Ten years after we “found” Blue Duck Station, the remainder of New Zealand skilled the awesomeness of this eco-tourism wonderland. Just lately, Seven Sharp (TVNZ’s present affairs programme) visited Blue Duck Station.
It was 2011 once we created our first weblog submit about visiting Blue Duck Station. Now in 2021, Seven Sharp did the identical, that includes the Blue Duck eating expertise on their present. Take a look.
Particular issues don’t come straightforward
In any other case, you gained’t respect them. Phrases of knowledge from Blue Duck Station proprietor Dan. Dan is a farmer, environmentalist and skilled in realizing how particular New Zealand is. Try the video beneath and also you’ll see how particular this place is.
Blue Duck Station’s distant restaurant is run by head chef Jack, an Englishman that started off as a volunteer. Years later he returned to Blue Duck with an thought, the thought to create The Chef’s Desk, utterly off the grid and on high of the world.
The restaurant presents a luxurious 10-course positive eating expertise, and with each dish, the view adjustments. A positive eating expertise for Kiwis, all Kiwis, not simply the wealthy and well-known.
Throwback to 2011: the day we discovered Blue Duck Lodge
For these of you dwelling in New Zealand or planning a visit to New Zealand Blue Duck Lodge is one particular place you could expertise.
Out one evening having a few beers a pal of a pal stated it’s best to lookup this place referred to as Blue Duck Lodge. So naturally, we acquired on-line and located that they had an awesome web site that clearly confirmed the pure fantastic thing about the place and the host of actions on supply. We gathered and we headed deep into the central north island of New Zealand to see what this place was all about.
Arrival at Blue Duck
We arrived and had been greeted by Dan Steele who’s in cost down that manner. At this stage Dan was mainly a one-man band operating the farm, constructing lodges and taking care of visitors. We learnt an enormous quantity concerning the conservation he’s dedicated to, the historical past of the realm, all of the actions on supply and on the final evening dance on the desk while trying like a stag!
The Blue Duck Lodge 4WD Eco tour is a good exercise and one everybody can get entangled with. We acquired the complete tour of the farm which entails 4WD Polaris model motorbikes, gumboots and a few actually cool outdated huts that had been constructed by hand by the primary farmers. And plenty extra attention-grabbing issues alongside the way in which, like how the outdated paddle boat would deliver provides out and in, the place the horse and cart tracks had been and Maori Pa websites. As a bonus, we managed to catch a pig out the again of the farm and cooked him up for dinner.
The distant bush gorges supply nice habitat for the Blue Duck and native bats which you’ll be able to see at sure instances. There’s a massive scale working programme in place for pest eradication and Blue Duck safety which Dan tells you about. These gorges additionally present canoe and jet boat choices plus fly and spin fishing for trout.
After the farm tour the boys went off for a hunt and the women went for a horse trek all the way down to the outdated provide hut. There are many goats round so we did our bit for the surroundings and completely eliminated a couple of. There is no such thing as a wastage although and these goats had been taken again to the kitchen and fashioned the principle ingredient of our goat curry for dinner. Later that evening we managed to assert a deer underneath the highlight which was a bonus.
Kayaking at Blue Duck
The following day we went for a brief kayak in a distant gorge beneath a good dimension waterfall. It felt like we had been in dinosaur nation. That is some fairly distant nation! Simply above the waterfall was a pair of Blue Geese. It was superb to see a dwell pair within the wild after studying a lot about them.
We felt like we had been simply settling in when it was time to go away and head again to Auckland. The women had been a bit reluctant to move down to start with however come the final day we needed to drag them dwelling.
Including Blue Duck to the Stray Excursions
Quickly after the go to, Blue Duck Lodge was added to the Stray New Zealand itinerary and it rapidly turned the top-rated cease on the circuit. Stray Travellers love the chance to expertise this glorious pure playground and meet Dan who’s a kiwi legend. You may be very properly taken care of, be taught rather a lot and have life lengthy reminiscences of this particular place.
Blue Duck Lodge is a “Strademark Place”. Strademark Locations are the locations that Stray Journey goes which are off the overwhelmed observe. They embody Stray’s values and ethos as an adventurous, off the overwhelmed observe, journey operator.
Put merely, in the event that they carry the ‘Strademark’ stamp they’re what makes Stray stand out from the gang and are to not be missed!
Everybody can expertise Blue Duck Station
Regardless that Blue Duck Station is actually in the midst of nowhere, everybody can now expertise it. Whether or not you go to it as a part of a Stray Bus Tour or as a self-drive bundle (with the choice so as to add a luxurious campervan), it’s now tremendous straightforward for each Kiwi or abroad traveller to get there.
