S2 Ep2: Doing Business in Timor-Leste

No Surrender: Building Adventure Tourism in Timor-Leste - Sam Maddock

Disclaimer: this podcast is a personal project. It makes no money, and I produce it in my own time, because I believe Timor-Leste is full of stories that deserve to be told. The views expressed by my guests are their own, and I don't necessarily endorse them. Any views I express are mine alone, and don't represent my employer or any organisation I work with in Timor-Leste.

In December 2020, at the worst possible moment in history to launch a tourism company, Sam Maddock's Maddog Adventures became fully licensed and fully insured in Timor-Leste. Five years on, the business he founded with his wife Liesel runs canyoning first descents, coffee origin tours and the La Rende! Trek, Timor-Leste's answer to Kokoda, a 96 kilometre trail tracing the footsteps of the Australian commandos and the Timorese who stood with them in 1942.

In this conversation, Sam tells the whole story: falling in love with Timor-Leste as a teacher leading school trips through the Friends of Ermera friendship network, the decision to start his own adventure tourism company, and sitting with communities to seek permission before dropping ropes into canyons no one had ever descended. We cover how the La Rende! Trek was developed, and the plan to extend it coast to coast, 130 kilometres, in 2027. We finish on the state of tourism in Timor-Leste: destination marketing, workforce and training, and how the country grows its visitor numbers without losing what makes it special.

In this episode:

  • Australia's friendship network with Timor-Leste, and how 13 years of school trips with Beaconhills College led to a business

  • Why Maddog registered as a for-profit company, and building a hybrid Australian-Timorese guiding model

  • Community consultation, lulik and the first descents of Timor-Leste's canyons

  • Getting an adventure tourism startup insured in the middle of COVID

  • The story of the La Rende! Trek, from the 1942 Commando Trail to Timor's Kokoda

  • What Timor-Leste needs to do on destination marketing, and whether the country is ready for more tourists

  • Building a skilled Timorese guide workforce through training, good pay and good reward

  • Growing tourism sustainably without the big burst of thousands

About Sam Maddock

Sam Maddock is an educator, adventurer and entrepreneur. A trained teacher with more than 20 years in outdoor education and adventure tourism, he led school trips to Timor-Leste for over a decade with Beaconhills College before co-founding Maddog Adventures with his wife Liesel. Maddog runs treks, canyoning routes and coffee origin tours across Timor-Leste, with the La Rende! Trek as its flagship. Sam and Liesel also run the Warburton Adventure Company in Victoria's Yarra Valley.

Links:

Transcript: *Disclaimer - this transcript is auto generated and may have some errors

Steve Pocock: Welcome to the Steve Pocock Podcast. This series is about doing business in Timor-Leste. My guest today is Sam Maddock. Sam is an educator, adventurer and entrepreneur. He discovered Timor-Leste as part of school trips, bringing Australian students and immersing them in rural life in Timor-Leste. It was through these trips that he realised the potential of tourism in the country, and he went on to found Maddog Adventures with his wife Liesel, building treks, canyoning routes and coffee tours in places that had never seen a tourist. Their flagship is La Rende!, a 100 kilometre trek tracing the footsteps of Australian commandos and the Timorese who stood with them in 1942. Today we cover Sam's journey in Timor-Leste and get his take on the future of tourism in the country. Alright, let's get into it. So Sam, you just got back to Dili from La Rende!. How was it?

Sam Maddock: La Rende! was awesome. We had great weather, some great clients. So yeah, 10 days out on La Rende!, and we're at that time of dry season where the weather's really reliable. And as we say now on La Rende!, everyone La Rende!, no one rendered. So no one surrendered to the trail.

Steve: Awesome. So La Rende, that means no surrender then?

Sam: That's correct, no surrender.

Steve: Okay, we're going to get back to this. I want to hear about what you've been doing to develop that trail, develop it as an offering. But can we go back and set the scene? Tell me a bit about your background, and then how that got you into Timor-Leste.

Sam: So I guess my background is I'm an educator, an adventurer and an entrepreneur. And I first fell in love with Timor as a school teacher. I was running an outdoor education department at Beaconhills College in Melbourne, and they're part of the friendship network. Timor has a really strong friendship network where, post-independence from Indonesia, different council areas in Australia partnered up with different districts here in Timor to provide support post-occupation. Beaconhills College was in the Casey Council in Melbourne, and they were in a partnership with the Friends of Ermera, which is my favourite district here in Timor because it's also the coffee capital district of Timor. And from 2002 through till 2020, Beaconhills College raised in excess of $135,000 to help rebuild a school community in Hatolia in the Ermera District.

