News

We'd love to share another great blog from our AGP participant, Liz! Hiking can be hard, something mother nature doesn't provide pristine weather conditions and sometimes we feel our motivation levels drop abruptly as a result. Do these challenges mean you can't or shouldn't continue? Absolutely not. Are you the first person ever to feel these frustrations and feelings of defeat? We guarantee you aren't. Are the feelings of accomplishment, perseverance and adaptability heightened once you succeed? You know it. We are true believers of "the view is always worth the climb". Liz speaks to this as she eloquently tells her story, hiking through the 'wet and soggy' in New Zealand, whilst on our Adventure Guide Program. Enjoy!

*Last shoutout in 2019, promise!* Living in Queenstown and keen to experience some of the best climbing and hiking that New Zealand has to offer? Do you have a spare day over the next couple of weeks and keen to get involved in an epic day mission? Flick us a message, we have our last 2019 AGP undertaking their client and assessment days and need awesome human beings to join them! Please email the team here: instructors@pureexploration.com. Cheers!

Fairly new to hiking and looking for some great tips as to how you can prepare to tackle some of the more challenging trails? Check out this brilliant blog from Guided Walks New Zealand!

Did you know we tend to internally recruit graduates from our Adventure Guide Program and Expedition Leader Program, placing them as Program Instructors with our sister company? We currently have three Pure Exploration graduates leading gap year semester programs overseas in Nepal and Tibet, South East Asia and New Zealand and Australia! Nothing makes us prouder than seeing our Pure Ex family grow and succeed!

We are thrilled to have 5 of our recent Adventure Guide Program graduates join the Legendary Black Water Rafting Co. based up in Waitomo as Adventure Cave Guides for this summer season! They'll be joining Shannon, pictured below, from Canada who joined the team earlier this year upon graduating! Are you interested in the AGP and keen to hear more about employment opportunities post program? Flick us a message, we'd love to tell you more!

Heard about our Adventure Guide Program in Patagonia but wasn't sure what to expect? Welcome to our AGP team, joining us from all around the world! Sweden, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Germany, France and Mexico!

Living in Queenstown and keen to experience some of the best climbing and hiking that New Zealand has to offer? Do you have a spare day over the next couple of weeks and want to come join us on an epic day mission? Flick us through a message to instructors@pureexploration.com! See info attached 😆🤙

We love that our program participants join us from all different walks of life (no punn intended), and really enjoy hearing about the experiences that have been had - both mental and physical - on program! It's our pleasure to share Liz's story with you all, her journey from a "complete beginner" at climbing, to the end goal of being an NZOIA qualified climbing guide! Thank you for the inspiration, Liz Lucas Coaching!

"I heard the captain announce our approach into Queenstown, into this place I had only dreamt of. I looked out the window and there she was, the glorious island that is New Zealand, at the opposite end of the world to where I am from and I just thought to myself "Bring it on baby"" Hear more about Cathal's journey as he participates on the Adventure Guide Program via the link below. It's absolutely worth a read, every word is dripping in his Irish charm and you can't help but smile as you digest his story!

EXCITING NEWS! Are you interested in our Adventure Guide Program in Queenstown, NZ but you've not been able to commit for financial or timing reasons? What if we told you that we now have a 6 WEEK ADVENTURE GUIDE PROGRAM AVAILABLE? This 6 week program offers rock and hiking adventures, plus participants will still get the opportunity to undertake their pre hospital emergency care (PHEC) and SWIFT water rescue training and qualifications! We're so happy to be able to offer this awesome condensed program to you all from January 2020, if you're interested in finding out more, flick us a message!

If you're interested in our Adventure Guide Program (AGP) in Queenstown, let us introduce you to "PHEC". Pre Hospital Emergency Care (PHEC) is an intense five day, crucial part of the AGP which trains participants to deal with a myriad of emergency situations. Please note the photos are not real life and are the result of great acting skills in order to recreate real life scenarios. If you'd like more information about the Adventure Guide Program or PHEC, feel free to reach out. Thank you to Peak Safety Ltd for your ongoing support!

Check out the video below to hear Program Leader Keri share her experiences from the Expedition Leader Program with us. The three month immersive program wrapped at the end of August and we were lucky enough to steal 4 minutes of Keri's time to get a sweet snapshot of what the 90 days in Ecuador, Galapagos, Peru, China, Laos, Thailand and Nepal was really like!

We loved having our Adventure Guide Program participants volunteer with the Wakatipu Reforestation Trust last week on some important projects in Arrowtown! Thank you for having us, and we're looking to joining you again next time 😀

Goodbyes have been said, reunions have been made, photos have been uploaded and time has been spent reflecting. We are thrilled to hear how much our Expedition Leader Program crew enjoyed their 12 week experience and we're so proud of what each individual achieved! We wanted to share with you one last blog from program participant Chloe, summarising the key things she has taken away from the Expedition Leader Program. Whatever you're doing in your life, we feel as though it's an important and powerful read. Enjoy, and feel free to check out the teams awesome photos in our recent album we've uploaded. We're warning you now - every photo is envy worthy!

EXCITING NEWS!!!! Pure Exploration are SO excited to share our latest offering for our 2020 Adventure Guide Programs - CANYONING! Keen to sign up for one of our 12 week programs, but don't think that rock climbing is really for you? No drama! The canyoning option is now available for you to do instead of the rock climbing strand, enabling you to spend time in the water (splashing around, slipping and sliding between canyons) as well as your hiking, pre hospital emergency care and swift water rescue training. We are offering the NZOIA Canyon Leader qualification alongside the NZOIA Bush you'll also undertake over the 12 weeks. Panicking that we've dropped rock climbing? Don't be, we're still offering the rock module (which proves to be increasingly popular), we're just introducing canyoning as a further option! If you're keen to hear more just flick us a message!

What is this PHEC you might hear us mentioning from time to time? PHEC stands for Pre Hospital Emergency Care, and there's a reason we keep banging on about it - if you're heading out to the back country it's vital knowledge to have. You could save a life. Regardless of whether you're heading out bush, there's actually never a bad time to undertake Pre Hospital Emergency Care and that's why we incorporate it in each of our Queenstown Adventure Guide programs. Our Patagonia Adventure Guide Program and Expedition Leader Program also feature a wilderness first aid qualification. Check out this article to find out more about PHEC and how it teaches you the skills needed to become an asset in an emergency.

For those of you who are interested in our Adventure Guide Program as you'd like to get your foot in the tourism industry, look no further. Dana, an alumni from our Adventure Guide Program in 2017, was kind enough to give us a life update at the end of last year. Since graduating from the AGP the wonderful Dana has been a Director of Operations, Lead Guide and a Naturalist in the US. We'll be checking in with her shortly for another life update. Until then, have a read and join us in celebrating the successes of Dana!

The Adventure Guide Program in Queenstown was always a tough one to name. The word adventure summons up thoughts of gripping journeys discovering untouched lands, undertaking challenges that your dreams haven’t even dared explore and of course, an envy worthy Instagram feed. But of course, it's so much more than that! So, in reality, what is the Adventure Guide Program? What should participants expect from it? Check out our latest blog on our website for the "6 things you should know about the Adventure Guide Program in Queenstown, NZ".