April 22, 2025 • 8 mins
The owner of Blue Duck Station, on the banks of the Whanganui and Retaruke Rivers, gives us the post-drought conditions on-farm. He also discusses extensive conservation efforts and how his agritourism venture is going. Plus, whether his wife will flood their farm with Kaimanawa horses after the impending muster.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right, We're off to a very special part of the
country now, Blue Duck Station and the center of the
North Island. Joining me is owner Dan Steel. Good afternoon,
good row here are getting on very well, Thank you Harvard.
Things at Blue Ducks Station obviously, just recap what your
property is all about and.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Where you are, Yeah it is. Look, Look, we're just
simply trying to live a meaningful life out in the
bush here with the family, grow a sustainable winter generational
business that connects us all with the land over time,
and have some fun along the way. So yeah, we're
tourism and farming and honey and conservation and growing a
few trees and a hunting business and everything you can
(00:38):
do on the land and the great outdoors. We're having
a crack at it. Yeah and yeah, trying to make
it meaningful and have some fun.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
See, most people I would just say, you know, he's
a sheep and beef farmer from Toma Deniue or something
like that, or she's a dairy farmer from North And
that's why I got you to explain what you do,
because there's so many facets to it. Dan, And at
the beginning of April I noticed you nearly added a
riverboat to your operation. A bit of an April Fools
(01:08):
joke there, but knowing you as I do, I kind
of think maybe that we'll have still got the colds
of your brain ticking.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah. Funnily enough, I did put it up to take
the falls and it went a bit viral with people
getting in touch from around the world, and it was
just meant to be April falls that got taken. Seriously,
I'm not going to float the big Lakeland Queen from
Road down the river on the next flood. But we
are actually just we have got a quite looking at
designing a boat for us. He thinks it'll be a
great concept to have the old floating hotel going again.
(01:36):
But it is a far off concept and we'll see where,
you know, where that ends up in the future. We've
got a lot more irons in the fire to think
about before now and then. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Absolutely, And of course the boat we're referring to as
the old river biat that was used back in Alexander
hat Trick's day on the Wonganawe River as the floating hotel.
What was it at Paperrikee.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
It was actually here at Focaharto at Blue Ducks. So
it was moored on the retro Rookie River when it
finished its life, for its last seven or years or
so on the retro Rookie River where it was used
as a stopover for the riverboats. And it was a
five star floating hotel with a flash restaurant on it
and things, and it burnt down in the nineteen thirties here,
but yeah, there's a lot of photos of it around
(02:22):
racing the covers of old history books and things, and
it's pretty spectacular, that's right.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It was the stop off on the way to Pipadecki.
And of course when the boat burnt down there was
something interesting in the artwork that was somehow not lost
with the boat.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well, so the stories go. You know, some of the
artworks and fine antiqus found their way to other parts
of New Zealand before the boat burnt down, but you
know who would.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Know absolutely, Hey, what's the focus for Blue Duck over
the next week? While are you having a lot of
interest with your hunting at the moment with the stags roaring?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah? Look yeah, look, look the drought's broken, wool prices double,
that's gone from nothing to not much. Lamb and lamb
and beef's looking pretty well. You know, we're just scanned
the heifers. You help put the balls out. Actually, row
we've got nine out of seventy nine out of eighty
two and cars first first carvers, which is pretty good.
The stags are still roaring. We've just had a pretty
(03:17):
good roar. They've been a bit stop start in the
warm autumn, but we've got some good stags out. It's
because we got some plenty of happy hunters coming through
a few misty mornings now on the autumn. Yep. Yeah,
so duck shootings coming up. We're not big on duck shooting.
We're more on big on looking after the blue ducks
and sort of observing what they're doing and doing a
(03:39):
whole lot of conservation work. But we do get out
now and again and go and visit some friends who
do some duck shooting on their properties and enjoy the
social side of that a little bit.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Absolutely, And of course, for the uninitiated when we talk
about duck shooting, there are some ducks so we can
only hunt in minimal numbers, and also some that we
can't hunt at all. And your beloved blue dunck is
definitely one of them. Do you get a bit nervous
coming into the season that some might accidentally find themselves
in the line of fire.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Look, the blue duck as a torrent duck, and it's
on those fast flying sort of more freshwater streams and
really in a different habitat. They don't inhabit still water dams,
and so they're pretty well, pretty well so safe from
duck shooting. And as long as people are shooting on
rivers and streams where they've got good habitats, and as
(04:30):
long as they really know what they're doing, blue ducks
are generally pretty safe. We've had the odd hunter shoot
them in New Zealand with type out rifles and things
as target practice, but that's a real mistake and identity
and a silly thing to do. But generally in duck shooting,
the blue ducks and a different habitat, Yeah, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Hey, obviously you've got the amazing chef's table, that ten
course degustation meal that you host up in the hills
of Blue Duck Station. You have a wee bit of
a shutdown, is it maybe August? But how's bookings for
that going? Because it's quite a unique proposition and as
someone who's sampled it, it's stem delicious.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah. Yeah, the restaurant's been. It's having a good, strong
finish for the season. We're real busy this weekend coming up.
