Our team is made up of mature NZ professionals, well-known in their respective fields, all bringing a delightful mix of dedication, passion and ambition to deliver the finest arts & culture experiences to our clients
So when you book a tour with us, you can be sure you’ll be hosted by professional local guides who have passion for New Zealand and special interest areas. We’re all experienced travelers and are able to provide in-depth advice and knowledge both before and during your travels. Our tour guides are first aid trained and focussed on the safety and comfort of our guests at all times.
Jacqui Wilkinson
Co-founder & Director – Sales & Marketing, HR
Tour Guide – Auckland, Nationwide
Jacqui is a well-known figure in the New Zealand tourism sector having started 3 different tour companies since 2006. She’s also an active volunteer in the sector, giving her time for leading not-for-profit industry organisations, tourism training institutions and strategic government and local government tourism projects. She has hosted thousands of international and domestic visitors on guided tours around New Zealand since 2011, with a particular focus on hosting visitors from North America. She’s maintained a personal visual arts practice since graduating from Art School in the early 1990’s and continues to exhibit her work around the country. Other education includes a Bachelor of Business (Marketing & Advertising) and a Post-Graduate Certificate (Advertising) from AUT as well as completing Philosophy and Classical studies at Massey University. Her interests include contemporary art, NZ history, cooking, hiking, biking, sewing, wine and learning to life a more sustainable life.
Chris Daya
Co-founder & Director – Operations, Finance, IT
Tour Guide – Auckland, Nationwide
Chris has a background in IT within corporate environments where he worked for over 20 years before joining our team full time in 2022 as Operations and Finance Manager. He managed complex operational requirements for a wide range of clients including Government departments and major NZ infrastructure companies. Prior to working in IT operations, he worked in customer service roles. This frontline experience allowed him to develop a deep appreciation for customer experience and the importance of implementing systems and processes that work first and foremost for the client. Born and bred in Devonport, Auckland; Chris is a proud Aucklander who loves showcasing his hometown to international visitors during the busy summer months. He enjoys travel, hiking, cooking, technology and volunteers his time for a wide range of community events including local conservation projects and art and music awards that support youth across the Auckland region.
kim cormack
client relations – B2b
tour guide – wellington
Kim has worked in the tourism industry for over 20 years and holds qualifications in hospitality and tourism. She’s experienced in luxury travel planning, hotel event management and worked in product development at Tourism New Zealand for several years before joining our team in 2022. She’s travelled the country extensively, but Wellington will always be home. An avid foodie, she was awarded Mindfood magazine’s home cook of the year for her submission of a delicious lamb rump recipe. Kim lives in the leafy suburb of Ngaio with her husband, young daughter, elderly cat and rambunctious dog.
Lynn Huhtala
experience designer
Tour Guide – Auckland
Born in Canada, Lynn has called New Zealand, and Auckland, home for over 30 years. She has an Hons. BA in History from the University of Alberta and an MBA from the University of Otago in Dunedin. She has been involved in the tourism in New Zealand throughout her career and combined her love of food and tourism when she started an Auckland-based food tour company a number of years ago. Now enjoying traveling overseas herself, Lynn has been an integral part of our team since 2016. She loves to share her knowledge of Auckland, including foodie tips, with visitors. Waiheke Island, a beautiful island of wine, olives, and stunning beaches, in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf, has been a second home for her for many years, and a day tour there hosted by Lynn, is a highlight of many visitors to New Zealand.
Dr Sara Cotterall
Tour Guide – Wellington, nationwide
Sara is an editor, language coach and academic. She was born in Wellington, where she has lived and worked for over 20 years, joining our team in 2022. Sara spent much of her academic career working in Europe, the Middle East and South-East Asia giving her a deep appreciation for other cultures and independent travel. During her leisure time, she loves walking around the beautiful Wellington coastline, and enjoying the city’s cinemas, cafés and galleries. Her knowledge of Wellington and New Zealand culture is extensive, providing curious visitors a rewarding experience on the tours she hosts across the region. Sara is fluent in French and speaks conversational Spanish.
Louise Pagonis
Tour Guide – Auckland
Louise is a tour guide with a passion for New Zealand culture and history, cycling and travel and has been a part of our team since 2018. She enjoys showing visitors around the hidden corners of Auckland city and sharing her tips for the best restaurants, shopping and places to visit. A keen e-biker and traveler she has a special passion for France and can converse in French if needed. Louise was a well-known broadcaster in New Zealand for many years and when she’s not guiding, can still be heard on National radio where she is a part time newsreader. This helps keep her up to date with New Zealand news and current affairs. Aside from her work interests Louise has a tropical garden which takes a lot of her time and she also volunteers for a food charity.
pam tothill
tour guide – whangarei, nationwide
Pam was born in Christchurch and trained as a teacher before making the move to Northland where she taught in secondary schools across the region for 16 years. She’s always been adventurous at heart, enjoying the great outdoors of NZ and travelling the world throughout her life. Most recently, she was involved with the Hundertwasser Art Centre in Whangarei as an Ambassador helping to fundraise, build and deliver one of New Zealand’s newest cultural institutions. This huge project included working closely with the Hundertwasser Nonprofit Foundation in Vienna and the local community to bring the project to life after many years of planning. She’s also an experienced tour guide, leading groups around New Zealand and abroad. She loves sharing her passion for art, culture, nature and joy for life with visitors from around the world. As a friend of Friedensreich Hundertwasser while he lived in Northland, her personal stories of the man and his time spent in NZ is a special treat for all art lovers who have been hosted by her in Whangarei and further north since she joined our team in 2024.
