've lost
• 50:29
  them forever. Like if you know, if there's a
• 50:31
  few stuff UPS, if you ever, like display, you know, anger towards
• 50:37
  a group, he's like, that is the worst thing you can do.
• 50:39
  You will never recover from that.
• 50:40
  And I'm not an angry kind of guy anyway.
• 50:42
  Yeah, Yeah. But it was just interesting to
• 50:44
  see and to learn, you know? But yeah.
• 50:47
  Because there are times eventually when, like, you know
• 50:50
  something, you get frustrated and you want to vent it, but
• 50:53
  it's like, OK, like, yeah, like you said.
• 50:55
  Oh, I've seen it on tours like just.
• 50:56
  Yeah, I've seen other guides that just get so frustrated and
• 51:00
  then lose it at the group. And it's like, Oh yeah.
• 51:04
  And it's those guides that, well, they often get fired from
• 51:07
  that at somewhere and it doesn't take long like a few reviews
• 51:10
  like that and. Or they just drive the bus to
• 51:12
  the airport and leave the bus. I think that story.
• 51:16
  Is that a true story? I think it is.
• 51:18
  I think it is. I really think it is.
• 51:19
  I can't remember because this was going around back in 2012
• 51:23
  and it I feel like it too long before that.
• 51:26
  I think it happened again in 2018 or 19.
• 51:29
  Oh really? Yeah, a tour guide.
• 51:31
  There's people listening, like people like tour guides just got
• 51:34
  so frustrated that they basically drove to the Alice
• 51:37
  Springs air of the was at the ASRock Airport and just left the
• 51:41
  bus said and said I'll go and do some paperwork.
• 51:45
  It never came back. Got on a fly.
• 51:48
  And that's kind of where it does lead you, because if you're
• 51:52
  doing those back to backs and losing your mind, yeah, it's the
• 51:55
  lesser of a few evils. Yeah, yeah.
• 51:59
  So do you have a biggest life lesson from guiding?
• 52:07
  I think it's like it's a real all encompassing kind of thing
• 52:10
  with I guess it similar to yours in the terms of like everything
• 52:18
  will be OK. But for me and like one of my
• 52:22
  like root kind of, you know, like mental nuances is like I
• 52:29
  get frustrated with timing. Like I like to have things done
• 52:35
  by a certain time. And I think what I learnt was
• 52:39
  that eventually, like at the end of the day, timing doesn't
• 52:41
  matter. Like it doesn't matter.
• 52:44
  So, and that was a big, obviously it happens a lot with
• 52:48
  tours because you've got to be somewhere at a certain time.
• 52:50
  And but I used to get really kind of, you know, internally
• 52:53
  like, you know, the cortisol was pumping.
• 52:56
  Freaking out. So I, I just learnt to and that
• 52:59
  was pretty early in my tour guiding career.
• 53:01
  I started taking a deck chair like that one out on tours.
• 53:06
  And if it ever got to the point, I'm pretty sure this, this must
• 53:09
  have been with Groovy Grape. It was pretty early on in the
• 53:11
  piece, but if, if it got to the time where we're supposed to
• 53:16
  leave and everyone was still faffing about, I would get my
• 53:19
  chair and I would sit down, you know, instead of like rushing
• 53:22
  around. Because I just realised like I
• 53:23
  was in such a a panic. And not just in tour, but in
• 53:27
  life, you know, I just, I've got one of those kind of mindsets
• 53:31
  where if I don't do everything, I can do it on time.
• 53:35
  Like everything's a waste. Just a bit of a Sid Madness kind
• 53:38
  of thing. But that's been really good for
• 53:40
  that kind of therapy and I guess just, you know, on the whole,
• 53:44
  just having a lot more freedom and just knowing things will
• 53:46
  work out. I guess it's the similar kind.
• 53:48
  Yeah, that's been my. That's been flexible.
• 53:50
  Yeah, and just knowing that everything's going to be fine
• 53:53
  and the things happen at the right time and as long as
• 53:56
  everyone's safe, there's no problem.
• 53:59
  Yeah, so it's just been a lot of bad.
• 54:01
  Not stressing letting the the flow flow.
• 54:06
  And I think the more of connected with the country and
• 54:08
  people out here as well because that's such a part of, you know,
• 54:12
  the vibe here and the culture. Yeah, there's no rush.
• 54:15
  It's the same NT time. It's not today, not tomorrow,
• 54:18
  not Tuesday, not Thursday. Yeah.
• 54:22
  It's like I had these. I had a couple of indigenous
• 54:25
  friends come for my birthday when I was staying in our Karola
• 54:30
  and they knew that my birthday was on the Saturday and there
• 54:34
  was a bit of a party and you know, I was looking forward to
• 54:36
  them rocking up. Anyway, Saturday came, Saturday
• 54:39
  went, Sunday came, Sunday went on Monday.
• 54:43
  I saw this big cloud of dust coming up the driveway and then
• 54:47
  it pulls up in front of me. You know, the cool tards are all
• 54:49
  there in the car with a big bowl of punch.
• 54:51
  I'm like, Siri, we're here for your birthday.
• 54:53
  I'm like, like Don, Don, it was 2 days ago.
• 54:56
  I'm just like, yeah, but we're here now, you know?
• 54:58
  And then that ends up being better than my actual birthday.
• 55:01
  So it's. Yeah, just very much.
• 55:03
  Things happen when they happen. Yeah, exactly.
• 55:07
  Time. Time is not a.
• 55:11
  Big. Thing their culture, hey.
• 55:12
  Yeah, yeah. And it really doesn't exist.
• 55:15
  There's seasons and sun goes up and down.
• 55:18
  Yeah, a little bit older. On that note, we don't have
• 55:24
  alcohol so we can't continue this.
• 55:26
  Conversation. Time's up.
• 55:28
  Yeah. Yeah, cool.
• 55:30
  Thanks, Maddie. That was awesome.
• 55:32
  No problem. Ladies and gentlemen, Maddie
• 55:36
  Ambrose of Wild Women's Wild Women Journeys.
• 55:39
  Wild women journeys. I will link it all down below.
• 55:42
  Thanks. For listening to my rambles.
• 55:45
  Yeah, help us. Let's do it again.