I was involved in tourism since 1975 and was the first tour operator in Western Australia to run regular tours based on natural history. This combined my outdoor lifestyle and interests with an occupation that enabled me to share my natural history pursuits with others. I completed the first tour guide course held in Western Australia in about 1981. My first company was Cross Country Safaris. In 1980 I founded a successful wildlife tour operation, Coates Wildlife Tours, which my wife and I ran for many years before I sold the business. I then became a freelance natural history/history tour guide and lecturer. As well as Australia I helped organise and guide natural history type tours to overseas destinations. In the early 1980s I helped pioneer tours along the Kimberley coast from Broome to Wyndham and places like Christmas Island. My last commercial guiding/lecturing tour was on a small expedition type vessel along the Kimberley Coast to Timor-Leste and Darwin in 2013.
A selection of past and present books I have been responsible for, which may be of interest to some of the current tour guides:
The Pinnacle Desert – Emu Souvenirs, The West in Focus Vol 21. Very little was known about the Pinnacles in the 1970s and the area was hard to access. This was the first attempt to explain their origin. Sold over 20,000 copies.
Western Australian Lonely Graves and Burials at Sea. Hesperian Press, a useful reference for people in the industry who travel to remote areas. It has been of enormous value to genealogists, historians and others delving into our pioneering past.
Finch Trapping in the Kimberley. Hesperian Press, A history of Commercial Finch Trapping in the Kimberley Division of Western Australia.
Forestry through the Fifties; A young forestry officer’s journey with the Western Australian Forests Department – Second Edition, Hesperian Press.