And so by about 2011, my headmaster at the time was like, well, we've been fundraising and supporting these communities in Timor. I think it's about time we probably went and actually saw this country, where our money is going, what we're doing. And so I was very privileged to be able to lead that program over to Timor. And as someone who's very adventurous in spirit and loves the outdoors, I kind of arrived in Dili and was just like, why is no one coming here? Where's this place been all my life? I get to jump in a four wheel drive and go and explore dirt roads and rural communities, and there's 3,000 metre peaks, canyons everywhere, local community wanting to share waterfalls and stories and hot springs.

So I spent a while scratching my head as a school teacher. But then we proceeded over the time I was at Beaconhills College to really, and it wasn't just my doing, sorry, there was a passionate community of people in the Casey district, but also at our school, who were fundraising. And we then started running probably three to four trips a year over to Timor-Leste as a school. And these kids would come over, and I guess we were really trying to paint a picture for Timor of, it's a really unique opportunity, as someone who fundraises money, to then actually go and see where your money goes. And I think that was a really important connection and point of difference. We had a school community doing great things, raising good money based on community need, and then the students and the teachers would come and actually see where the money and the investment went. And then that story would go back to school of, well, I've seen where all this is going. And it just really helped build this strong sense of service and giving within the school community to just do more.

And then I kind of called it the ski resort effect. You brought these kids to Timor and it was almost like that was their country. So you go to Falls or Hotham or Perisher, you get bitten by a particular ski resort. And these kids just got so passionate about Timor. We were even running student electives and classroom classes on Timor. So you'd learn Tetun, the history, the background, watch these videos. It was incredible. So I guess that's a bit of a long-winded story to say, I spent 13 years at Beaconhills College and was very privileged to be given that leadership opportunity to bring these trips over here.

And then on one of my long service leave trips, my wife Liesel and I, who's also a really important part of what we do, we decided, yep, we're going to do this. We're sick of looking at this place and seeing all this potential for tourism and adventure. So that's when we set about registering Maddog Adventures in Timor-Leste.

Steve: Awesome. Can we go back very quickly to the impact on these students? What was it about their experience in Timor that you think resonated so much with them?

Sam: I think it was the authenticity of the Timorese. They're just so hospitable, and their willingness to share their culture and language, but also their trials. This is a country that's seen the Portuguese, it's seen the Japanese during World War II, the Indonesian occupation. I don't know how people can go through so much but still be so resilient, so positive and so welcoming. So yeah, there's just these genuine bonds that were formed by visiting, and just that impact, as I said, of actually being able to visit somewhere and not just read about it or give your money. And then places like Ramelau, Dokomali waterfall, and dropping over to Barry's Place at the end of a school trip, these are things that are etched in your mind. So it was a really cool experience that had a real experiential focus, a real good balance between service, adventure and challenge. They were kind of our core three.

Steve: And I guess you might have some kids who are really drawn to adventure, and so that's what brings them in, and then they experience the other parts. And there might be some kids who are more drawn to the service, and they can really have that experience, right?

Sam: Yeah, and we had this incredible colleague I used to work with, Claire Toohey, and she had this really cool philosophy, time, talent and treasure. And so you didn't have to have lots of treasure, or money, to help make a difference or have an experience. You might have the time to come and do something, and then you might have a talent. And so being able to identify that within a school community, but I really love the whole concept, where that time, talent and treasure can be applied more broadly to business or giving. And it really helped set the scene to say to a school community, where a lot of parents worked two jobs to get their kids to this independent school, well, you don't have to have money. You can give of something else to help the communities in Timor. And that really resonated with the school community, but then it sort of filtered into the business community and the local area as well. So it was an awesome school, a great program that really touched me, and it then gave me that ultimate opportunity to come here and visit Timor. Steve: Awesome. And so then Maddog Adventures. My understanding is you're an adventure tourism company. I imagine when you were setting it up, there probably weren't too many adventure tourism companies in Timor. Where did you draw your model from, and how did you go about doing it? What was your plan?

