6. Hosting the Tourists

I was not expecting to perform so many different duties for one job. Of course now it makes sense; we are a small team and there are many jobs to complete each day. The main function of a Relief Lodge Manager is to relieve the Lodge Manager of their duties when they are on a break or on their week off site. The Relief is also to do “lodgee” duties as per the roster. 

We were encouraged to learn off pre-existing Duty Sheets, which was fine for the “returners” but extremely over-whelming for “newbies.”  There were many lodge duties from host, bar, dishes, pots, dishes and laundry.

In my deep past, I worked in a Cobb n Co bar in Auckland, but other than that, my hospo experience was pretty non-existent so these duties were all very new to me.  At the same time, I was learning all the duties required of the Lodge Manager, so every day there was something new to take on. I had to take notes because I could barely remember anything I was being told, and these notes were put on my phone, which annoyingly decided to die after moisture got in through a broken lens.

I liked Hosting duty because it started at 8am!  I could enjoy a bit of a sleep in before breakfast at 7:30am. I was already in my cleaning clothes so after breakfast I headed to the cleaning room to get my basket of cleaning goodies. I was wearing two merino tops because it was especially chilly that day. I was also wearing our uniform-supplied t-shirt with my own fleece pants, which worked out really well as they were really warm and super comfortable on my knees when cleaning the floor. 

On this day I had four ensuite rooms to clean. I would start with cleaning the bathrooms and then make the beds.  After cleaning a few rooms I was starting to find a groove and was finally finishing on time. I moved from the rooms to the main lounge and one of the duties was to set the table for the number of guests staying. I am left-handed and trying to set the table for right-handed people is totally confusing for me.  Needless to say I got it entirely wrong and the Lodge Manager politely corrected one of the settings for me to copy. 

“The curved part of the knife faces inwards, and the soup spoon is to its right, and they both sit on the folded napkin with longest edge facing inwards, and the fork is on the left and the dessert spoon sits above and the glass is placed face-down above the knife,” she explained in detail.

After I had mastered this I was down in the lounge area tidying it up after last night’s guests and vacuuming and ticking off all the specific duties on the list.  At midday I set up the welcoming table for the tired walkers who had just come from the first lodge, Glade House. I prepared the jugs of Raro, water, and plates of sliced of oranges and chocolate chip cookies before the first guests arrived.

I then went to my room to get changed into my host uniform from name tag, a black shirt, black trousers, and a fleece jacket.  Looking at the duties list, I brought down the scones, jam and cream, and then wrote up the Host Book welcoming the group. 

Earlier when I was tidying the area I could see books dating back to the early 1960’s.  They’ve actually been having walkers coming on the trail since the 1880’s, beginning with McKinnon, hence the many names of rivers and passes reflecting the first adventurers.

The first people started arriving so I grabbed the room allocation list and took their names as they arrived and crossed them off.  The first people quickly helped themselves to the sliced oranges and biscuits. They looked very tired and were keen to get to their rooms.  I showed them the dining and lounge areas, the hand-washing station and drying rooms for their packs and clothes, before taking them up to their allocated rooms.  

Luckily I had a good visual memory as these cabins were spread over and up several levels with stairs connecting them all.  The view from some of the higher cabins looked across to the mountains and on a rainy day, there are waterfalls everywhere.  It is breath-takingly beautiful… but we workers are too busy to look.

The Lodge is so close to the mountains we frequently heard the thunder of small avalanches as the weather slowly warmed.  If we were lucky to stop from our duties and look, we would see huge plumes of snow cascade down the mountain and into the valley below. 

I arrived back in time for the next group who were sipping the Raro and sucking on the orange slices.  They too looked worn out.  Most groups total about 45 to 50 people, but occasionally we have a smaller group, which gives the lodge team easier cleaning days.

Once a group arrived after a particularly wet day and they all had to walk through flooded rivers thigh high or more.  They were all very excited despite looking like drown rats.

After all the guests were inside, I took a quick look outside to the mountain ranges. With the heavy rain, there were dozens of waterfalls falling from the highest peaks and it looked like fresh snow as well. I decided to light up the fireplace and turn on the radiators for the rooms so the guests can dry out and warm up. 

It's never a late night as guests go to bed early in preparation for the big walk the following day.  Occasionally I have a guest come back and ask for the heating to be turned on. 

Yeah, it's cold here... we are half-way up a mountain.