This time away from social media, writing blogs, recording podcasts, and, more importantly, running our adventure tours, was the opportune time to reassess everything for The Hiking Society.
Honestly, the last few years as COVID took hold of our country, and our adventure company has been very much a rollercoaster ride.
We were running adventures. Then we weren’t. Then we were. And then we weren’t again.
It was incredibly difficult to get a consistent length of time to run our adventures for you all.
This is why, after launching our adventure company back in late 2018, we have decided to close it down.
Our first adventure back in early 2019 was an awesome experience where we took seven adventurers out to the Victorian High Country to visit Rollasons Falls and the Mount Beauty Gorge Walk for the weekend. We even included a sunset dinner at the Horn Lookout at Mount Buffalo in amongst all of that.
To get seven out of a possible 10 people to join us for our first adventure was such a great experience and really got the ball rolling on our adventure company very much becoming a go-to for those of your looking for a guided walk in Victoria.
In addition to our overnight adventures & multi-day adventures in places such as the High Country, Grampians, Mitchell River, Mushroom Rocks, and Wilsons Prom, we also ran several day hikes to popular spots such as Marysville, Werribee Gorge, and Warburton.
Right from the very beginning, our adventure company existed to take you to the places that you may not have heard about or had heard about but never had the confidence to go there yourself.
We wanted to give you an experience like no other adventure company had or could and that was our point of difference.
My staff and I had all the necessary experience and knowledge of these areas that not only could we confidently take you there ourselves, but also give you the confidence to go there yourself one day without the need for a guide.
And it worked so well.
Not only did we have many people over the years come along for the first time, but they continued to come back for two, three, four, and more adventures.
You made friends with complete strangers during our adventures and it was that social element that really took our adventures to a whole other level.
Whilst our focus was on those who live in Victoria, we were blessed to have adventurers come from interstate and overseas to book an adventure with us. We’re incredibly proud to be able to attract people from far and wide to our adventures.
While we were able to navigate these COVID restrictions for some time, it eventually grounded us completely as there was no official ruling on transport within the context of how many people would be able to be in a vehicle such as ours.
For those of you who messaged, emailed, and called me about this in November-January, I really appreciate the interest and am terribly sorry we couldn’t help you further.
The truth is that running adventures with only a maximum of 5 people in our van due to social distancing made it extremely hard to run a viable adventure company. Particularly when we were getting a minimum of 7 people for each adventure.
So where to from here for The Hiking Society
It’s very much a return to our roots-type scenario for The Hiking Society.
If you have been with us since we launched this website back in mid-2016, you might remember that we started out as a blog that existed to make it easier for you to access and enjoy the outdoors. We quickly became, and still are, a trusted resource in the outdoor space.
And that’s what we will be reverting back to.
We love nothing more than sharing our tips and information with you, and we love that you love to read them as well. On average, we get approximately 15,000 page views per month on our website and that’s something we’re incredibly proud of.
We really can’t thank you enough for taking time out of your day to read our blogs and listen to our podcast.
We look forward to sharing more content with you over the months and years to come, and further our position as a trusted resource for the outdoors in Australia & New Zealand.
As we’re now located in the UK for the next little while, we’ll also be adding an international flavour to the website as we start featuring the UK and European outdoor content.
I would like to say thank you to the following people and organisations who I got to work with over the journey:
My amazing adventure guides – Jason, Matt, Kerrie, Georgia, and Bailey. If you’ve been on one of our adventures, you may have come across these amazing people during your day, overnight, or multi-day adventure.
To employ these people from day one and have them contribute to what our adventure company became, I am truly lucky. I genuinely hope their collective outdoor knowledge and experience have helped you in some way understand the outdoors a little better.
But best of all, they’re just great people and that’s why I wanted them involved from the beginning.
Our awesome partners – Tom & Tara from Tombolo Lodge in Wilsons Prom, AJ from Campers Pantry, Suburban Wholefoods, Jono from Good TimeTours, Kate from Hiked, Paul from Ottie Merino, Andrea from Ladybird Outdoor Adventures, Lisa from Big Heart Adventures, and Rowan from Summit Strength Australia.
These wonderful people with their awesome businesses have been fantastic to partner in a variety of ways over the past 4 years.
Whether it was accommodation, camping food, hiking businesses, or clothes, I genuinely value your respective help and partnership, and I hope our adventure company has contributed to the growth of your own business in some small way.
Finally, I want to say thank you to all of you.
Whether you’ve been on one adventure, several adventures, or were simply a part of our wonderful community, I am genuinely grateful for you all.
It’s never easy launching and building a business in the tourism space because you never know if what you’re offering is going to resonate with your audience.
Thankfully, our adventures resonated with many of you from the very beginning. The smiles, laughter, and general enjoyment that you had during our adventures is something I take great satisfaction from, and am truly blessed that I was able to share that experience with you.
It’s something I will always remember.
Thank you so much for the past few years. They really have been quite the adventure. Here’s to the next chapter of The Hiking Society.
Yours in the outdoors,
John
The Hiking Society
