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With a love of the outdoors and a huge sense of adventure, Nicky Selby is well placed to instruct young, new and enthusiastic talent in the ways of kayaking, gorge scrambling and even bush craft!
A love of the outdoors and a passion for teaching meant Nicky Selby was always going to opt for a career in which she could combine both talent and inclination.
Nicky is the activity and training co-ordinator at Adventure Okehampton. On leaving school and after a spell travelling in Australia, working with the Youth Hostel Association (YHA) and a not-such pleasant time spent on a prawn farm, Nicky gained training experience working with adults with learning disabilities. She loved the work but wanted to find more outdoor activities that her clients could take part in. She became an apprentice in the ‘outdoor industry’, as she puts it and the rest, as they say, is history.
Nicky came to work at Okehampton eight years ago and has worked her way up to her current position at the adventure centre. ‘I think being an apprentice is the best way forward,’ Nicky explained. ‘Doing a university course, there’s a lot of paperwork but not much out in the field. Being an apprentice you are getting the skills on the job. I loved it, and I love teaching the youngsters to become instructors themselves. To be an instructor, you have to be passionate about being outside in all weathers but you also really need to love teaching people. I think everybody can be taught, you just have to have patience and find out the best way they can learn.
‘You are never going to earn millions doing this type of work, it’s not that type of industry, but you do it because you love it.’
Apprentices come to Okehampton Adventure Centre through Exeter College, working on a year-long course to gain their NVQ Level 2. They then become qualified instructors at the centre or may move on to other centres to gain further experience in other skills. At Okehampton, they learn water sports such as kayaking, canoeing and raft building, rock climbing, gorge scrambling, hiking, cycling, archery, bush craft and mountain boarding. These types of activities are also available to adults who may come to the centre on hen parties, stag ‘dos’ and corporate team building courses.
The next batch of four apprentices started at Okehampton in February -Nicky is now pretty much in full swing through the spring and summer - the adventure centre’s busiest time of the year.
‘We do activity camps in the summer that parents send their kids on, which we run but we also get volunteers to come up here to help support the instructors. Volunteers get their accommodation and food as well as take part in all the activities. The volunteers we had here last year absolutely loved it, but it’s not widely known that there’s that type of volunteering opportunity here,’ said Nicky.
The winter time is down time for Nicky and that’s when she gets to indulge in some of her ‘bucket list’ activities. ‘In September I trekked to Everest base camp for three weeks. My partner and I had always wanted to go and in the down time of the year, outdoor instructors tend to upskill by doing this sort of thing,’ said Nicky. ‘The people in Nepal were lovely but I did struggle with the altitude there as I kept getting dizzy and breathless.’
A sense of adventure obviously runs in Nicky’s family as within weeks of her return from Nepal, Nicky travelled with her mum and 90-year-old grandma to Lanzarote. Nicky and her mum experienced a five-hour quad bike safari - ‘It was all off-road so you got to see so much more — it was brilliant!’ Nicky is also an animal lover and owns her own horse, Toby. ‘I absolutely love riding. I’ve had Toby for 18 years now.’
As for next year’s down time, Nicky has her eyes set on an ascent of Mont Blanc and further down the line, Peru and the Inca Trail beckons.