About
Our Mission
Connect you to remote and inaccessible environments, inspire individual action and empower communities to protect and restore local biodiversity and habitats.
We share our passion for places that are not readily accessible and connect you to environments that few people get to experience. We hope our projects inspire people and empower communities to protect and restore biodiversity and achieve the aspirations they hold for their places and environment.
Extraordinary Experiences
It is a real privilege to visit remote and difficult to access places. Bringing back engaging experiences enables us to raise awareness and build understanding of environments that otherwise go unnoticed. We work with communities and use observations and data to support local action that creates lasting impacts.
Our Core Values
- Passion for our environment
- Respect for each other
- Courage and drive to try new approaches
About Nicole
A keen explorer of New Zealand’s underground & underwater world, Nicole is pioneering citizen science projects and visual storytelling to connect adults and children to their local environment. As the founder of Explore Your Coast she works with a passionate team to bring the underwater world to shore and inspire and support communities across New Zealand to protect and restore local marine ecosystems and biodiversity.
Nicole has created an immersive 360° virtual tour of her local marine reserve for kids and adults to experience the thrill of diving and coming eye to eye with marine life without getting wet. She also developed a self-guided video tour allowing visitors and residents to explore the marine reserve from shore by scanning QR codes along the coast. In her latest project, Nicole is diving and filming 70 kilometres of Wellington’s coastline to document the state of kelp forests and marine habitats.
In 2024, Nicole received a Winston Churchill Fellowship to connect with leading marine restoration experts. Nicole also received the 2024 Wyland Foundation Dive New Zealand Magazine recognition award for her advocacy for citizen science and for restoring and protecting marine ecosystems.
Nicole is a trained scientist with a PhD in chemistry, she is Chair of the Friends of Taputeranga Marine Reserve Charitable Trust and a member of the Green Gravel Action Group, an international network of seaweed restoration experts. Nicole is a caver, a certified cave & tech diver, a PADI scuba dive instructor and a trained Reef Life Survey diver, and she was Wellington Underwater Club President from 2016 to 2023.
About Anna
Anna began her caving journey with the Red Rose Cave and Pothole Club in Yorkshire. With over 20 years of international cave exploration across Europe, Asia, and New Zealand, she is deeply passionate about cave and cave biodiversity conservation. Anna believes that conservation is a collaborative process and enjoys working with diverse groups to protect cave ecosystems and bring the wonders of the underground world to light.
Her recent projects include monitoring and documenting life in regenerating cave entrances on private land, surveying species presence and populations in caves of national significance, and collaborating with government organisations to develop cave access and conservation recommendations. Anna also identifies species of interest and contributes to the description of new species, one of which was recently published.
Anna is an independent research scientist with a BSc in Biochemistry. She is a member of the Australasian Cave and Karst Management association (ACKMA) and the New Zealand Speleological Society (NZSS), where she has previously served as Conservation and Research Coordinator.