Sam: Yeah, the plan and what happens in Timor are quite often two different things. I'm sure business owners in Timor could resonate. But we basically saw an opportunity that adventure can have purpose. And I guess straight off the bat, we're a for-profit registered business, and that was probably a very deliberate decision. We would love to have gone down the NGO route or something different, but when you register a simple business structure here in Timor, you quickly realise how hard things like setting up an NGO and other structures are. We had a real clear mandate as well that we wanted to have control of this idea, which was around having Australian quality experiences and standards to be able to explore Timor-Leste, and then ultimately giving community the power to share in our business. So for example, on La Rende!, I think every day of the trek there's a minimum of five Timorese staff on our trek.

And so being able to invest in a country that obviously we can make a living from, but that also invests in the community, because in Timor there is so much adventure and so much tourism potential, but it's twofold. If you don't have a good environment, then you don't have a good economy. So how do you make sure that we're protecting and conserving the environment so it's there to be able to make business and opportunities from? But then how do you share that with a community that the idea of adventure tourism is so foreign to? Because we have this saying in the tourism industry here in Timor, if you've never been a tourist, how do you know what a tourist wants? So you really were starting with some real basics and fundamentals.

And I guess that's why we have our sort of hybrid model, where some of our trips have Australian guides, because they have the canyoning skills or the hiking skills and some of the risk management overlays, and then you've got the awesome team teaching, or team partnership, with our Timorese guides, who have the language, the culture and the passion. You have that fused together and it just creates awesome adventure opportunities and experiences.

I think the other big thing was, when you come to Timor, a lot of things are so Dili centric. And I'll always say to everyone, the true beauty of Timor lies just behind the hills of Dili. And we just want to get people out into that beauty and to experience those communities, so they can start to make different choices around employment, or engaging with businesses like Maddog or other tourism operators to showcase their country and their community, knowing that if they do it sustainably and do it well, then there's a future for them in tourism.

Steve: So what year was this, that you were kicking off the business?

Sam: We started the business registration and visa process back in 2018, and then that spicy little cough, COVID, and a few other things gave us a speed hump. But basically from December 2020, and I always remember it because that's when our insurance started, which was another whole feat. But December 2020, we were fully licensed, fully insured.

Steve: So the worst possible time for starting a new tourism business?

Sam: But that's the challenge, right? To me, there's no such thing as failure. We're not afraid to take a risk. And it was just like, well, that's where it's at, and we can only go one way, right? That period of time for everyone was pretty challenging.

Steve: How did you get through it?

Sam: We were pretty lucky that my wife Liesel was still working, and I was transitioning out of Beaconhills and into Maddog full time. But it might have been very different if I'd jumped ship a bit earlier. We might not be having this conversation. So I was very lucky to be able to transition out, and to have some periods of long service leave owing to me, so that we could really give Maddog a red hot crack and get it up and running once COVID had died down.

Steve: And so then what were your initial offerings?

Sam: Initial offerings were some day tours, canyoning trips. We had quite a few, I guess, with our network amongst some schools. We got some schools up and running again.

Steve: Okay, so you would be running school trips through Maddog now, for your own company. Correct? Yeah, makes sense.

Sam: And we had a lot of good experience and intel on that. We got some coffee origin tours up, which was really awesome, being able to showcase Timor's coffee and its rural districts. And then shortly after that, that's when we got the La Rende! journey started.

Steve: When you were developing these products, things like canyoning, how does it work when you're engaging with, I imagine there's a local community that has access rights to a particular river or canyon. How do you go about finding those, negotiating that, and developing a product around these areas?

Sam: Yeah, look, that's all part of the adventure and the challenge of doing business in Timor. As someone who'd done a lot of adventure tourism and training in Australia, and worked with different Indigenous groups in Australia, I think there were a few lessons that we'd all learned about how to do things better from Australia, and we made sure we were doing that in Timor. So we spent a lot of time with community, which was a challenge, but also a really important step.

So for example, there's a canyon just behind Dare that we run. And before we could do that, we obviously wanted to get permission to be there, and check in with the community that there was no lulik, so no sacred sites, there.

Steve: If there was a sacred site, would you just have to leave that area alone?

Sam: Well, there's one particular section of the canyon we have to avoid, and we're lucky it's on the walkout, so it's achievable to walk around the site. But the xefe suku, we met with him at the top, and then we found out that the bottom of the canyon had a different xefe, and a different lia-nain, who's the sacred man. So we had multiple meetings and had to go through some culture to make sure that we had permission to be there, and make sure that the lulik was good, so that there were no bad spirits or anything like that. And I guess all up, that probably took three or four days of sitting with community. My local team definitely took a few hits for me, with offerings of chickens, different sacrifices that the team raised as really important to go through. And we went through all that process. And as a business, we're really proud of the fact that we did go through that extensive level of community consultation.

