Local guides, local experiences
Meet Your Guides
Your guides Wayne and Kathy are lifelong travellers who know how to bring the spirit of adventure into every tour.
Having lived in Europe and Australia (Kathy is originally Australian), they’d seen a lot of the world by the time they settled down to raise a family. However, in 2010 they sold up everything to take their children on a two-year tour of the globe.
They tried almost every method of travel and every type of tour: small special-interest tours, hop-on-hop-off tours, wildlife and history tours, along with self-driving in a motorhome.
This adventure of a lifetime led them to start Remarkable Scenic Tours on their return to Aotearoa New Zealand, recreating the sort of travel experience they loved best – small group tours with a big heart.
Their passion is to help guests enjoy this spectacular region: its riveting stories, incredible vistas, and the warm and friendly people who call it home.
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Wayne
Wayne is a born-and-bred South Islander, so his knowledge of the Central Otago region goes way back, and his passion for the region is infectious. He’s the master of making people feel at ease with his relaxed and positive nature, and he’s famous for his dad jokes.
As past President of the Queenstown Photography Club, Wayne’s also happy to help you get the perfect photo – he has great insight how to best capture the magic of our spectacular scenery, whether you prefer to be behind the lens, or in front of it.
“The best memories are those where you connect with local people, where you’re a person, not just a number. We’ll always remember one Jamaican trip where our taxi driver took us to a beach, and introduced us to a lady who cooks for the homeless. We met some amazing, friendly locals and shared a drink with them, while they told us about their lives.
We want our guests to leave each tour feeling not only that they’ve had a great day out, but that they’ve made some new friends.”
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Kathy
You could say the warmth in Kathy’s welcome is legendary. Helpful and friendly, she’s a self-confessed people person, who loves problem solving and making connections. This makes her a whizz at creating unique private tours with experiences to suit her guests.
Her extensive travels make her especially good at relating to what people from diverse cultures want from their tour. In fact, she delights in sharing cultural experiences with guests – from learning how to Bollywood dance (in Glenorchy, of all places!) with Indian guests, to sharing food with guests from the Philippines (although she draws the line at Balut/duck embryo).
“ You just can’t beat a local recommendation; some things aren’t mentioned in the guide books. We had an experience like this in Iceland when a local told us about a secret hot-water mineral pool. It took a lot of searching, but in the end we found it.
It’s that sense of wonder and inclusion that we want to recreate for our guests.”