Louis Tait
Tour Guide – Wellington, Nationwide
After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts, double-majoring in International Relations and Political Science, Louis sailed the Pacific on cruise ships serving as an Entertainment Officer for several seasons. On his return to Wellington, he became involved in acting and comedy. He has worked as a quiz host and MC for many local and touring shows since 2013, and also as a Visitor Host at Te Papa (the national museum of New Zealand). Around the same time, he joined the Te Rakau Theatre Company, led by well-known Maori actor and director, Jim Moriarty and his writing partner, Helen Pearse-Otene. Louis began work as a tour guide with Fine Art Tours NZ in 2018, hosting international visitors on guided tours of Wellington. Since that time, he has travelled around New Zealand, discovering the regions and enjoying hikes around the country. He has confidence in the outdoors and is experienced on mountain, bush and coastal trails.
Trisha Blik
Tour Guide – Christchurch
Trisha has a degree in art history and has worked in graphic design, carpet design and other creative fields throughout her career. Born and bred in Christchurch to Dutch parents, she was brought up to love travel and appreciate guided experiences when visiting foreign cities. Having lived through the devastating earthquake events in 2010 and 2011, she is extremely proud of how Christchurch has emerged as a modern, resilient city and she loves sharing her stories with international visitors on the guided tours she’s been hosting with us since 2022. When not guiding tours, she enjoys keeping fit with Pilates and Tai Chi and is a member of a local tramping club. She also loves her coastal Canterbury lifestyle, reading, knitting and cooking.
mark snoad
tour guide – auckland
Mark Snoad lives in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland with his wife, two 20-something daughters, and rascal dog Wilbur. Mark worked as a secondary school teacher for over twenty years and recently completed a Masters in Education. He loves football, a sport he has both played and coached, and he also loves acting, a hobby that has seen him perform in many local community theater productions and professional children shows. Mark is also a published author with his debut Middle Grade novel, Maggie and the Mountain of Light, launched into the world in April 2023, around the same time as he joined our team as an Auckland tour guide.
sahra grinham
tour guide – christchurch
Sahra has had a career in PR running her own boutique consultancy and contracting business for many years. She has worked with a range of people and organisations across diverse sectors including the Arts (NZ Opera, NZ International Arts Festival, The Court Theatre), events and entertainment industries, energy, commercial property, and Christchurch central city urban regeneration projects. A Wellingtonian, Sahra and her architect/artist husband relocated to Christchurch in 2013 to work on the post-earthquake rebuild. They built a house on the Banks Peninsula “lava flow” overlooking Whakaraupo/Lyttleton Harbour and devote their spare time to establishing and growing a large garden. An avid foodie, home-cook, gardener, arts-lover, shoe-shopper, world traveller and cat lover, Sahra is a regular rambler in Christchurch’s Port Hills, around the city’s glorious Botanic Gardens and across Banks Peninsula. She has gotten to know the Canterbury region as a visitor and new resident, and has some great tips for places to explore, eat and shop in New Zealand’s shiniest new city and beyond. Sahra joined our team in 2024.
sue wright
tour guide – auckland
Sue started life as a Science and Biology teacher in South Auckland before moving into the business world. Over the past 40 years she has worked in health-related businesses in New Zealand and overseas and has also led several not-for-profit organisations. In her leisure time, she also guides on conservation island Tiritiri Matangi, is President of an organisation leading Masters rowing in New Zealand and is actively involved in her rowing club as a rower, coach, fundraiser and historian. Working with us since 2023, Sue enjoys meeting visitors and introducing them to the arts and culture of New Zealand as she showcasing Auckland city and the wider region.
clark pollitt
tour guide – christchurch
Clark has been a primary teacher and teacher trainer, lecturing at Canterbury University. His curriculum strengths were health education, outdoor education and professional studies. He changed careers in 2007, swapping the lecture theatre for tour guiding. For several years he led small groups on multi-day soft adventure tours throughout New Zealand – hiking, sailing, caving, kayaking, rafting and cycling. Clark joined our team in 2023 and loves sharing his passion and knowledge of Otautahi Christchurch with the visitors he meets on walking tours of the city.
diana burns
tour guide – wellington
Diana Burns is a writer, journalist and broadcaster, who has worked extensively in New Zealand media. She has also been a communications consultant in various government agencies. She is a fluent speaker of Spanish and has acted as an interpreter for high-level visitors including the Kind and Queen of Spain. She has also been responsible for media liaison for royal visits from the British royal family, including Queen Elizabeth II. Diana is an experienced tour leader, who has organised and led tours to Latin America and Cuba. She has also worked as a Parliamentary Press Secretary, and a teacher of English as a Second Language. A passionate storyteller, she loves meeting people from other cultures and backgrounds and has been showcasing the broader Wellington region to our clients since 2023.