And then it also was really good, because we were able to include them later in training. So if there was an emergency or someone needed to be evacuated, they knew who Maddog was, they knew what we were doing.

Steve: Yep.

Sam: And then they're willing to help you out if things don't go to plan. And also, they'd never heard of canyoning, and you're trying to explain that you're dropping down a rope into a waterfall.

Steve: Must think you're crazy.

Sam: Well, they're like, bulak. Yeah, I'm saying bulak, crazy. So then we ended up taking the xefe's son David down the canyon, and his eyes were wide open for six abseils, barefoot through the canyon. So we've had some powerful community connection, but also such a privilege to go through these experiences with community. And I think one of the funniest parts was when we were at the top of Dare Canyon, the xefe suku was like, well, the government did say one day tourists will come, and you've come. So I feel like we'd honoured someone's pledge from earlier by showing up. I don't know if canyoning was going to be on the remit, but yeah.

And there's something really special about Timor, because there aren't great maps. In Australia, we're very lucky to have all these awesome topographic maps and apps and resources. But when we're exploring, we'd literally be overlaying Google Earth and looking for big shadows on the creek line, and then you're just praying that you've got enough rope in your bag to get to the bottom of these abseils, because we were literally the first people down these waterfalls.

And I took a few teachers from the Dili International School, I guess as our, they weren't participants. I said, look, we've got this idea. And one of the teachers was like, yeah, I've been eyeing off something like that for a while, I'm keen to come. And his sister was a nurse. So, all right, I've got a nurse, I've got a teacher, and we basically set off. And it was a real privilege to be able to explore those canyons and know that you were probably the first one down some of these places, but with permission of community, and doing some really interesting rigging work, because there were no bolts or ring bolts in the canyons at that point. But as an adventurer and someone who loves exploring, that's the ultimate, right? To be able to go to a place and just explore like that. And we're an hour from Darwin doing this.

Steve: That's the unique offering for tourists, right?

Sam: That's it.

Steve: The place that not many tourists come to. Do it while you can.

Sam: Well, I think it's still the least visited country in Southeast Asia, or if not.

Steve: And that will change. It'll change quickly.

Sam: It will.

Steve: Quickly on that, did you have to negotiate a sort of benefit sharing agreement with the community, or did they recognise there were going to be benefits through employment and other means? How did that all work?

Sam: We offered, and I think partly it was probably so foreign to them, and in those early days we were only doing two or three trips a year.

Steve: Yeah, okay.

Sam: And so I think they were just so honoured to have been consulted and thought of. Having said that, in the future, and when we do La Rende! and other more formalised trips, we're definitely paying community when we go through. But I think initially those communities where we were canyoning were just trying to get their heads around what these malae were doing out there in the hills. And we offered every time to take one of them down. And I think once David had done it, the xefe suku's son, he was just like, no, you guys go, you're good.

Steve: So good. And just back to one other thing you said, insurance. What insurance was that, and why was it such a milestone?

Sam: Well, during COVID, you had an insurance market in Australia. We were lucky that Maddog is a registered entity in Australia and a registered entity here in Timor, and continues now. At the time, there was no insurance market in Timor during COVID. I'd basically been in the adventure tourism and outdoor education industry for probably 20 odd years at this point. I knew my risk assessments, I knew all the planning involved. And in COVID you're getting all this admin and risk stuff done, but then you start picking up the phone, and you're like, yep, this is what we're doing. Yep, send me all your risk assessments and your plans. And then they're like, oh, hang on, you're a startup, in COVID, in adventure tourism. And you kind of got laughed at. But eventually we did find a way through, just contacting someone I'd known for a lot of years, and then our good friends at Aon and Affinity Insurance came through with the goods and backed us. Because without insurance, particularly in Timor, you could choose to be self-insured. It's probably not a route I would have gone. It just goes to highlight that in business, those relationships and trust eventually get you over the line.

Steve: So this is indemnity insurance too?

Sam: Yeah, public liability insurance. In Australia, basically, if you want to operate any commercial activity in a public space, you have to have a minimum of $20 million public liability insurance. And with the schools and some of the government sector that we operate with here in Timor, we just felt it was a non-negotiable not to have that. So it just helps you sleep a bit better at night, and the person on the pillow next to you, basically, when you're doing these things. Steve: Okay, so developing these canyoning trips, some day trips, school groups. It really does sound now like the La Rende! trail is quite a pivotal offering for Maddog, and something that you've developed as a company. How did that all come about, and what's the significance of it?

