Last week we escaped Suva and headed to Naga village, our starting point for the first day of walking on the Cross-Highland Hike. This time, however, we were without any hikers.

As part of our ongoing training programme with our partner communities we conduct two days of training on guiding, covering a range of topics from exploring how a Talanoa Treks hiker might differ from a Coral Coast tourist, to the role and characteristics of a good guide, to walk planning and risk assessment.

The final practical session involves a short walk and an opportunity to practice various guiding skills with people taking it in turns to play the role of ‘guides’ and ‘tourists’. In Naga, as in the other communities, this provided the opportunity for the ‘tourists’ to ask all kinds of bizarre questions, overload their bags, forget their shoes, wander off in the wrong direction and generally fall over a lot, with lots of laughter all the way!

Strange, as none of our hikers ever do any of that!