Travel & Tourism in West Coast

29th October 2009
Avoid at all cost. A group of family and friends were visiting from Australia and we headed for Punakaiki. As a treat we decided to go caverafting – I’ve wanted to do it for years! I rang a place in Charleston but theydeclined though saying the weather forecast was looking bad so they we’re taking bookings. It was raining but I figured we’d be getting wet anyway. I then rang West Coast Adventures and they were more than happy to take a booking. However, the bad weather turned into a ripper of a storm – powerlines down, trees knocked over, Arthur’s and Lewis pass were snowed in - even the North Island copped a hammering. Powerlines down means we had no phone at the house and the cell-phone network was out. But I jumped in the car to drive to a payphone to ring the company to say we clearly we’re going to make it – we were staying north of Punakaiki. I got a surly reception and put on hold for I don’t know how long and getting soaked eventually hung up. Three weeks later the visa bill arrives – they’d had to hide to charge us for ‘Not turning up”. After speaking to the same woman I was told that it “wasn’t their problem that we didn’t make it” and I was “lucky I wasn’t charged 100%” of the total cost as per their Rules. Most decent companies would accept that a fierce storm was exceptional, not charge, and hope we came back when the weather improved. Not these guys. Next time I’m going with Underwater Adventures in Charleston who seem to be more considerate of their customers.