It's coming up towards the end of the season. We'll
shut down on June for a couple of months here.
Bookings next year are about to open and we're anticipating
they'll be pretty strong. We're we're building up there again
at the moment and building Tom Cruis's new cabin up
(05:30):
there at the top the top of the world. So
we should be finished that hopefully in May, and that's
going to add a bit more to our offering for
next season, which is pretty cool. Yeah, that pretty big
push for the next month. They've got the boys a
reposting the boardwalks and stairs and doing all the finishing
touches and we should be good to go on that cabin. Yeah,
very shortly, so looking forward to next season.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah absolutely. Then just before we go, you have a
massive conservation. If it not just for the Blue dut
on Blue Duck station, you've got a lot of traps
around the ferrets, the rats, stoats, weasels in the lake.
How's the trapping line going.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, the trappings, it's going really well. We've got more
conservation work happening now than we've ever had before. We've
got a really good crew of volunteers who's been with
us for a few years and they really are committed
to making New Zealand a better place and we're sort
of one of their main vehicles for doing it where
they come in here regular base of store, our trap lines,
(06:29):
run hundreds of traps, put a new trapping technologies with
the likes of at two twenties from n Zight Auto Traps.
You know, we're putting more of those out, having a
good run with them, a twenty fours out and some
inaccessible areas. And yeah, we're getting better blue duck counts
than we've had over the years, and we've got more
(06:49):
Kiwi sightings happening than we've ever had. So it's pretty
exciting the conservation space heading towards some new technologies coming out,
and yeah, we're really excited and pleased to be in
that space for you know, for predator free New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Just finally, your wife is quite a conservationist as well.
The Wild Chimunoa Muster's coming up how many do you
reckon she's going to try and sneak onto your property.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
You wouldn't know, so I she'll probably tell me she's
going shopping and she'll turn up back with three more horses.
It has happened before. She's I know, she's looking at
the cimunals again, but she's she's breaking into or three
kimunals at the moment, and she's got one or two
for sale. But and she just got three wild horses
out of the Far North, the Spirits to bay horses.
So Sandy turned up with them when she popping trips,
(07:39):
you do, he's breaking those and at the moment for
the trekking team and or completed the trick for life.
So we're riding the length of New Zealand over a
few over over a few years and raising a bit
of money. So we've just done that and we're looking
forward to doing that again next year on a couple
of horses of Sandy's breaking in at the moment.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, yeah, honestly, it will never end up on that front.
Dan Steel out of Blue Ducks Station, pass on my
regards to Sandy and thanks so much for your time today.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Hey, good ron, lovely talking to you all of your
Right, We're off to a very special part of the
country now, Blue Duck Station and the center of the
North Island. Joining me is owner Dan Steel. Good afternoon,
good row here are getting on very well, Thank you Harvard.
Things at Blue Ducks Station obviously, just recap what your
property is all about and.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Where you are, Yeah it is. Look, Look, we're just
simply trying to live a meaningful life out in the
bush here with the family, grow a sustainable winter generational
business that connects us all with the land over time,
and have some fun along the way. So yeah, we're
tourism and farming and honey and conservation and growing a
few trees and a hunting business and everything you can
(00:38):
do on the land and the great outdoors. We're having
a crack at it. Yeah and yeah, trying to make
it meaningful and have some fun.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
See, most people I would just say, you know, he's
a sheep and beef farmer from Toma Deniue or something
like that, or she's a dairy farmer from North And
that's why I got you to explain what you do,
because there's so many facets to it. Dan, And at
the beginning of April I noticed you nearly added a
riverboat to your operation. A bit of an April Fools
(01:08):
joke there, but knowing you as I do, I kind
of think maybe that we'll have still got the colds
of your brain ticking.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah. Funnily enough, I did put it up to take
the falls and it went a bit viral with people
getting in touch from around the world, and it was
just meant to be April falls that got taken. Seriously,
I'm not going to float the big Lakeland Queen from
Road down the river on the next flood. But we
are actually just we have got a quite looking at
designing a boat for us. He thinks it'll be a
great concept to have the old floating hotel going again.
(01:36):
But it is a far off concept and we'll see where,
you know, where that ends up in the future. We've
got a lot more irons in the fire to think
about before now and then. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Absolutely, And of course the boat we're referring to as
the old river biat that was used back in Alexander
hat Trick's day on the Wonganawe River as the floating hotel.
What was it at Paperrikee.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
It was actually here at Focaharto at Blue Ducks. So
it was moored on the retro Rookie River when it
finished its life, for its last seven or years or
so on the retro Rookie River where it was used
as a stopover for the riverboats. And it was a
five star floating hotel with a flash restaurant on it
and things, and it burnt down in the nineteen thirties here,
but yeah, there's a lot of photos of it around
(02:22):
racing the covers of old history books and things, and
it's pretty spectacular, that's right.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It was the stop off on the way to Pipadecki.