Sam: I guess the significance was, during COVID we were all spending way too much time on video calls and Zooms, and some very good people, Dave and Shirley Carlos at Timor Adventures, had started to make inroads on this adventure they called the 1942 Commando Trail. And they were basically like, Sam, we're heading back to Australia. We've done our 10 or 12 years in Timor, but we'd love to see this idea get up. And I was like, look, I'll take a look at it. And then I quickly read some of their briefing notes and realised that probably half or more of the villages named in this document were places I was visiting with Beaconhills College.

Steve: Okay.

Sam: But at the time I had no idea that this other layer of incredible history and story existed in Hatolia, Laimea Kraik, Datu Rua, Atsabe, all these towns. So I dug a bit deeper. And then there was this SAS soldier, Jim Truscott, who's now sadly passed away. He was one of the first INTERFET people here on the beach in Dili in 99, and he was basically this guy no one could keep up with. And poor Dave and Shirley Carlos were like, Sam, I'm going to handball this guy Jim to you, because we can't hike, we can't keep up with this guy. I think he just needs to talk to you.

And so I was very, very honoured to be able to spend a bit of time on Zoom with Jim, and another guy, Ed Willis from the 2/2 Commando Association, just trying to validate, proof of concept, what's the story here? And I've never met a bunch of more passionate people about Timor and these shared stories of adventure and, I guess, warfare. But it's part of Timor's history and part of Australia's shared history.

So once COVID wrapped up, I think we got one recce in. We were in open and closed borders. I think we got one trip in before everything got completely locked down. And I just started reading Jim's notes and Ed's notes, and I was like, this is incredible. And we got four days of hiking in, and I was just like, it has a story, the people want you to come and check this out, and it's world class hiking. So it just felt like a bit of a no brainer. So we're now championing the La Rende! Trek, and it's basically Timor's Kokoda Trail. We're just starting to get that bit of traction, and we have to do a lot of investment with community, and food and food handling and safety. But we're now at, what, three, four, five trips a year, and starting to get some really good momentum, and word getting out that there's this great country with a great story. And I guess, thanks to Ed, Jim and the guys from Timor Adventures back in the day, this formative product is now starting to get legs.

Steve: I love it. So it's 96 kilometres, right?

Sam: In its current form. We've got it to 96 kilometres, which is basically from a town called Bazartete in Liquiçá district through to the bottom of Dokomali waterfall in Ainaro. So it's seven days of hiking, or five days of trail running for any crazies out there. And then in the next couple of months, we're going to finish. The idea was always to have coast to coast for La Rende!. So in the coming month we're going to finish our recce from Dokomali through to Betano Beach, which was a very significant place for Australians and Timor-Leste. So that will happen in the coming month, and in 2027 we'll have our first 130 kilometre trek of La Rende!, which is pretty exciting.

Steve: Yeah. The significance of Betano, is that where the Sparrow Force evacuated from back in World War Two? Sorry, maybe not Sparrow Force, the 2/2, or whatever the company was.

Sam: Yeah, there were parts of the 2/2 and the 2/4. So Sparrow Force, that was one of their key resupply areas, and also that's where they got evacuated from in late 1942.

Steve: Okay. And I must say, the Australian Defence Cooperation Program guys, who it sounds like you've been working with, they're just phenomenal. Their history, their passion. I've done the World War II tour of Dili, the Dili Battlefield Tour, which I know they're working on with, I think it's Timor Unearthed, to develop as a sort of local tourism product. But it's incredible going through Dili, the streets that you're on every day, and learning what happened at this point, that point, so close to where we are right now.

Sam: Yeah, to think that the main Comoro Road and the old airfield, the mosque and the church, all these original parts of Dili that you now walk through going, wow, this used to be an airport and it was blown up. What an incredible history. And now you drive through Dili and it's just traffic and busy. But that's the joy of Timor, that story. There's always a story in Timor, and there's probably multiple stories for one place, just depending on its time in history.

Steve: Yeah. So you're starting to see the interest in La Rende! and the tourists?

Sam: Yeah, it's building. I think within the hiking market there's definitely been a move towards that kind of glamping, where maybe people are happy to hike, but they want a shower and a nice bed at the end of the night, and La Rende!'s not there yet. So we're definitely a niche offering, where if you don't mind a bumpy road and a cold shower, then La Rende!'s on your list, and it should be. We had some great PR late last year with Wild Magazine, and We Are Explorers did some good write-ups.

