Waitomo caving guide wins visitors' vote

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HIDDEN WORLD: Green Glow Eco-Adventures founder Paul Hunt in the caving system that has wowed tourists and users of the Rankers website.

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HIDDEN WORLD: Green Glow Eco-Adventures founder Paul Hunt in the caving system that has wowed tourists and users of the Rankers website.

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Rave reviews from satisfied customers have won Waitomo cave guide Paul Hunt the supreme award for best visitor activity in the 2010 Rankers.co.nz Traveller Voted Awards.

Having worked as a caving guide in Waitomo on and off since he was a Waikato University geology student, Mr Hunt started Green Glow Eco-Adventures 18 months ago. Waitomo's caves kept drawing Mr Hunt back to the area which he had first begun exploring as a self-taught teenager.

"I started caving when I was 16. Now I'm 43 so it has been a while," Mr Hunt said.

"My friends and I ... taught ourselves to abseil out of a book."

When he returned to Waitomo after a few years living and working as a geologist in Australia and Germany, where his wife Dana comes from, Mr Hunt worked in various Waitomo attractions.

Eventually he decided he would put a cave close to his home to use, setting up Green Glow Eco-Adventures.

The cave has all the features Waitomo is known for; stalactites and stalagmites, a river system and glow worms.

But it is Mr Hunt's focus on giving clients what they want that won him the award so soon after setting up.

Unlike larger tours, he can take small parties of friends or families through the cave at their own pace, letting them decide what they want to do.

"There are no time limits," he said.

"If someone wants to spend the day rock climbing they can do that, if they want to take photos in the caves they can do that, or they can do both."

The internet has become Green Glow's main form of marketing with about half of his clients, mostly from Australia, Germany, the United States and Britain, booking through his website.

He joined the Rankers website soon after starting Green Glow and to date the comments on the site have all been positive, giving Green Glow 10/10.

- © Fairfax NZ News