Outlier TV Interview With Phil Rossiter Co Founder Old Ghost Road Mountain Bike & Tramping Trail
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Andrew McCombe:
Hi there, Andrew McCombe here and welcome to Outlier. In this week’s episode, I’m on the Old Ghost Road and I’m going to be speaking to one of the four founding members, Phil Rossiter. Guys, seriously, this is a bucket list, adventure that I’m looking forward to. Let’s go and meet Phil. Phil Rossiter, welcome to Outlier.
Phil Rossiter:
Thank you, Andrew. Good to be here.
Andrew McCombe:
What an Outlier destination.
Phil Rossiter:
Yeah, it is. It’s hard to beat actually, isn’t it? I could think of worse spots to be than right now.
Andrew McCombe:
So it’s an Outlier destination designed by Outliers for Outliers. Where are we?
Phil Rossiter:
Well, we’re on the Old Ghost Road, which is on the Northern part of the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. We’re about 1300 meters above sea level, 26 kilometres in from the starting point of the Southern end of the trail, basically. So we’re in the mighty Lyell range.
Andrew McCombe:
Well, looking around, I’m seeing many ranges or mountains and it looks like pretty inaccessible land. But tell us about the start of the story mate because I know it’s very inspirational.
Phil Rossiter:
Yeah. That’s actually one of the hardest questions to answer because where does the story start? It could have started 300 million years ago with the ground we’re on here and that being formed, or it could have started 160 years ago with gold being found just south of here and north of here, and so I think that’s where I’ll chose to start, because that is what gave rise to this surveying of a route to try and connect these two gold fields that are just south of us here and just north of us over here.
And that was a plan from the late 1860s, and that never eventuated for one reason or another. And so the story just hit pause for about 130 years and in 2007, that old survey plan with that very lofty aim of a trail connecting the two fell into the right hands.
That’s a simple way to say it. And that person started dreaming about what might be possible and how much of this old track actually existed. And one thing snowballed into another, and that was actually the start of the Old Ghost Road as we know it 2007, which was some really big days and weeks and months just traipsing through this back country, understanding how much of that old trail was there. And could it be brought back to life and if so, what needed to be done? So, yeah, that’s when the story or the last chapter of this story started.
Andrew McCombe:
So I’m looking at where we are and we are literally in the middle of Jurassic Park and it could be anywhere, right? But it’s in one of the most remote regions of the world. And what was the go? Like someone found the trail and they said, “Let’s give it a crack,” or they went for a walk and thought we could do something with this or…
Phil Rossiter:
All of those things. Wiesel and Stacky, two of the early proponents decided to set forth for multiple trips over weeks traipsing up and down this river valley, that’s over here in front of us, off camera. And that was to understand how much of that trail was there. The answer was zip, none. And so that’s where we decided, well, shall we try and create that and join the existing, old, historic formations that were on either end.
So that’s what we set out to do. And it became very apparent that that was incredibly tough country, lots of creeks, lots of flooding issues, terrible geology, shady, dark, gloomy. And it was another one of our team at that time that suggested, “Why don’t we think about climbing up onto these tops or making our way along the tops to drop back into that valley far, further along?” And so Wayne Pratt was the name of that person and to Wayne’s credit, that’s what brought the Old Ghost Road up onto the mighty Lyell range. And that was another key moment in the genesis of the Old Ghost Road.
Andrew McCombe:
So from a vision perspective, we weren’t actually supposed to be here right now? It was all below us?
Phil Rossiter:
Correct? Well said. Yeah, absolutely. It was kind of a straight line from south to north. And so it came up the Lyell valley over a saddle and went straight on down what we call the south branch of the Mōkihinui River. So we’ve taken an Eastern detour to climb up onto a range, make our way along the range to drop back down. And it adds just a totally different dimension. Otherwise we’d have 85 kilometres of bush canopy trail. And now we’ve got this amazing sub-alpine open tops experience, which anyone that comes and does it, I think it speaks for itself.
Andrew McCombe:
Unbelievable. And obviously it’s not just up, as you mentioned, you got the Alpine forest down there, you’ve got the rivers, there’s the boneyard, what’s the Boneyard?
Phil Rossiter:
Boneyard is an incredible piece of geology. I’ve been lucky enough to have a look around much of the world and I’ve never seen a place like the Boneyard. So that is essentially just a big exploded mountain face that was created through probably two but at least one significant earthquake through the 1900s. So 1929 and 1968, two large earthquakes in this area. And they sent so much energy through this big sort of limestone unit, and it hit an open face and there was nothing there for that energy to keep traveling.