Steve: Yeah, read that.

Sam: Yeah, so that's been really invaluable. And then we've got a bit of a thing out with Beau Miles, which is a bit of a hoot, and that's definitely helped put Timor on the map.

Steve: Have you had a good response? Because I love Beau Miles. I feel like my claim to fame, or one of them, is that I discovered him before anybody else, when he was doing his earliest YouTube videos. But I always wonder, do these things translate into business for you, doing that sort of partnership?

Sam: I think it's all part of building Brand Timor, right? As a business in Timor, there aren't many quick wins. You're invested for the long term, and you're here because you see the potential. So those pieces have certainly started conversations. And I think it's helped reduce the lead time on what La Rende! would have taken if we didn't have those articles or pieces done. And Beau's market was awesome, right? They're adventurous, they love doing outdoor things, they love a good story. So I think it was a big tick. And now we're just starting to see some of those smaller flow-ons from those pieces.

Steve: And I also just feel like, with a product like La Rende!, there's that many people doing the Kokoda track every year, thousands, tens of thousands. Is that market ready to tap into, if we can sell it?

Sam: 100%. And I think Timor's in a position now where it needs to be careful. It's got some good runs on the board, but you don't want the big burst of thousands coming. So we've got to really have a sustainable approach to that product, and tourism more broadly in Timor. Because it's got some challenges around how it handles that increased volume of guests, which, as you say, will come. And then how do we do that in a way that the market is ready to meet?

Steve: I'm with you, yeah.

Sam: Because someone made the comment on the last trek, I wonder how long before waving at a malae will be just a thing that happens all the time. And I was like, well, look, we really hope it doesn't get to that. And I think that's where that controlled presence has to be. You couldn't have a trip running every day, because Timor just couldn't handle it. Maybe in the future, but that's certainly not the intent with the product.

Steve: I often think this about Atauro. That's one of my favourite places on the planet. When you're there, it's just magic. That's a phenomenal island. And my concern genuinely is, it has to be developed the right way. It'll just be an absolute tragedy if the beauty of that place, and just what it has right now, is lost.

So I want to move on and talk about some of the topical things, the state of tourism in Timor right now. And I think you made a good point about how Timor develops. Something that comes up a lot is destination marketing, because just not enough people know about Timor-Leste as a destination, and it's got to be marketed and branded in the right way, and, I suppose, find the right type of tourists. Have you been involved? Clearly you've had the experience with Beau, but what's your broader involvement been, and what do you think has to happen on the destination marketing front?

Sam: Yeah, look, we're very privileged with our Melbourne-based business, the Warburton Adventure Company, which is kind of the other half of what we do, and that's what makes our business sustainable, because Timor is a very seasonal place, as is Warburton in the Yarra Valley. When it's raining and six degrees, not many people want to go rafting. So we're very lucky, with that business, to have had exposure to programs like the Victorian Tourism Industry Council, working with Visit Victoria and Tourism East. So we know the potential and what can be done.

And I guess what we're now trying to do is work with the Hotel Association and government here in Timor to say, at the moment, Timor has none of this. The power of those organisations, and the funding behind what we do in Melbourne, Victoria, we really want to see that get some legs here in Timor. Because at the moment there are some tourism operators, and we're all kind of shouting about Timor, but there's no government push to say, hey, let's spend some money on a program that pushes Timor to the world. And I think that's the step we're waiting for, because it's just such an unknown place. It's just not on people's radars, because they literally don't know about it. Or they might have a preconceived idea about, oh, isn't that still recovering from occupation and warfare? And that couldn't be further from, you know, Timor is ready, and we just need someone to help. It's going to cost a bit of money, but work with those partners like Airnorth, Qantas, Air Timor, and all those great partnerships across in Darwin, to really just go, hey, bring everybody together and let's put some money into this thing. Government's going to have to spend on it, as is the tourism industry, but without it, it's going to be a slow burn.

And so, as I said, it's going to be that fine line between not overdeveloping too quickly, but we still need that voice now to be putting this seed in people's minds about adventure travel. We live in a very global society where there's more than enough tourists in the world to come to Timor. They just don't know the place exists. Steve: How about flights, roads, accommodation? Is Timor ready for more tourists?

Sam: Timor is ready. You've got daily flights from Bali, daily flights from Darwin. Some days you've got two flights a day from Darwin.

Steve: I think there's 24 flights a week, I might be wrong, but something like that, coming into Dili. It's a lot.

