I think the main thing is just the uniqueness of the experience, I think the big attraction
is that it's pretty hard these days to find something which is different and unique and
Macca definitely fits the bill. New Zealand's home for me,
I'm Australian but I sort of moved to New Zealand sort of eight years ago.
So, it's um, I sort of live in a town called New Plymouth, which is on the west coast
of the North Island and and yeah, here I am. The role is predominantly around your people
skills and your ability to lead and motivate and coach teams.
I've been doing that most of my life, I sort of started life in the military and the last
couple of years has been sort of working in engineering and construction, working in many
different places and countries so it's a you know a pretty good background to do what I'm doing now.
The biggest thing to keep the community together is a sense of identity you know
it's that sort of sense of identity and shared purpose and us agreeing how we work
and relate and sort of behave as a team. And it's just making sure we have a nice
strong team culture that we sort of build up in the good times and it's
there to help us when inevitably things get a bit rougher at times throughout the year.
So I was lucky enough to go March last year as a familiarisation trip, so I was involved in
the resupply and got to meet the team down there and have a good look around the island, which was
fantastic to help me prepare for this season. I think the main unique thing about Macca is
it's just the wildlife that, you know, there's the immense
depth and variety and the sheer numbers of the wildlife and being able to follow that through the
seasons. You know we're lucky to have the ranger team and the sort of wildlife rangers come with us
and we've already started getting briefed on just what we're going to see on a month-by-month basis,
and i think for all expeditioners it's one of the things they enjoy the most.