Simon Barnett and James Daniels dream of dining at Blue Duck Station

The Chef’s Table at Blue Duck Station in the Ruapehu district of the North Island has been awarded Specialist Restaurant of the Year at New Zealand’s only national restaurant awards, the Cuisine Good Food Awards 24/25. 

Blue Duck Station is a privately owned 7,200 acre station on the banks of the Whanganui and Retaruke Rivers, it is surrounded by Whanganui National Park and is an outdoor enthusiast’s playground owned by farmer and conservationist Dan Steele.

The Chef’s Table boasts spectacular views and can only be accessed by helicopter, horseback, mountain bike or an all-terrain vehicle (ATV). 

Tongariro National Park is the only UNESCO Dual World Heritage site in New Zealand.

Simon Barnett and James Daniels spoke with Blue Duck Station owner Dan Steele.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Samon Barnett and James Daniels Afternoons
podcast from News Talk Z'B.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Dan Steele is the owner of Blue Duck Station. As
you've heard, the chef's table at Blue Duck has just
won the Specialist Restaurant of the Year award in the
Cuisine Good Food Awards. He joins us now, gooday, Dan, Hello,
how are you doing well?

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Mate?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Not as good as you? Congratulations.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
I'm a little bit dusty to know. He to be fair,
the celebrating takes it out of you.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Oh well, do you know? Like no jokes and we're
not being sick of fans here, Dan. We've had so
many texts from people that have stayed with you at
your station and they rave about not only you as
the host and the workers, but the whole experience itself.
So yeah, like, how did you get into it and
how nerve wracking was it starting it off?

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Yeah? I look, I traveled the world and realized that
New Zealand's pretty bloody special and we're probably no, we're
near reason realizing our potential. So I came home to
next door to my parents' place and managed to set
up Blue Duck station as a business. Yeah, so we
can share it with the world and share it with
New Zealanders and try and try and leave it as
a better place.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Was it nerve wrecking? I mean obviously just a startup
and even though it was a farm, it was a
startup for this agritourism, for the you know, the restaurant facilities,
et cetera. I mean, borrowing that kind of money to
get that going. That must have been a very stressful experience, though.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Was it? Oh, look at it, but it's it's still
nerve wrecking, But it's it's a journey, isn't it. And
you know we're quietly creating value as we go, and
that's just that's just part of the process. You know,
if it wasn't hard, everyone had be doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
What sort of reactions do you get from people when
they come back from the alter rain vehicle trip and
then dye.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Well, the reactions up at the shifts table are fantastic,
from people just going completely silent to other people bursting
out into tears. And it's it's pretty special that, you know,
jacking The team up there at the shifts table do
an amazing job and it's been great to see people's
experience as.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
The what's this farry too of the conservation project? What
does that involve.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
We've got quite a lot of on farm conservation around
Blue Ducks Kiwi, recreating habitat, all sorts of things, just
trying to do what we believe New Zealand should do
is turn it into the biggest conservation project on Earth
and then use the land for the best that should
be used for and then create value from that. And
we just try to showcase that to people and show

(02:30):
you know, every tour might be different because someone might
ask you a question and you are right, We'll go
over and look at some wetlands. Oh, we'll go and
have a look at a historic building, or you want
to see the Wanganui River, or if it's there's so
much we can sort of tweak and change and show
people when depending on what they want to see.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
So, Dan, are you still a working farm to some degree?

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yes, we are. Yeah, We've got twenty eight hundred hectares
out there and a lot of it we are recreating
mother nature of habitat and bush. But there's still some
good parts of the farm. We've got river flats, we've
got to we want to keep the farm in some
of the grass open, of course, because you don't want
everything to just to close in so you've got no views,
so you're walking and you're trekking. So we're still running

(03:11):
thousands of sheep and hundreds of cattle and a small
deer farm. You're very much still farming. But we're really
trying to be diversified. And our country particularly leads to
diversification because a lot of our country shouldn't be farmed.
But we're still going to have that as an important
part of the mix.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Percentage bit of internationals versus domestic tourists, do you reckon?

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Oh, look, we're sitting probably coming back towards fifty to fifty.
Of course, over COVID we were, you know, one hundred
percent Kiwis, and before that we were too many internationals.
But our perfect mix, we believe would be about fifty
to fifty because the internationals bring in some really interesting people,
and they're starting to bring in people that can bring

(03:54):
capital to New Zealand and do all sorts of interesting
things and help us. But most people who want to
influence and show a good time, and that can really
make a difference to New Zealanders.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, what a lovely, lovely success story. It's at Blue
Deck Station, the Chief's Table, the award win a Den
congratulations again and thank you for your time.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Cheers for more from Simon Barnett and James Daniels afternoons,
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