So it exploded, this face, and sent, I want to say house size rocks but house is an understatement. We’ve got rocks and boulders the size of small commercial buildings basically that are just littered down this hillside. So yes, the trail makes its way up through there. It is like a big wrecking yard or a Boneyard of ancient Monolith and dinosaurs and that’s where it took its name from.
Andrew McCombe:
So as far as access, can the general public access or how does it work?
Phil Rossiter:
Absolutely. This is all what we call public conservation land in New Zealand, so free to access this land. And so absolutely, it is. We’re into a national park here now. These lands that we are in right now, were added to a national park last year. And so absolutely.
Andrew McCombe:
And is it just trampers or…
Phil Rossiter:
Well, the business case, we knew that this would be an incredible mountain biking trail, and that’s where we could justify making all this effort. It turns out that it is a fabulous tramping trail as well. As of now, we’ve basically almost 40% of the use on this trail is from the tramping market. So the majority are mountain bikers. It’s an incredible trail where you get to bike up into the sub-alpine environment. And so that’s no mystery that it’s taken off, but it’s increasingly being discovered by what we call the tramping market or hiking, overseas as a great thing to do. It’s a long way. It’s a five day trip, 85 kilometres.
Andrew McCombe:
Would you start at Murchison?
Phil Rossiter:
Well, yeah. It’s a very remote trail. And so the trail heads are literally in the middle of nowhere. And so the Southern trail down beneath us here is a little old historic town called Lyell. Nothing exists now, but it was a bustling little gold town a hundred years ago. And then it finishes just in land from a little Hamlet called Seddonville on the Northern West Coast. So Westport is kind of the hub. But yes, it’s accessible from the Nelson Murchison end, and a lot of East Coasters coming across from Christchurch as well. So a lot of service providers have popped up that make those logistics go away for people with car relocations or shuttle deliveries, et cetera, from wherever you are. So it’s been great how the community responded and filled in those gaps to make it easy.
Andrew McCombe:
And you as a tramper or a biker, you could bring your own gear and look after it yourself. Is there a service where you can have it dropped off in front of you and walk for the day or bike for the day or how does it work?
Phil Rossiter:
Yeah, there is. But by far, the majority of users are self-discovery, bringing their own gear, they might hire bikes, but they’re doing it all themselves. And it’s entirely doable that way, if you pick it apart and you take the time to do it. So we do have guiding companies that operate and provide equipment and cook for their clients, et cetera. But that’s a small part of the overall market that uses the Old Ghost Road.
Andrew McCombe:
Who are the types of Outliers that would want to do this thing?. It’s obviously a pretty extreme environment, does it take that sort of mindset?
Phil Rossiter:
I think it does. And we certainly are happy to promote that because we don’t want to be culpable and enticing folk that aren’t prepared or used to these sorts of environments to just come and get a fright. That’s not what we’re about. So we certainly do our best to impress upon people, this is a really serious undertaking and that self regulates by and large. And so yes, it is, it’s wild, it’s remote, you’re on your own and so naturally it attracts an Outlier personality, but the really cool thing to observe over the years, is just the growth in every kind of demographics, so lots of families and parents bringing young ones and helping them through and that warms my heart personally. That’s something that I find really important in life is to see that younger generation being introduced to the beauty of the outdoors and what’s special about it.
We’ve had folk in their nineties go through this trail. It’s incredible quite common for low eighties to be tramping through. It’s just incredible what the people out there in the fitness and fortitude to guts it out and move through. So you see all walks of life, take it on. And some just do it and you think, “wow, geez, this is going to be a tough outing.” And they do it with a smile and, they have short sleeves on and it’ll be snowing or sleeting, and they’re as happy as Larry. So they breed them tough and you certainly get to see the tough on this trail.
Andrew McCombe:
Absolutely. And what is some of the feedback that you get after people have completed the trail?
Phil Rossiter:
The feedback’s humbling to be fair, really humbling and overwhelmingly humbling, and they are not isolated things. That’s sort of the norm to be fair. That is important because this is hard work. It is hard work to keep an 85,000 metre organism alive and do it day in, day out. And so you need that energy going back into the system. So knowing that you are creating that opportunity for people to get out and reconnect with nature and challenge themselves and be fit and healthy and active and share those experiences with friends or family is really important. And so that’s the currency we kind of live on and fuel ourselves on.
Andrew McCombe:
It’s a love or a passion project?
Phil Rossiter:
It is. It absolutely is. It always was from the start, I don’t think anything else would have got us through. If it was a job, I think the love would have gone out of it long ago. It was very much a labour of love that was apparent very early on. And I’m just very fortunate and lucky that we all fell head over heels in love with it.