Sam: It's ready, right? So we just need people to know about the place, to jump on those seats. I think the infrastructure is there. You've got a workforce and a tourism body that's ready to accept and greet those tourists.

Steve: A workforce, that's local tour companies and others who get them around?

Sam: So there's a lot of goodwill, there's a lot of people ready to do good things. And once that comes, you'll just see more development and more professionalisation of the tourism businesses in Timor. And it's going to be a good natural step to have increased participants and increased competition. I guess I have a motto, no matter where we're doing business, there's more than enough for everyone to go around. You've just got to all work together to get this place going. There are people to do their La Rende! treks, there are other companies that specialise in day tours, or reef and snorkelling in the blue economy. So let's all just pitch in and put this place on people's minds.

Steve: Not competing against each other.

Sam: Yeah.

Steve: Agree. Workforce. Tell me about that. How did you find good staff, good guides, people to work with to build your company?

Sam: It's been a real challenge, and we're in a very privileged position where a lot of our staff I've known from when we first started bringing groups here with Beaconhills College. So some of our staff have been with us, or I've known, since 2012. And I think the secret there is just good training, good pay and good reward. That's really resonated for us. We pay really well, we have high expectations of our staff, but we've also put the time into training.

Steve: Is that you putting that time in, or are you sending them to formal training courses?

Sam: So they all go and do first aid, and we've invested in bringing staff over from Australia to teach them defensive driving and four wheel drive skills. We're very fortunate to get a little bit of assistance from MDF to take some of our staff to Australia and embed them in our business in Melbourne. So we've had some really good wins. But that investment in the staff, and the really good remuneration, has meant we've had a good workforce that whole time. And that's probably reflected in the cost of our tours, but we're not ashamed to be making sure that we're doing high quality and doing good things. And now we get inquiries where people ask for a tour guide by name, because they've heard. They'd say, oh, we want Maun Ollie again, or we want Mana Gida. And I'd say, oh, I don't think we've ever worked with you, but that's fine.

But yeah, Timor, we would love to see, it's got these natural resources, and so how does the workforce engage with that? It goes a bit beyond hospitality. Tourism has a great hospitality scene with training, and I think a lot of great work's been done there. There are some great hotels in town doing really good things. But more of that tour guide and tourism training investment is definitely required. Hiking, trekking, being safe in an outdoor environment, or when you're in some more remote spots. How does the tourism industry, or tertiary education here in Timor, start to focus some of those training courses towards these rich natural assets, diving, scuba, mountains, climbing, abseiling, canyoning? There's so much potential here, but we need the workforce to meet those requirements.

Steve: And it kind of comes back to the point you made, if you've never been a tourist, then it can be hard to do tourism, right?

Sam: Exactly, yeah. And I remember giving a short presentation to some of the guys at DIT, which is one of the local training institutes, a few years ago, and I don't think they knew what to make of the canyoning and the abseiling, because they'd just never had that exposure. But Timor is littered with it. There's more limestone here than, you know, and that means caves, it means canyons, it means adventure. So there's lots of cool stuff out there.

Steve: I imagine there's a bunch more places you want to go and explore.

Sam: And that's what we say to guys, we haven't even touched the surface, right? We're a small family owned business. If we had the chequebook to just go and explore, I'm sure there's just so much more cool stuff that we haven't even touched.

Steve: Nice. I guess we're getting towards the end of the technical stuff that I wanted to cover. Is there anything else that we haven't spoken about that you think might be worth sharing?

Sam: I think it's just, Timor's a long game, but it's a country that has, in Australia I'm always looking for guides, whereas there's a workforce here that's ready, as in ready to work. And I think there's just a lot of opportunity here if you're willing to make an investment and watch that grow, and have success over the long term. It's been a really rewarding journey as a business owner, to not only be able to make a living out of what you do, but also have that engagement with community.

Steve: Awesome. This is one of the questions I wanted to ask you. So in five years' time, what would be a great place for you and Maddog Adventures to be in, and then also Timor more broadly?

Sam: I think it would be having, obviously, business growth to the point where we're able to employ more staff, and then putting more time and energy into what's that next product. We've been focusing on La Rende!, but we still do our school groups, we do coffee. And to be able to take a step back from being, my wife's always saying we're too operational, too operational. And I'm like, well, yep.

Steve: What does she mean by that?

