Kauahi Ngapora – Chief Officer
My name’s Kauahi Ngapora, Waikato-Tainui, Ngāti Mahanga, Ngāti Haua, Ngai Tahu,
Ngāti Kuri.
Well I’m the Senior Executive for Whale Watch Kaikoura, which is a 100% Māori
owned business, located in a small coastal town called Kaikoura.
I failed at school, I left school with nothing, my first flash job at Whale Watch was
called a caregiver, which had me emptying spew buckets so I had about 10 – 12
buckets lined up and if you felt sick, I’d hand you a seasickness bucket, you’d you
know, you’d spew in it, I’d clean it and give it back you, then I got the opportunity to
become a guide or narrator which was quite daunting for a 15-16 year old, talking to
a boatload of strangers, but after a while they couldn’t keep me quite. Then I
become a senior guide so I started training up new guides, then an opportunity come
along to be a junior skipper, so I went away and did my qualifications, developed
through that role became a senior skipper, so I started training up new ones and
then had the opportunity to move into the office, just managing rosters and so on,
so become a supervisor, a manager and then obviously the company’s senior
executive today, so I’ve been at whale watch for about 20 years, so started off at the
bottom and now sitting up on the top, which has given me a good perspective of
how the business operates as I’ve been through most of the stages in there.
Most of my learnings really are good mentors, learning from your mistakes and just
life experience really, the company’s about whanaungatanga, see ourselves as a
family business, but it’s also about manaakitanga, be hospitable to our guests and
look after them and then other factors about kaitiakitanga, so we’re there to look
after our town, look after the marine mammals that we all generate a living from as
we go forward.
The founders of our business they were poor people, they mortgaged their houses to
raise the funds to start the business, they risked everything they had on a vision and
a dream and so it’s important for me to make sure that that vision and dream
continues, so that’s what drives me every day. Because it’s a Māori business it’s
intergenerational so my key goal is when the reins get passed on to ensure that the
business is in a strong position for the next generation that comes through to look
after it.
The youth are quite lucky today because there are a number of institutes around the
place that you know in terms of the tourism here they can offer quality training, just
as long as you want to learn, you’re hungry to learn, you know you have weaknesses,
you want to improve on those weaknesses, when you have great mentors. I think if
you get those things right I think you’ll be on the right path.
So we have our logo where we have tohora the whale and we have Paikea the whale
rider and we tell the story and the connection of that logo like this. Obviously we
have Paikea who came from Hawaiki on the back of the whale up to the North Island,
so the whale brought Paikea to a new land and new prosperity and then generations
down from him our ancestor Tahu Pōtiki who did the migration south of Ngāi Tahu,
actually he came down with those whale riding traditions, so we tell people it’s quite
fitting that our ancestor rode on the back of a whale to a new life and a new start
and his descendants in Kaikoura have done the same. So we continue to ride on the
back of the whale today for our own prosperity and the prosperity of our
community.