Andrew McCombe:
Well, if we look at it from the turning of the first sod, I guess if you want to call it that to the completion, what’s the timeframe now between completion to now?
Phil Rossiter:
We started restoring the old historic trails as they existed on either end in the late 2008s and in earnest in 2009. Okay. And we started building new trail and where there was none in 2011, and in December, 2015, cut the ribbon and opened the Old Ghost Road in her full length glory. So we are going to be five years into being an operating trail later this year. And that’s all just gone in a flash of a pan. And this has been amazing, but it’s been 2007 to now, what are we talking a 13, 14 year journey from when the idea was conceived to being here doing it?
Andrew McCombe:
Would you say that it’s become a bit of an Outlier in the world of mountain biking and tramping? Is it renowned globally?
Phil Rossiter:
We’ve certainly hear and detect that it’s got an international presence and profile. We hear all sorts of classic stories about people meeting in small towns in Europe or the States and sharing a story that they’ve both done the Old Ghost Road. It’s amazing how the global communication channels get back and the things you hear about. So yes, it has started to enter onto the radar of internationals without a doubt.
Andrew McCombe:
So I guess a bit of a bragging thing is it? If you’ve done the Old Ghost Road?
Phil Rossiter:
Up to the individual, all I know is that it’s not easy and if you can get through this, then you can hold your chin pretty high. So it’s a long way, and depending on what the elements want to throw at you, it’ll either turn it from something that was pretty tough to something that was bloody tough.
Andrew McCombe:
We’ve got a perfect day today, but it’s not always like this.
Phil Rossiter:
It’s not always like this at all. You’d struggle to even hold onto the ground here on certain days, Andrew. So that’s part of the majesty of the place. We’ve got a lot of people that have come through and it’s been a magnificent weather other than the three hours that they’ve been moving through this bit of the trail. And so their overriding sentiment is as well, we’re just going to have to come back and see those views we missed out on.
Andrew McCombe:
And it’s more than just for the bikers and trampers, you’re running races now, 85 K races and one day races. It’s not multi-sport, but it’s bike and trail races.
Phil Rossiter:
Yeah, correct. We started in the early days with a mountain biking event that started right here and made its way down, largely a descent down to Lyell. But it was in 2016 one of the original proponents and myself ran through here in a day, the trail wasn’t finished. Sorry, 2014, it wasn’t finished. And we sat halfway through the trail here. It was 10:30 in the morning and we just knew then that man, we’ve got to bring this to life.
This has to be a one day trail running event. And we made that pact to ourselves. And so two years later in 2016, we gave birth to the Old Ghost Ultra. And that is a north to south 85 kilometre mountain ultra marathon. And so, yeah, that’s an annual event. We’re in our sixth year and that’s grown an international profile. Almost a quarter of the field was international, not last year, with COVID, but the year before.
A lot of Australians come over and do it. And so that’s a hoot, we just see, it’s just amazing. You know, the people in that community are amazing, the energy that flows out of them is great. So that’s just a privilege to be involved in. And necessarily we did that because we wanted to share it, but also it’s a humble fundraiser for us. We’ve taken on the responsibility of maintaining and keeping this thing alive, and that’s a responsibility we take seriously, and we don’t want to be drawing from public coffers. And so we’re very much into doing what we can to generate some income, to look after this trail and make it self sustaining.
Andrew McCombe:
And that’s a great point because with any Outlier or any entrepreneur who’s out there, when they’re starting their journey, they don’t often realize how hard it’s going to be and how much support they’re going to need. How did it work for you guys? Like it was all voluntary to start or?
Phil Rossiter:
Yeah, absolutely. All to start with. Absolutely. For years. And yeah, I’m glad we never realized just how hard it would be cause you probably wouldn’t start it but you get hooked and you just have to keep going. We’re up to 160,000 hours of volunteer effort now over the decade. And that’s come sometimes in massive big installments where we’ve had month long campaigns of 15 or 20 people on the hill each day, each night, staying here, building track to seasonal campaigns. We have a volunteer hut warden campaign now. We are pretty much from October, November through to May. We have volunteers in the huts hosting and welcoming people and helping out. So it’s just what we need to make it work. And it’s great because it keeps us focused.
It keeps us thinking about people all the time and keeps us sharp. And we’re fortunate to be able to rely on the goodwill of so many people. So many people have had their hands on this, this isn’t about one or two or three or four people. This is about an army of people that can identify with a common cause and our jobs just being around and sort of connecting them to that and yeah, build an army and you can do anything quite frankly.
