Wild West Adventure Company

A group of family and friends were visiting from Australia and we headed for Punakaiki. As a treat we decided to go cave rafting - I've wanted to do it for years! I rang a place in Charleston but they declined though saying the weather forecast was looking bad so they were taking bookings. It was raining but I figured we'd be getting wet anyway. I then rang West Coast Adventures and they were more than happy to take a booking. However, the bad weather turned into a ripper of a storm - powerlines down, trees knocked over, Arthur's and Lewis pass were snowed in - even the North Island copped a hammering. Powerlines down means we had no phone at the house and the cell-phone network was out. But I jumped in the car to drive to a payphone to ring the company to say we clearly we're going to make it -we were staying north of Punakaiki. I got a surly reception and put on hold for I don't know how long and getting soaked eventually hung up. Three weeks later the visa bill arrives - they'd had to hide to charge us for 'Not turning up'. After speaking to the same woman I was told that it 'wasn't their problem that we didn't make it' and I was 'lucky I wasn't charged 100% of the total cost' as per their rules. Most decent companies would accept that a fierce storm was exceptional, not charge, and hope we came back when the weather improved. Not these guys.