Haruki (centre) with tour guests
I was born in Niigata in 1997 and grew up in Nikko, the old temple town a couple of hours north of Tokyo. Nikko is known for Toshogu Shrine, and a lot of snow in winter. At 18 I left for Australia to study at the University of Queensland, and somehow ten years have gone by. I’m 29 now, still in Brisbane. Australia became home in a way I never planned for. People ask what the biggest adjustment was, and the honest answer is space. Nikko is small and quiet. Brisbane is open and warm, and both still feature in how I live here.
Before Australia I practiced Kendo for seven years, through middle and high school, and I was captain in my last year. The training was the old kind. Brutal, relentless, the sort of regime that would probably make the news today. I’m serious about that. Forty of us started in my high school grade. By our final game there were four. I don’t want to romanticise it, but I learned something about endurance there that I still lean on.
Joining into Adventure Day Trips – Sliding Door Moment
I met Gary Carson, owner of ADT Brisbane at a Japan and Australia Cultural Meetup when I first arrived in Brisbane in 2016 . Seven years later I was managing a restaurant, and one evening he walked in as a guest. I knew him straight away. We got talking, and it came out that we’d met all those years ago, and then it came out that we were living in the same building. Brisbane does that sometimes.
It was one of those sliding door moments. If I hadn’t recognised him, if he’d picked a different restaurant that night, none of what came after would have happened. But the way he talked about his business philosophy had stayed with me since that first conversation all those years ago, so I just asked him. Can I work for three months as an intern, and if it suits us both, we keep going. He said yes. Two and a half years ago now.
Gary and I don’t work off a fixed brochure. Every day is built around whoever is in the car. Whether it is a Brisbane City tour, a drive through the Sunshine Coast hinterland, or wherever a guest’s curiosity leads us, the route and pace bend to fit the day. Some people know exactly what they want to see, while others turn up with a vague idea and let the day find its own shape. We tailor every trip to the people on board.
Our motto is “It’s how you feel that counts,” and that genuinely runs our entire operation. We stick to small groups and proper conversations, creating a day that belongs entirely to the guests.. People often tell us it felt less like a tour and more like a day out with friends who know the area. Even with all the new technology out there, this human part of the job is the whole point.