After hiking all over the world, it turns out there’s no place like home.

That’s why nature lovers Kylie and Steve Rae have started their own hiking business here in the mighty Waikato.

But it’s not just all about walking the hard yards. With “strong legs and soft bellies” as their business mantra, the adventurous pair are also self-proclaimed foodies.

The couple had been travelling for two and half months when they thought of their business idea.

“We hiked every chance we got and you get a lot of time to think and talk. We used that time, because we are both very entrepreneurial, to try and think of business ideas,” Kylie said.

They’d touched on a few, but nothing had felt right until the day they went on a walk around an island in Chile.

“The island was called Chiloé and we were just about to do a five-star eco hike that we’d saved all our pennies for.

“Before we went on that, we researched this local walk and decided to hitch hike to the start. It was our first experience hitch hiking, but there was nothing else on this island, no organised hiking or anything.

“We got there and went for a walk around this boardwalk-type reservation area and we got talking. We loved our time on hiking tours, meeting people and having the guide taking care of everything. But the other aspect is that we loved food. We’d thought about both before, but we hadn’t put two and two together.

“It was a light bulb in the middle of this path. Hiking and food, nature and nosh. It seemed like a match made in heaven to us. We got so excited we did the walk again.”

They spent the next day hashing out their idea and Skyped their parents that night.

“They were really excited; my dad is one of our guides now,” Kylie said.

When the pair got back to New Zealand they both started looking for work. They needed money to be able to put their plan in motion.

Steve got a full-time job as an accountant, his area of expertise, at Vazey Child, but Kylie could only land contract work.

“I ended up researching and indulging the idea of Nature and Nosh, but not really thinking it was going to come to anything,” Kylie said.

“We were quite lucky Kylie didn’t get a full-time job, because I was full-time,” Steve reflected.

“If she’d been working 9 to 5, five days a week, that would’ve been life.”

Kylie said it didn’t take long for it to dawn on them how much work would be involved.

“I think a lot of people think it’s quite an easy business model, but when you break it down you really have to do the work.”

The pair had to walk a lot of tracks to find the ones they wanted to offer up as guided walks. Then they had to get them all Department of Conservation (DOC)-approved. On top of that they had to find local food and drink places that fitted their idea of delicious cuisine. Then they needed to find guides.

“We found a few local people through word-of-mouth to be guides. Some are former DOC rangers, and my dad jumped on board. We have trainings for them throughout the year,” Kylie said.

She said her Dad was really helpful when they first got started.

“He was a pest control contractor for 35 years and has a strong background in health and safety, which was immensely helpful when I was writing our own health and safety plans from scratch.”

She said she was also really lucky to have a couple of sessions with business coach, Andrew Millar, from Ilume International, based at Ruakura.

“He was great. There were a couple times where I got myself into a space where I was holding back from launching because things weren’t perfect and he stepped me through that.”

Steve said his employers had been supportive too.

“My bosses from Vazey Child have been really helpful. They’ve given us a lot of advice and support.”

The couple said the business built momentum when they started talking to people and getting the word out.

But that turned out to be when they had to put in the hard work.

“We had to decide who we were targeting and how to make a business out of it,” Kylie said.

They decided to target the international market using the area they knew and loved, the mighty Waikato.

The couple’s tours spread across the Waikato as far south as Taupo up to Waihi and the Coromandel and across to Waitomo with several destinations in between.

“We have such diverse walks. We have two full-week tours, two shorter three-day tours and we’ve just launched custom tours and our two one-day tours, which has opened up our market to more domestic hikers as well,” she said.

She said they didn't offer any multi-day hikes where you have to stay in DOC huts. They are all day walks.

Kylie said the set-up had been a slow burn, but it was starting to pay off as now they had contracts from Hello World and Flight Centre.

Nature and Nosh launched in November 2017.

“We took a couple of great tours in March, which we were really proud of. And for the upcoming season we’ve got another few booked and a custom tour as well.

“There’s been a lot of interest for custom tours which is great.

“People love the concept of food and hiking. We hike, then we take them to a local cheese maker or local winery and just relax for the afternoon because they’ve done the work. We stay in beautiful lodges and provide home cooked meals and gourmet picnic lunches packed for the hikes.

“Our clients usually say they’ve eaten more than they’ve walked, which is what we want – strong legs and soft bellies,” Kylie said.

But she said that didn’t mean their hikes weren’t challenging.

“They are no walk in the park, but our clients have said that we feed them so well they feel like they've eaten more than they've earned,” she said.

Steve said although the idea of a hike is usually about taking on a challenge, their clients “end up feeling relaxed”.

“We’re not targeting hard out hikers, but couples where one might be into hiking and it’s just manageable for the other. We’ve had non-experienced hikers who have come on the week-long tours and they have really enjoyed them,” Steve said.

But, Kylie said, most of their tours weren't for people who've never hiked before, but if they had only had a little experience it didn’t matter too much because they kept to a group pace.

Kylie said they picked the Waikato and the surrounding areas to start with because they are local and knew the area well.

The hungry hikers are the first to admit most people who come to New Zealand go to the South Island to hike, but they believe the North has so much to offer without being over crowded.

“We’d love to expand, but because we pride ourselves on being local experts, you can only truthfully say that for the regions that you know well, so it would take a lot of work for us to expand into a new region.

“We would be looking to bring in people who know the other regions and could run them for us. But we want to perfect what we have first. It’s a balance, we have big dreams and we don’t want to limit ourselves, but we need to focus on what we do well and nail that before we think about starting other things.”

And it seems what they are doing is on the right track as about two months ago Kylie got a call from an overseas global expedition company looking to invest in bespoke New Zealand hiking companies.

“They wanted to explore the options of buying into Nature and Nosh. At that point, we’d only been launched for six months and we’d only taken a handful of tours and I thought this is hilarious.

“They’d found us through Google and said they were impressed by our website and branding. I thought, it just goes to show how an idea can impress people. We talked about it and considered it, but we decided we weren’t in it to make a fast buck. I want this to be what I do for the rest of my life. It was a nice pat on the back for us though,” she laughed.

To find out more visit Nature and Nosh’s website.