Andrew McCombe:
How was the feeling when the two sides of the track connected, that day, that it connected? It must’ve been euphoric. It must’ve been satisfaction…
Phil Rossiter:
It was amazing. It was a really misty drizzly day. And we came in that morning. We flew in, actually to the point we had two work teams working together and we’d been tracking it and been watching it literally every day for that week before. When’s it going to happen. So we brought in a few of the team that had had a huge part in it over the years. And when those digger buckets literally kissed and touched, and I walked back along the trail with one of the founding fathers Weasel (Marion Boatwright). And we both got around the corner and both looked at each other and just burst into tears and I feel emotional even recounting that now, but it was a big moment and I guess that’s what happens when you literally every day for that decade, and every day, is the honest truth for that decade before we were thinking about how to keep moving it forward, how to beat that challenge. And so that’s just a natural reaction, I guess, for anyone that feels like they’ve put a fair bit into something and they finally get there.
Andrew McCombe:
Is it the biggest day of your life? Do you think?
Phil Rossiter:
I’m not sure it was monumental. I think seeing people let loose on it or having those events or realizing months in when you start getting that feedback from people that, thank goodness this wasn’t folly, this was real, we were not wrong with what we were thinking and we’re hearing that, they were all big markers, so I’m not sure I could nail it down to that one moment, like those few seconds. I just think there are markers all the way through and I could even say right now, I’m just as proud of the fact that we’re still around five short years later doing the work to make it happen and be here tomorrow for the next people and hopefully next year and next decade for the next generation. So I find nobility in that just as much as building the thing, you know, there’s a romanticism in that, and it’s not quite as romantic to just do the day in, day out work to keep the thing going, certainly we’re all up for it. Yeah.
Andrew McCombe:
So was there any grief once that had connected the tracks? Like some of the lads, they must’ve felt like they put their life’s work into it. What happened to some of the boys after that, and the girls?
Phil Rossiter:
We gave them a day off and then we started the work of maintaining the trail basically and looping back. I often use this. Every time I go over the Sydney Harbour bridge and I love looking at the fact that while the painters were at that end last year and now they’re there, and then they’re back there the next year. So this is just a Sydney Harbour bridge. We’re just a big moving work front that works from one end and by the time we get to the other end, it’s time to go back and start again and tickle some things up. So we still have one of those original proponents, Steve Stack (Stackie), who is one of the four founding fathers who is literally three kilometres away from us today. Doing what he does best, still here having built it five years later, looking after it. So yeah, they’re not off the hook and still, still doing the work.
Andrew McCombe:
So if Stackies at the coalface looking after the day-to-day running of the place with the trampers, et cetera, up there in the hut. Who’s looking after the big picture?
Phil Rossiter:
So we’ve got a team, a front country team that is responsible for all of that, that’s got many arms to it. It’s got the whole public bookings aspect and enquiries and status and condition. It’s got the whole maintenance, planning and operations. It’s got all the hut restocking and toilet servicing and gas supplies and maintenance and repairs. It’s got our fundraising, it’s got our reporting and lots of stakeholders that are interested. It’s just at the end of the day, just like any sort of standard business, lots of people have an interest and we’ve just worked our way through that. So yeah, we’ve very much got a front country team. But yet the elbow work happens in the back country, but to be fair this doesn’t exist without each other and the key is melding those two worlds and making them do what they need to do.
Andrew McCombe:
When you think about the start of the journey with the lads and the map and the trail, and couple of lads out having a walk and sussing out, whether it’s viable or not. And you look at it now and you talk about it as a living organism. It’s really like any business, isn’t it you’ve you’ve started with nothing. You’ve had a vision or even not even really a vision. It was a trial and error and see if it even became a vision, see if it was even possible. And now is it fully sustainable now?
Phil Rossiter:
We are doing it. We’re standing on our feet. That was a massive challenge for us in 2017, as we just applied a model that’s used widely in New Zealand on other back country structures managed by the government. And quite frankly, that model isn’t sustainable for us and it’s not for the other trails as well, but it can be taxpayer subsidized. So we needed to actually look at, very quickly and overnight, what does it need to generate to look after itself? What does that mean? Is the user prepared to pay that? And we’ll give it a go and we just couldn’t die wondering, we had no choice or option. And so we’ve done that. We get told every day that people consider it value for money still. And so we’re really proud that it stands on its feet and self supports itself through user fees to stay in the huts.
Andrew McCombe:
When you look at that journey now as a self-sustainable organism. You must’ve had some significant highs and lows in that period as well.
