Persistence pays for raft guide

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 241, 3 May 1988, Page 17 (Supplement)

Persistence pays for raft guide

By Jocelyn Price If it hadn't been for her persistence, Ohakune's Dawn Render might never have become one of the few women white-wa-ter rafting guides in New Zealand. A 31-year-old who has been a guide for three years, she says she had a hard time being aecepted as a trainee by rafting companies. "Traditionally, guides were men." "It's a very physical job, and you need to be as strong and fit as the men because there's a lot of heavy gear to lift and carry, and guiding the rafts

also needs a lot of strength." Dawn tried rafting for fun, decided she liked it, and started phoning rafting companies to ask if they had a vacancy. Once accepted, she trained by going down to the rivers and waiting for a spare place in rafts. "I had to leam the rivers before I could begin guiding," she says. "After that, you learnt from the experts by going with them." Although Dawn wa s the first woman in the Turangibased River Rats Rafting Co when finally taken on, the firm didn't make any

concessions for her being a female. "I didn't expect any soft treatment," she says. "If you're not cut out to make it as a guide, you shouldn't be in the job." When she started with the River Rats, there were times when people blatantly chose to go with a male guide. "I can remember taking 14 people on a trip with two boats and instructors." "When I asked them to split into two groups, they all went to the male guide's boat." It annoyed her, but she says there was no point in "letting it get to you." "People are better now because there are more women guides, and attitudes have changed," she says. Dawn describes whitewater rafting as a love, not a job. "If guiding ever became just a job, I'd find something else." Unfortunately, it's not a full-time job, she says, because there is not the demand for it in New Zealand. "I may go overseas to take up guiding full-time in the future," she says. At present, she works part-time for the Rats on free weekends, and fulltime guiding or doing maintenance work for Ruapehu Outback Adventures,

a company that takes tourists on horse treks, rock climbing, tramps and white-water rafting. Dawn says she enjoys the varied work at Outback Adventures, but guiding is still her first love. "The people make the trips because they are always different and every stretch of river changes when you have a different crew," she says. "Guiding is always a challenge," she says, "because you can't get out

of the boat half way and say: Tm sick of you. Here's the boat. Do it yourselves.'" "You've got to get them down the river, no matter what." All the guides agree that the best crews are the women, Dawn says. "They are willing to listen, whereas the men try to tell you how to do your job." She says she found it novel to teach the awkward

passengers that "I know best." "If they fall out, and it's safe, they usually go for a short, chilly swim because I can't reach them. After that they find the guide knows best, after all." Not many injuries are incutTed while rafting, says Dawn, but it's those who fool around who do get hurt. "We get broken bones more frequently at the end of a trip during the water fights than we do down the rapids."