And of course when the boat burnt down there was
something interesting in the artwork that was somehow not lost
with the boat.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well, so the stories go. You know, some of the
artworks and fine antiqus found their way to other parts
of New Zealand before the boat burnt down, but you
know who would.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Know absolutely, Hey, what's the focus for Blue Duck over
the next week? While are you having a lot of
interest with your hunting at the moment with the stags roaring?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah? Look yeah, look, look the drought's broken, wool prices double,
that's gone from nothing to not much. Lamb and lamb
and beef's looking pretty well. You know, we're just scanned
the heifers. You help put the balls out. Actually, row
we've got nine out of seventy nine out of eighty
two and cars first first carvers, which is pretty good.
The stags are still roaring. We've just had a pretty
(03:17):
good roar. They've been a bit stop start in the
warm autumn, but we've got some good stags out. It's
because we got some plenty of happy hunters coming through
a few misty mornings now on the autumn. Yep. Yeah,
so duck shootings coming up. We're not big on duck shooting.
We're more on big on looking after the blue ducks
and sort of observing what they're doing and doing a
(03:39):
whole lot of conservation work. But we do get out
now and again and go and visit some friends who
do some duck shooting on their properties and enjoy the
social side of that a little bit.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Absolutely, And of course, for the uninitiated when we talk
about duck shooting, there are some ducks so we can
only hunt in minimal numbers, and also some that we
can't hunt at all. And your beloved blue dunck is
definitely one of them. Do you get a bit nervous
coming into the season that some might accidentally find themselves
in the line of fire.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Look, the blue duck as a torrent duck, and it's
on those fast flying sort of more freshwater streams and
really in a different habitat. They don't inhabit still water dams,
and so they're pretty well, pretty well so safe from
duck shooting. And as long as people are shooting on
rivers and streams where they've got good habitats, and as
(04:30):
long as they really know what they're doing, blue ducks
are generally pretty safe. We've had the odd hunter shoot
them in New Zealand with type out rifles and things
as target practice, but that's a real mistake and identity
and a silly thing to do. But generally in duck shooting,
the blue ducks and a different habitat, Yeah, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Hey, obviously you've got the amazing chef's table, that ten
course degustation meal that you host up in the hills
of Blue Duck Station. You have a wee bit of
a shutdown, is it maybe August? But how's bookings for
that going? Because it's quite a unique proposition and as
someone who's sampled it, it's stem delicious.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah. Yeah, the restaurant's been. It's having a good, strong
finish for the season. We're real busy this weekend coming up.
It's coming up towards the end of the season. We'll
shut down on June for a couple of months here.
Bookings next year are about to open and we're anticipating
they'll be pretty strong. We're we're building up there again
at the moment and building Tom Cruis's new cabin up
(05:30):
there at the top the top of the world. So
we should be finished that hopefully in May, and that's
going to add a bit more to our offering for
next season, which is pretty cool. Yeah, that pretty big
push for the next month. They've got the boys a
reposting the boardwalks and stairs and doing all the finishing
touches and we should be good to go on that cabin. Yeah,
very shortly, so looking forward to next season.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah absolutely. Then just before we go, you have a
massive conservation. If it not just for the Blue dut
on Blue Duck station, you've got a lot of traps
around the ferrets, the rats, stoats, weasels in the lake.
How's the trapping line going.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, the trappings, it's going really well. We've got more
conservation work happening now than we've ever had before. We've
got a really good crew of volunteers who's been with
us for a few years and they really are committed
to making New Zealand a better place and we're sort
of one of their main vehicles for doing it where
they come in here regular base of store, our trap lines,
(06:29):
run hundreds of traps, put a new trapping technologies with
the likes of at two twenties from n Zight Auto Traps.
You know, we're putting more of those out, having a
good run with them, a twenty fours out and some
inaccessible areas. And yeah, we're getting better blue duck counts
than we've had over the years, and we've got more
(06:49):
Kiwi sightings happening than we've ever had. So it's pretty
exciting the conservation space heading towards some new technologies coming out,
and yeah, we're really excited and pleased to be in
that space for you know, for predator free New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Just finally, your wife is quite a conservationist as well.
The Wild Chimunoa Muster's coming up how many do you
reckon she's going to try and sneak onto your property.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
You wouldn't know, so I she'll probably tell me she's
going shopping and she'll turn up back with three more horses.
It has happened before. She's I know, she's looking at
the cimunals again, but she's she's breaking into or three
kimunals at the moment, and she's got one or two
for sale. But and she just got three wild horses
out of the Far North, the Spirits to bay horses.
So Sandy turned up with them when she popping trips,
(07:39):
you do, he's breaking those and at the moment for
the trekking team and or completed the trick for life.
So we're riding the length of New Zealand over a
few over over a few years and raising a bit
of money. So we've just done that and we're looking
forward to doing that again next year on a couple
of horses of Sandy's breaking in at the moment.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, yeah, honestly, it will never end up on that front.
Dan Steel out of Blue Ducks Station, pass on my
regards to Sandy and thanks so much for your time today.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Hey, good ron, lovely talking to you all of your
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