Phil Rossiter:
Every day, I have never seen more grown adults cry in any single decade of my life. And that’s the truth. So just challenges all the time. And, that’s just born from an absolute desperation and a desire to make it work and to repay the faith that so many people put in us. And that could be volunteers coming to give us their time to the statutory authorities that gave us the permissions to even do this. They all put confidence and trust in us. And so deep down, that’s the thing that drove us just militantly every day is we will not let those people down. And just as well that we were fueled by that because we needed every ounce of it to get through. Just literally behind me here, we were doing well if we could make four metres a day hacking our way through the Lyell Range granite, that’s just harder, than I challenge you to find something harder in the world. And so you’ve got to do a lot of awful mental reframing to think about how are we meant to do 85,000 metres of these when we can do four in a day and it’s snowing or sleeting sideways, it’s pretty thankless, but that’s where I take my hat off to the guys like Stackie and all the crew in the field that just turned up and just kept doing it. And sure enough, there’s lots of old adages, but it is true. You just keep putting one foot in front of the other and sooner or later you get there,
Andrew McCombe:
How would the conversation go in that four metre period of hard granite rock, how does that go?
Phil Rossiter:
Zero? No, conversation complete silence, everyone just in their own head wishing they were somewhere else. No one says a thing. And I think that’s something. If you turn up and the work sites noisy and everyone’s giving each other jip and there’s banter, they’re probably having a pretty good day. When you turn up and everyone’s stern and no one’s saying a thing, you get to read those non verbal signs pretty quickly.
Andrew McCombe:
Obviously, a tight team is important in those situations. How did you deal with those? There’s going to be a lot of them. How did you deal with them?
Phil Rossiter:
I wasn’t in the back country enough to be integral in making that happen on a daily basis. But one thing you learn is if you can keep people warm at night, feed them well, and they can get a good night’s sleep, then you’re winning. And so we had small teams and we had individual sleeping spaces, so that if anyone needs to snore, no one’s keeping anyone else awake. That’ll ruin a team spirit faster than anything in the back country. So those three ingredients and I don’t say it flippantly are pretty central to keeping some team morale going and just sharing that progress and that bigger picture and there’s no other way to do it. It is about end game. We throw around all these cliches, but it is about, you know, eating the elephant one bite at a time. You just can’t get ahead of yourself.
Andrew McCombe:
What happens when emotions up? I know intelligence goes down, but did you have some moments where the boys were blewing or?
Phil Rossiter:
There’s always dark moments, isn’t there? And things aren’t going your way and those smallest things, you see that in any environment. I listen with interest sometimes to those transatlantic rowers, where two people need to spend four months in a rowing boat together. And I just I love thinking around the dynamics in how you traverse those sorts of situations. So all of those factors come into play when you’ve got small, tight teams in the back country for a week or weeks at a time working on a bit of rock that’s half a metre in front of their face. You need all of the skills under the sun to kind of get through that.
Andrew McCombe:
Was there someone who oversaw that or was that your role or was that just…
Phil Rossiter:
That’s their team. Stackie was a team leader for sure, in the building days, and we had other teams that evolved as the project went on, but we’re very much in the front country and it’s, wave goodbye and wish them well, as they head into the hills for the start of a shift and say, hello, when they come out. And that’s about the extent of it.
Andrew McCombe:
That’s interesting,
Phil Rossiter:
It is.
Andrew McCombe:
Especially for guys, right? Guys don’t like to talk about how they’re feeling but their actions will tell you how they’re feeling on an 85,000 metre project. It’s going to have some ups and downs. So once the track was finalized, you’ve connected, the kissing of the diggers. It’s like, you’ve just given birth, haven’t you? So what happened next?
Phil Rossiter:
Learning how to run it and operate it. You learn a lot, and you learn a lot very quickly. It was, like we talk about, it was like having just a big water main tap turned on in our face and it just all started. So you certainly don’t walk to run, you kind of just start running straightaway and moving with it. So, just all of the issues around booking, we were lucky though, in that things ramped up. And so we had time to grow with it, but we were pretty small, nimble, light, charitable trust. And so one of the great strengths and the things I’m thankful for is we could make decisions very quickly and move very quickly. And because, we hadn’t done this before and we hadn’t come from a system where that’s the way you do it. We would just look at everything from a first principles basis and say, well, I think we should do this. I think that’s what the market needs, and that seems appropriate and fitting in the back country. So we’ll give it a go. So that was a huge part of the challenge and the fun of it too. And so there are some things that are unique and different about the Old Ghost Road that are not perhaps the standard prescription in the back country that just give it a little twist and its own unique style, and we’re really proud of those little things.