Sam: Because in Timor the skill sets don't exist, it's been very reliant on myself or her or other Australian-based staff. So I think our dream in five years is to be able to sit back and go, hey, have you met Maun Marcal? He's our A1 canyon guide, and he's done his training. That's where, in five years, to be able to look back and be a little less hands-on, but from a perspective that the training and the tourism industry have developed to a point where I can stress a little less, drink more coffee, and just watch awesome people do great things, knowing they've had the training and skills to do that.

Steve: And that gives you, what do they say, you're working on the business more, not necessarily in the business.

Sam: Exactly. Yep.

Steve: Love that. Okay.

Sam: And I think that's true for tourism more broadly. There's a lot of people who would love to see that growth, where the market can grow and we're growing together as an industry. We see more hotels, we see more tourism operators, and just to have a diversity of product. I think some of the products in tourism in Timor can be quite narrow, and that's probably limited by the skill set of staff. So to be able to sit back in five years and see other companies running hiking or adventure tourism, or more blue economy things, I think would be really good.

Steve: Awesome. Nice. Finally, I wanted to ask you, do you have a favourite failure? When I ask this, I mean something that has happened that you've taken a lot from going forward, whether that's personally or in the business.

Sam: Yeah, I was reflecting on this, and I think a failure, probably a challenge is how I would phrase it, is being split between two countries. I think one of the biggest challenges has been maintaining your family. We've obviously had a passion for a country where we want to see good things happen and make that investment. But because of the seasonality of Timor, and having a business back in Australia that does underpin what you do here in Timor, I think that has been one of our biggest challenges, maybe a bit of a personal failure. And I think that's where I come from with that five year comment. How good would it be to have more time with family, and be a little less hands-on, because you know you've done great training and great things, and to be able to have more of a focus on family and the family situation. So a bit of a personal one, but that's definitely been one of the challenges of being a startup split across two countries, where basically from the end of November to the end of March, tourism is really, really quiet in Dili.

Steve: That's just the wet season.

Sam: That's it. And so we're very fortunate that we've got our other business in Melbourne that helps keep things rolling, but that has its challenges.

Steve: Out of curiosity, are your kids pretty adventurous?

Sam: Yeah, they're awesome. So my son Ari, he's 14. He did La Rende! last year, and I think a sprightly 13 year old at the time was probably punching up the hills and giving them a bit of curry. My daughter was six when she first hiked Mount Ramelau. So that was pretty cool. I was like, I don't know how this is going to go. So I hired a pony from Hatubuilico, and I was like, I'll just stick her on the pony. And then the pony harness and saddle didn't quite meet our safety regulations, so she lasted about 50 minutes. She's like, Dad, I'd rather just walk, this is scary. Because she fell off once, because the saddle kind of spun around. So there are so many good stories.

Steve: But the plan was to walk the pony the entire way up?

Sam: The plan was to stick Esther on the pony and walk up from the sanctuary, for those familiar. It's about a six kilometre hike. So I was going to put Esther on the pony so she could get to the summit. And you've got these great photos of Marcal, one of our team members, and my daughter Esther, just walking the pony up Mount Ramelau. But as I said, she was only on the pony for about 50 metres and just cracked it. And then Matteo, he's done a lot of hiking and adventures with me. So we've got three children. And he's coming back. He wanted to do La Rende! this year, but we said 13, when you turn 13. It's kind of a little rite of passage in the Maddock family. So he's coming back next year to do the full La Rende!.

Steve: Amazing. I'm going to have to challenge my dad, actually. So I've got two brothers, and we've kind of had this thing over the last 10 years. Every time we've done a big adventure with Dad, something's happened to him, so maybe I shouldn't bring him. My one brother was doing the Camino, and Dad got terribly sick. He was hospitalised, whatever else, and then sent back to Australia. Then the two of us, Dad and I, decided we'd do the Kokoda together, but we would do it in a single hit, which was crazy, just actually the practicalities of how we would do that and find a guide who would take us. But we got to Efogi, about halfway in, must have been about 14 hours, and then Dad went down with heat stroke, and so he was choppered out. And I went back and did it a few weeks later. But Dad then did Kilimanjaro, which I think was him proving that he can do it. So now I have to tell him, come here and we'll do La Rende! together.

Sam: Yeah, that'd be awesome.

Steve: Sam, thanks so much. I absolutely just admire what you guys are doing. I think it's awesome. I actually haven't joined you for an adventure yet, so keen to get out and come do something.

Sam: Thanks for the opportunity. Any opportunity to share about Timor and the awesome things happening here is greatly appreciated. So thank you.

Steve: Yeah, appreciate it. Cheers.

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