Wayne Maguire, CEO and team leader at Ray White Mission Bay, Stonefields, St Heliers, Kohimarama, and Greenlane negotiates and closes around $20 million in weekly sales, but the multi-award-winning realtor has gained fresh perspective following a month-long trip to the Himalayas.
“Every hour and every minute of the day, it’s just so different to what we usually experience,” Wayne tells Verve. “There are ancient landscapes and villages that have remained unchanged for centuries. The fresh air, the wind, the squawking ravens, the rivers, standing among the clouds with prayer flags everywhere, it just sort of cleanses your soul.”
Wayne had headed to the world’s greatest mountain range – via New Delhi and Agra in India, and Kathmandu, Nepal – for the Everest Base Camp trek. Unfortunately, all of his intensive training couldn’t prevent him from suffering altitude sickness with a less than a day’s trekking to go (it’s a debilitating affliction that can, at random, affect even the most seasoned of high-altitude mountaineers), but Wayne is philosophical about it.
“We were at 16,000 feet and my head blew up,” he reveals as he pulls up a photo of a heavily swollen face and bloodshot, watery eyes. “It was about 500 vertical metres below base camp – about seven or eight hours of walking – but we made the decision to turn around.
“Looking back now, I realise that it taught me an important lesson about appreciating the journey rather than focussing on the destination. I enjoyed every moment going up and every moment coming down, too.”
Wayne is no stranger to adventure or tough climbs. Upon leaving school, he joined the army and spent a decade travelling the world and jumping out of planes in an airborne unit before studying business at the universities of Waikato, Massey, and Auckland. Over the past 13 years, he has also made annual lung-busting runs up the Sky Tower to raise money for cancer research.
Looking back now, I realise that it taught me an important lesson about appreciating the journey rather than focussing on the destination. I enjoyed every moment going up and every moment coming down, too.
“When you run up in sports gear, it’s pretty straight forward, but still a tough slog,” he says. “But the past three times I’ve done it in fireman’s gear – that gear doesn’t just keep the heat out, it keeps the heat in! And then you’ve got the helmet, and the tank on your back. The last time I did it, I was also wearing gumboots instead of trainers.”
Carrying an extra 25kg in gear, Wayne ran from the underground level to the observation deck in less than 14 minutes (9 minutes, 30 seconds was his time without the kit). “I came through the gate and my peripheral vision was starting to shut down, it was going black. That’s when you pass out. A friend made me promise that I wouldn’t attempt the challenge again.”
So instead, Wayne aimed his sights at that base camp in the sky of the Himalayas!
“I just need to have a challenge on the horizon – plus, it means that you stay fit.”
Wayne flew into Nepal’s notorious Lukla airport, who’s near-3,000m high runway is deemed the world’s most dangerous owing to it terminating at the edge of a cliff face. The time of the year meant that it would have been too hazardous to take a regular flight in, so Wayne had to arrive by helicopter, and the thin air meant that “you could hear the blades struggling”. “From Lukla, there are no roads, nothing much except people and animals walking in, and helicopters overhead.”
I just need to have a challenge on the horizon – plus, it means that you stay fit.
Lines of yaks and donkeys are a common sight along the trail.
“They’re everywhere, in these long caravans,” recalls Wayne. “The first time you see them, they seem to go as far back as you can see. But you soon learn to take your walking stick and just tap the first one on the nose to move it over a little bit and then you just squeeze past.”
His Himalayan hike was the first time he’d worn boots since the army. “Maybe that was part of the attraction,” Wayne continues. “Putting boots on, being outside all day, having a pack on, it was like, ‘Oh man, I miss this.’”
Next on his adventure bucket list is either walking the Grand Canyon or scaling Mont Blanc in Europe’s Alps.
“I have so many amazing memories from Nepal,” he continues, “like getting blessed by a Buddhist monk in a temple at 4,000 metres and exploring Namche Bazar – this high-altitude village where the kids are in school uniform and march to assembly to the beat of a drum.
“And since getting back, I feel different. It was a good lesson for the ego, I thought I was bulletproof, so it was humbling. I’m certainly less worried about things, less attached, and realise that the only thing that’s really important are my daughters.”
