Established: 3 years
Location: Upper Hutt
Contact Name: Hamish Watters
Website: www.wellingtonrafting.nz
Business mission and vision:
Our mission is to create a world class adventure tourism company offering multiple activities, such as, rafting, canyoning, Helicopter access wilderness rafting, 4WD tours around the coast, the ultimate kiwi experience mountain to sea adventures, and more! We are aiming to raise the standard of adventure tourism in Wellington to compete with other places around the world. Our main focus is the youth in our community! We want to show our youth and youth to come that the world has so much more to offer than sitting inside on the devices that are so entangled with our lives! We want to help teach the kids about mental health and how you can overcome different challenges you face in life with healthy adventure activities. We want to shape the way the youth interact with each other and our environment to hopefully change the course of Wellington’s future!
“We are an amazing Adventure Tourism company operating out of Upper Hutt, Primarily focusing on Whitewater Rafting, Canyoning, Abseiling and Giving the Ultimate Kiwi Experience as well as bringing the passion for the outdoors to the youth in our community. ”
We bring the ultimate kiwi vibe with our epic staff members who are super stoked on the mission we have and want to give back to the rangatahi. We believe the connection to the elements through Maori culture is one of the most important parts of our tours! We want kiwis and tourists a like to respect Papatūānuku. We are also always looking to collaborate with other small businesses in our community, as we are building the community up to support each other! We have pioneered adventure tourism in Wellington with hard work and straight passion Wellington Rafting is hands down the best adventure tourism in Wellington and possibly New Zealand, hopefully to be the best in the world in the future.
We are pleased to say we won the travelers choice of the year award in 2022! We are also Qualmark level bronze working towards silver and gold.
I wanted to carry on working in the adventure tourism industry, as the industry is seasonal it was not sustainable to support a family throughout the year. I first discovered the rivers in Wellington and found that there was no one operating in the area. I shortly after decided to take on the epic journey of pioneering the adventure tourism scene in Wellington! Wellington has been aching for someone to take on this challenge but needed the right person with the right qualifications and the drive to follow through with the task. With hard work, lots of persistence and even more hard work, I believe that I have the skills necessary to be this person!
First of all, working as a self employed contractor to gain funds to purchase all the equipment required. It was loads of hard physical labor and very long hours to get it done but I conquered this mission. Learning how to run and manage the admin side of the business as well as employees. I am learning how to manage the accounting, marketing, and growth of the company for the first time and there is so much I have had to keep track of. However, the biggest challenge of all is being a single dad and running the company at the same time. It has been very hard to continuously stay focused on the business while I’m trying to take and pick up my daughter from school everyday as well as keeping her fed and give her a social life that she deserves. Some nights I will have to be up late doing work on the company and do not get to spend any time with my daughter. There is a substantial amount of unseen and unpaid work that goes into building an adventure tourism empire.
I officially started Wellington Rafting in January 2020, which was right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Very soon after being audited and getting the documents needed to legally operate river trips, we went into another lock down. This was the hardest challenge to overcome because the only way I could supplement income was through trade work that I had been doing prior to launching Wellington Rafting.
Being a single dad and being the sole person running the company is very hard and stressful. There were many times where giving up crossed my mind but then soon reminded myself of all the work I had done, and how far I had come, and continued to push on because you cannot quit just because things are hard. There were lots of doubts and concerns raised by the support system I had, however I kept working and kept the goal in my head not letting any judgement or doubts get to me. My resiliency and being able to overcome adversity is the only reason I am where I am today.
We have recently just moved into a commercial facility, We have been able to offer the best adventure combo deals Wellington has to offer, and hired our first full time employee, who will soon be sponsored for a work visa to stay in the country, we also have 2 employees moving from overseas on working holiday visas to help build the company. We will be launching our first ever Battle of the Paddles Raft Race for the rangatahi which gives kids the ability to enter free of charge, as well as, rolling out youth programs for the less fortunate kids in our community.
I am very proud of how far we have come in such a short time period. From nothing but an idea to a fully operating adventure tourism company with enough gear to give 100+ people a day the experience of a lifetime and a fully customized headquarters perfect for gearing up the customers and bringing the professional vibes! I am also very proud of our multiple different youth programs that we are offering to our community’s rangatahi. When I was younger I got caught up in quite a bit of mischief due to my extreme ADHD and never being taught how to handle these emotions. If I would have been given these opportunities as a kid I may have been able to bypass some of the rougher years of my life. I want to make sure that the youth in this community are given opportunities that empower them to take control of their life and partake in some truly life changing experiences.
We have 4 staff at the moment and 7 guides who are independent contractors.
Almost all of our guides are contracted at the moment. It’s perfect for the size of the company because we are able to have more guides if we need them but don’t have to employee them because we are still growing and can’t afford to give full time hours and wages to all. We also contract out some of the other adventure tourism companies in the area to help us run the most epic combo tours around!
We do guide training every week for our new employees to make sure everyone is trained properly and have the opportunity to complete and further advance on their New Zealand Guide Qualifications! We have already trained 5 grade 3 guides, and 5 grade 2 guides, with more to graduate from the training program in the next few months.
We currently have over 100 reviews all being 5 star and very positive! For example, “Such an amazing rafting experience, Hamish is a great knowledgeable and fun guide. Absolutely stunning scenery and having a grade 3 + river so close to wellington is amazing! Such a hidden gem experience so much fun, we’re locals and have never seen this side of the river! We went in autumn and it was a rainy day but the gear provided kept us warm as, I cannot stress enough how beautiful the scenery was and how stoked I am to have seen it. So much fun and can’t wait to do it again. I couldn’t recommend Wellington rafting more!” -JO GRUENWALD 4 months ago
We have tons of positive feedback from the different youth programs in the area, the Graham Dingle Foundation has been using us as a part of their career navigators program since 2021. I will meet with the rangatahi every few months to discuss my childhood, how I have got to where I am today, mental health, focusing in your ADHD, and using traumatic experiences as tools to learn and grow.
Freedom to live the adventurous life I desire, and being able to offer the community a healthy, active, and challenging set of activities that boost confidence, spread the love of the outdoors, and leave smiles on the faces of those who have forgotten how incredibly amazing Aotearoa really is. It also means so much to me, because I get to create a positive and healthy lifestyle for my daughter where she can enjoy being a child and getting to do things that most children only dream of doing! We are living the dream baby!!
We have partnered with many different local small businesses to bring even better experiences! From Bloom Cafe as our official catering partner and Reload Juice bar as our official drink partner, to working with Wild Finder, Amalgamated Helicopters and Wild kiwi distilleries to offer the best adventure activity combos around! We also sponsor tons of tour prizes for sporting events, youth organizations, and different charitable organizations! So many people have helped me get to where I am today, so I feel it’s only fair to help as many other small businesses and organizations I can! We always support Local!
We offer funded youth programs to different youth groups and ministries in the area through Nuku Ora! We also work with the Graham Dingle foundation, different schools around the greater Wellington area and are even rolling out an after school program for kids with ADHD. We are also planning to roll out programs for people who struggle with mental and physical disabilities in the future. We have already taken a young blind boy and a guy with spinal bifida down the river! These were such amazing trips for everyone involved that we want to continue to do these in the future. We also work with kids with special needs who are wanting to become raft guides!
[totalpoll id=”2690″]