Thank you. The public parking area along the side of SH46 has been used for years and years as an overflow area when the Ketetahi car park would fill up. Now that the Ketetahi car park has a 4 hour time limit, people park on SH46 for free, safe public parking all day. We are glad you had a great experience.

Hi Thank you for your feedback. I have spoken to the Emergency Mobile person and he showed me your correspondence. Perhaps the wording was not clear enough. However, I do see from his communications that he did offer you two options: a) find a ride for free (many people choose this option) b) if you do not find (or in your case, do not want to find) another ride then he did say we could arrange a driver and bus to meet you there for a charge of $100 We always offer these two options as most people do not want to pay for another service to get them back to their car. Most people just say to us that they have found a ride with another hiker. In fact, some even get us to come to pick them up and they are no longer there because they got a 'free ride' and didn't bother to tell us. Our Emergency Mobile person is so used to people preferring this option that he did make it sound like that was the 'best' option. Which is not the case for ALL people. We will be creating a text that more clearly sets out the options so that this offense does not occur again. I am a female and I too would not choose to jump in someone's car. However, many people do prefer that and appreciate being told about this FREE option. I did read in your texts that he said that 'if this fails we can see what alternative arrangements we can make' and then said he will 'need to check where a driver and bus is first' he did say 'this will take some time to arrange as drivers and buses are not in the area'. This is true but you didn't need to hear all of that. What you needed to hear was a very clear time and cost of a pick up. I have given him this feedback. So in the future he will have a text that includes two very clear options including time and cost of pick up if that is what they choose. You then said you would prefer the pick-up and he asked you to contact him when you got to the end of the track. You said 'thanks' He said to me at this point he called around to find out who is available and at what time. So he did have someone ready if you needed it. But then you messaged back that you had 'organised a ride. Thanks anyway.' He assumed you meant that you found a ride at the end of the track. He had no idea that you were upset and no idea that you were being picked up by your husband who was hours away. His final comment of 'See easy (thumbs up)' was because he thought you were like many other people who choose to chat to someone on the track with you and catch a ride with them. He was just commenting that this is often the easiest thing to do. No waiting and no cost. He did not mean to offend you. I am so sorry if this interaction upset you. It was not his intention. But he has learned a lot about clear communication as a result and will approach these situations differently in the future. We are glad that you arrived home safe. Please know that had arranged a pick up for you but then cancelled it when he got your text. I just think things were lost in the communications. We have not had a complaint of this nature before. This helps us all to learn and grow. Thank you Mandy

Perfect, great to hear our advice and experience in the area helped you to prepare for and enjoy your day. Happy travels.

Great to hear! It's a great service aye. I'll let the staff know that you thought they were lovely. It will put a skip in their step.

So lovely to get these little reviews to perk up our day. I'm glad it all worked so well for you. We try to keep it simple and clear.

Thank you so much! Your feedback is much appreciated. I'm glad you were able to be amongst the first to freedom hike this season. Thank you for your support.

Wonderful feedback. We do try to keep the weather in mind for people so you can have the best day possible. I'm glad it worked out for you.

Hi Not sure where this is coming from??? We give 8-9 hours for the hike. If this is not enough for you we suggest a one way shuttle from end to the start. If you miss the bus in the afternoon due to taking longer it is true that you must find your own way back. If we do not here from you we have a procedure of contacting search and rescue. If we do not have a cut off time for pick up in the afternoon some people expect us to wait for them hours after pick up time. We give a map and information sheet on the bus in the morning. This clearly shows the time it takes to do each section. This just does not sound like you are talking about our business at all. Our services are designed around the needs of the hiker. If you had said that you were slow hikers we would have suggested the one way shuttle so you could have more time to enjoy the mountain. If feel this is a harsh review and not based on who we are.

This is a very interesting situation and Jonathan was not willing to be reasonable about it at all. We were there on the side of the road where we always pick up for Bridge and parked there for 2 mins. This is a visible spot from Bridge. The bus left at 6:08am as they had more pick ups to do in town. People are asked to be waiting on the roadside at 6am for this pick up. Once the bus left our follow up vehicle came to this location twice. He went into the car park and spoke to a fisherman to see if he was waiting for us. When Jonathan finally rang at 6:26am it was too late. We were all gone. So I offered for him to go on our Ketetahi shuttle at no extra cost. He took up this offer. I have asked several times where exactly were you waiting for a bus and a car to not find you? No answer to that. We were there. He was not. He is now angry and taking it out on us but we clearly state on the website no show no refund. There was no gratitude for us putting him onto another service so that he still enjoyed his day on the mountain.

Thank you for sharing what a great time you had with us. Happy travelling!