Andrew McCombe:
And as a charitable trust for those of the viewers who aren’t familiar with the charitable trust, it’s not a business, isn’t it’s more of an entity…
Phil Rossiter:
It’s not-for-profit, it’s just a shell and you need that shell to hang things on and to apply for things and to administer things. Correct, our sole reason for being is to give life and continue life for a back country, recreational asset, which has social benefits and also environmental benefits. And so to answer your question before, that’s one of the things that we really started turning on when we opened, which was kind of our environmental actions on the trail. And so we’ve got a network of just under a thousand predator traps throughout this trail. And they are around suppressing predatory species like rats and stoats. And so I hope they, well rats will make sense. Stoats are a pretty, like a little weasel or a Ferret. So those that are not from these parts and they just so destructive to New Zealand’s endemic and ground or flightless birds. And so that was something that we had a strong sense of from the beginning, as we are setting forth into this amazing realm and it’s our responsibility to try and help fight the fight that the real inhabitants of this place struggle with. And so we’ve been doing that work in earnest since 2015 and have been slowly ramping it up year by year. And we’re starting to see some really good gains. And it’s an absolute hoot because we’ve got such a good appreciation of how the seasons and the years flow here, it’s easy to spot the change. And we have an amazing sense of pride and seeing the abundance of some species start to increase and the populations disperse into valleys where they weren’t et cetera. So that’s that’s something that we want to continue to do and expand as we move forward.
Andrew McCombe:
So you had a real environmental and social focus, but yet you’ve really got to run it like an entrepreneur, or a group of entrepreneurs as a business don’t you…
Phil Rossiter:
Spot on, spot on. But those two realms compliment each other so beautifully, you know? And I guess our biggest enemy is complacency and bureaucracy, and we’re always on guard for that. We just try and keep it lean, mean and agile so that we can respond quickly and move. And we do, we get a hoot out of that, I really do. And long may that last.
Andrew McCombe:
And you’re the chairman of the trust?
Phil Rossiter:
Correct, I’m the chairperson of the trust.
Andrew McCombe:
How do you deal with the politics and obviously you mentioned lean and mean, and how else would you do it? Cause obviously there are going to be times where you’ve got different stakeholders with different requirements.
Phil Rossiter:
Yeah. Correct. And look we’re never home and hosed. That’s just an ongoing journey, so to speak, and it’s an intensely contentious area, I guess, is how should we engage with our special places and our wild places and our back country. And there’s a wide spectrum of philosophies or ideologies around what’s right. And what’s wrong or how we should. And so we’ve always been clear and we’re not, not backwards in coming forwards. The fact that we think that unless you get to know an area, you’ll never understand it and unless you understand it you’ll never love it. And so we think that by letting people into these sorts of special places, they get a deeper connection to them. And there’ll be a better advocate for them. That’s just our philosophy. That’s what we believe in.
Absolutely happy to accept that other people may say, no, the best thing that can be done is don’t let anyone into these places. Don’t do a thing. And I accept that as real because we hear from some of those people that have those views. Thankfully, thousands tell us each year that this was just the most amazing gift for them and their families or their brothers and their sisters or partners coming through and seeing nature on its own terms. And, on the other hand, we hear from maybe a couple of individuals in a year. So we’re comfortable that what we’re doing is, we think the right thing to do and get more people connected with the outdoors and what’s important. And hopefully that just means that’s more pairs of hands to take up the fight and help out, because it needs it.
Andrew McCombe:
And people vote with their feet and they vote where their wallet. Has that been your best form of marketing? Was word of mouth from the start?
Phil Rossiter:
Absolutely. We have a marketing budget that is a big fat zero, always have, we have a few people contact us and say, “oh man, who did your marketing plan?” And, we never have. And we fundamentally believe in that. And I know this goes against the grain probably of marketing theory, but we just know that we can focus on doing what we can directly control, which is make the experience good, make the physical assets good. The rest will take care of itself. And we measure that. And so we know that 80% of the people that come and do the Old Ghost Road are coming because their friends or family told them. It’s not 80 or 90% came because they saw it on Instagram. And so as long as that metric holds, we will continue to do what we do. We’ll focus on keeping it right. And hopefully people will keep coming. And then as they have been doing to date, hopefully they will keep telling their neighbours or their friends or their family that, wow, that was pretty good. You should do it.