denise snoad
tour guide – auckland
Denise has earned her living Acting and Performing for over 30 years. Highlights include singing and dancing her way around Europe on a cruise ship (where she met her English husband), entertaining ex-pats in the Middle East and touring the Musical ‘Blood Brothers’ around NZ and Australia. Denise writes and performs her own Children’s Shows and Singing Telegrams and is a regular Roleplay Actor at the
University of Auckland. The stage and the beach are definitely her ‘happy places’. Well-travelled and born in the UK, she loves living here in our beautiful Aotearoa New Zealand. Denise joined our team in 2023 and has found it really enjoying and rewarding sharing stories and connecting with visitors from all round the world. She currently lives in Epsom, Auckland with her husband and their beloved fur babies and she is also a proud vegan for the animals.
ATHOL PARKS
TOUR GUIDE – DUNEDIN
Athol Parks has been leading guided walks in Dunedin since 2006. A graduate of Dunedin’s Otago University (Political Studies), Athol is daily inspired by his city’s beautiful natural and built environments and colourful early history. He’s also inspired by the renaissance which is transforming Dunedin now. Athol’s other passion is writing – he has written and self-published two books and is working on a play. He is also learning the trumpet. Athol is married and has a soon-to-be-adult daughter.
joe bleakley
tour guide – wellington
A wide involvement in the film sector and avantgarde theatre in his younger years took Joe to New York & London, then Auckland before he headed home to Wellington where he has happily stayed since. Career highlights include designing the 1990 Commonwealth Games ceremonies, award-winning work on Peter Jackson’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘King Kong’ and fifteen years running the annual Island Bay Festival. A Wellingtonian and Kiwi through and through he grew up with a love of sport, especially rugby, and has served on the board of Baseball NZ. He lives in beautiful Island Bay in an arty multigenerational family of writers, musicians and artists and following personal projects in his large studio. He is a proud recipient of the Queens Service Medal (QSM) for services to the arts in New Zealand. Joe joined our team in 2023.
patricia santos
tour guide – whangarei
Originally from Brazil, Patricia moved to New Zealand after developing a strong interest in its landscape and culture while living in Sydney. 20 years later she now calls NZ home and has worked in areas ranging from hospitality, the arts sector, education, and tourism as well as travelling the country extensively. Northland is now home and Patricia is heavily involved in the community, currently working part-time as a community navigator for Volunteering Northland as a community advocate. She likens volunteering to abundance “as you receive so much personal gain through the power of giving” says Patricia; she finds it extremely beneficial to her mental health and strongly believes in the “power of community-led social change”. Patricia works alongside her partner, who is a professional landscape photographer, to nurture her passion for art. In one of their projects, they are involved in activating empty spaces through pop-up stores. She believes that art has the power to connect people in profound ways through storytelling and advocates for art that nurtures accessible, joyful, and transformative human connections.
amANDA CROPP
tour guide – christchurch
Amanda Cropp grew up on a farm in North Canterbury and has lived in Christchurch for most of her life. During a 40-plus year career in journalism, a job which took her around the world, she regularly wrote about the tourism industry. As a reporter she had rare access to the “red zoned” central city after it was decimated in the 2011 earthquakes, which also severely damaged her family home in the seaside suburb of Sumner. Those experiences led her to write Shaken, not Stirred, a memoir about the disaster. Amanda loves showing off the rebuilt city to visitors, in particular the Arts Centre where her mother did a Fine Arts degree, and the Christchurch Botanic Gardens where her grandmother worked as a curator. A keen cook, caffeine addict, art gallery fan, home sewer, and reader, Amanda can often be found sampling city cafes, cycling to the beach, and walking on the Port Hills.
louise keen
tour guide – auckland
Louise Keen, an Auckland-born Artist, is known for her captivating mixed media artworks. With a studio in the historic Victoria Park Market precinct, Louise’s creativity is fueled by the city’s vibrant energy. Her unique perspective, influenced by her early involvement in the Auckland punk scene, adds depth to her understanding of the city’s rich heritage. Passionate about music, art, and fashion, Louise loves sharing recommendations for local galleries, eateries, and hidden gems. Through her art practice of sewing, stitching, and patchwork, she breathes new life into reclaimed objects, creating contemporary pieces that resonate with a profound sense of place and time. Joining our team in 2022, Louise loves guiding visitors through Auckland’s beauty and cultural richness as she showcases the ‘city of sails’.
julian o’brien
tour guide – wellington
Julian originally studied Journalism at Massey University’s Wellington campus and later did a degree in Political Science at Victoria University of Wellington, a city he has called home most of his life. His study and long professional career in the New Zealand media have provided him with comprehensive general knowledge of our history and culture that he loves to share with the visitors he has been hosting on our tours since 2022. A keen walker, he knows the laneways, back streets and hidden gems in the capital intimately.
KIRSTEN MACFARLANE
tour guide – christchurch
yvonne bohn
tour guide – dunedin