So if you’re at university and you were teaching a young Outlier about marketing, that’s not something that they really would teach as much as the how to stuff is it? That’s a real deep feeling connection thing…
It’s a deep feeling connection and I’m by no means an expert, but I’ve thought about this because it’s important. It’s what we live on and I think it’s about expectation management. So I get the sense that the world operates on this glossy superficial way of putting everything out there and making the world believe that you’re the best and you’re better than anything. And I’m thinking if that’s where you’re pitching it, but the reality is somewhat below then what really is that user going to feel when they come along? You know? And so our view is keep your head down, do the work. And we’re just stoked if people discover for themselves that, wow, that was pretty special rather than us telling you, gee, this is pretty special. You should come and have a go. And that’s just where we decide to draw the line. And that’s how we’ve gone about our business.
Andrew McCombe:
It’s very kiwi isn’t it, understated…?
Phil Rossiter:
It’s easy to do, it lets us focus, as I say on the work and not get distracted by creating a lot of noise, you know?
Andrew McCombe:
How close would the adventurous mindset of any person be in relation to being an entrepreneur do you think and utilizing your story, your journey with the team?
Phil Rossiter:
Well, I think really close. I’m only thinking on my feet and on the fly, but I think it’s around risk and calculated risks. So I think that’s what adventurers and Outliers are doing all the time. They’re taking calculated risks and they can face adversity and they can weather adversity or endure it and that’s necessary and live to kind of get through it. So, you know, I think those two things probably go hand in hand to be fair. Yeah. I don’t think they’re foreign or mutually exclusive at least.
Well you’re proof of that aren’t you? The Old Ghost Road is proof of that and the team is proof of that. So that makes me think, who was the catalyst at the very start who said, “Hey, I’ve got this really cool idea”. Explained the idea. Some of the lads jumped in, had a little bit of a couple of walks. At what point did you say we’re in and what made that decision? Was that the beer talking or…?,
No, so 2007, this old survey maps fell into the hands of Weasel. Okay. So Weasel got that initial spark, like ooh, I wonder what’s here. Weasel by his own admission, wasn’t, you know, very, very capable, adventurous spirit, but he’s clever as heck. And he cottoned on to Stackie who was a bushmen of this country for decades and had been up and through here doing all sorts of things and so he collared Stackie. Right Stackie, get in here with me and we’ll traipse up and down and see what’s here.
They started the sort of process of, Ooh, I think this is technically feasible. And then one by one sort of started roping in a few others of us, Wayne Pratt, Wayne flew helicopters at the time that was absolutely necessary to try and get across this rugged remote place, to even get a sense of it and yes, I entered shortly thereafter and then it’s just this gross snowballing effect. And because we started our work down here in the Southern end in the Lyell we call it the Lyell flu, we sort of got a mild dose of the Lyell flu. It sort of became more of an affliction in 2008. And by 2009, we were just rampantly struck by the Lyell flu and an addiction and you know, and everyone that touched, it just got sucked into this big black hole and we just kept fuelling it basically. And did that with all these lovely little milestones that, you know, we’d tick them off and feel pretty good and we could grow some confidence and that’s what we did. We never conceived it, you know, end to end as a mountain biking trail.
It was initially end to end, as we wondered if we can make that a tramping route. I’d done a fair bit of mountain biking and realized that wow, I think this could be something special from a mountain biking perspective. We started thinking about that in 2009, and that just coincided with this New Zealand government initiative that grew out of the global financial crisis around starting these cycle trails in New Zealand. And so we think we’ve got a great idea and we threw our name in the hat for those prospective trails and that caught fire and that’s history. And so there was never one single event, but there was this amazing collision and confluence of events and people over many years that just wound this up.
Andrew McCombe:
When Weasel, Stackie and Wayne came to you and they said we need you, or we want you, or whatever they said, what got you? Was it the vision? Cause obviously this is a business question, right? Where you’re trying to engage other people in your vision, they were trying to engage you in the vision. What was it that got you?
Phil Rossiter:
There was a couple of factors. In a general sense, it’s just I think everyone loves a challenge. And we all had the sense early on that this is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity here to do something special. And so there was an aspect of the challenge that was certainly enticing, but I’d also been involved here in the extractive industry in coal mining. And the times were good back then, but we all knew that that was never going to last. And so honestly, deep down, I always had this sense around, what’s next for this place? And I found it ironic that I’d only moved here in 2005 and fell in love with the outdoors yet I found that they were relatively underutilized, and most of the activity in life was lived in the front country other than some hardy few. And so that was a sense that this is a part of our identity here, and coasters are so capable and rugged enduring in these landscapes. And so it just seemed like this is who we are, this celebrates who we are. I think this is a very good idea and if we can do this right and sensitively, then we’re not drawing hard on mother nature. We’re doing it in a way that, like I say, can connect people to it and overall it can be in a better place. So they were kind of two of the driving forces, the sense of helping this transition to, what else are we about here? And the fact that it just seemed like a really big, good, dirty challenge.
Andrew McCombe:
It also sounds like you’re quite future focused. Cause you could see the transition from coal, which I know is big on the West Coast. Is it big nowadays?
Phil Rossiter:
It’s not as big nowadays. No, it’s not at all. It’s still very important but no, it’s I think there’s a few people around that absolutely agree that peak coal has happened, but it’s still a major employer here. It’s still a massive resource. And it’s primarily coking coal for steel making here. It’s not thermal coal for electricity. And so until the world comes up with a way to make steel without coal, then that demand cycle continues.
Andrew McCombe:
And you could see it though that at some point it’s got to end. And so how can we utilize the asset that we’ve got. got?
Phil Rossiter:
I don’t think that’s rocket science and I don’t want to claim any great credit, but I think that’s the responsibility that when the going’s good, you’ve got to recognize that, but you’ve got to look behind that and say, this isn’t forever, what next? How do you add layers and diversity to what keeps this place alive and going? And it’s been so amazing and just the decade or the 15 years, I’ve been here to see the Heaphy Track just up the road here existed, but that’s been opened again for mountain biking. We’ve got the Paparoa track, which is a great walk, but mountain bikeable just south of here. And so this region now is becoming known as a Mecca for insanely great outdoor experiences on a mountain bike or tramping. And I’m really proud of that because it’s what’s special about the place. And I think that’s what our responsibility is. It’s play to your strengths, do what you’re good at, and don’t try and fabricate something that you’re not that good at.
Andrew McCombe:
I’m also feeling as though, it’s not just about you guys, right? There’s a massive desire to make a difference here.
Phil Rossiter:
Absolutely, there is. Life short. And I think that everyone sees it and knows it, but when you have an opportunity to do something that can hopefully pass that baton on to a generation of people in a stronger position, or a better state then I think we need to play our role in that. And that’s what we’re trying to do
Andrew McCombe:
As well as the legacy item?
Phil Rossiter:
Yeah.
Andrew McCombe:
What is the long-term vision?
Phil Rossiter:
The long-term vision is to absolutely turn up the environmental efforts, the predator control efforts, the ecological efforts, to continue to be self-sustaining, to see those amazing changes or changes in demographic around more families and younger ones getting involved. It’ll be great to see the internationals come back post COVID. We were up to almost 15% internationals, before COVID put that on skids and just seeing people just love and enjoy and celebrate and come and stay and play and understand what’s special about our little part of the world and be hosted so warmly by the locals that only the locals can do. It’s distinctly West Coast here. And no one else can get close to that. So being proud of who we are.
Andrew McCombe:
Well, speaking of being hosted warmly, I want to say a big, thank you for myself, for the viewers, for having us here on the Old Ghost Road. Look at that Vista in the backdrop there. Absolutely spectacular. To the viewers, I can’t, or maybe the camera doesn’t do it justice, but when you are here, it’s like you’re on top of the world. It has a real awe feeling and you can feel it in your heart as I can right now. It’s quite emotive, isn’t it Phil?
Phil Rossiter:
Yeah. I can say having spent a lot of time on the project and on the ground here, I always have a moment every time I’m here, I take a moment just to suck it up and soak it in. And and I hope that never diminishes or goes away. It’s a privilege to be here. We’ve always understood that. And I think that’s something that if we continue to hold dear, will stand us in good stead. We’re just here on mother nature’s terms. We are just fleeting guests and it’s our job to tread lightly and hand it on in good shape.
Andrew McCombe:
Well, Phil, you’re an Outlier. Your team’s certainly an Outlier. And the Old Ghost Road is certainly one of the best Outlier episodes I’ve ever been part of. And I can’t wait to head up to the hut for a few beers and then discuss our next journey through here and on the Mountain bikes.
Phil Rossiter:
Awesome. Thanks, Andrew. Really appreciate it.
Andrew McCombe:
Thanks for coming on the show.
Phil Rossiter:
Cool, .
Andrew McCombe:
Well, there it is guys. I hope you enjoyed this inspiring Outlier episode with Phil Rossiter on the Old Ghost Road. For more videos, information and resources, go to www.Outlier.tv or connect with us on our social media pages below. I’m Andrew McCombe and here’s to living the Outlier life, outside of the comfort zone. I’ll see you soon.
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