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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Samon Barnett and James Daniels Afternoons

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Speaker 1: podcast from News Talk Z'B.

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Speaker 2: Dan Steele is the owner of Blue Duck Station. As

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Speaker 2: you've heard, the chef's table at Blue Duck has just

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Speaker 2: won the Specialist Restaurant of the Year award in the

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Speaker 2: Cuisine Good Food Awards. He joins us now, gooday, Dan, Hello,

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Speaker 2: how are you doing well?

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Speaker 3: Mate?

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Speaker 2: Not as good as you? Congratulations.

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Speaker 3: I'm a little bit dusty to know. He to be fair,

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Speaker 3: the celebrating takes it out of you.

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Speaker 2: Oh well, do you know? Like no jokes and we're

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Speaker 2: not being sick of fans here, Dan. We've had so

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Speaker 2: many texts from people that have stayed with you at

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Speaker 2: your station and they rave about not only you as

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Speaker 2: the host and the workers, but the whole experience itself.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, like, how did you get into it and

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Speaker 2: how nerve wracking was it starting it off?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? I look, I traveled the world and realized that

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Speaker 3: New Zealand's pretty bloody special and we're probably no, we're

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Speaker 3: near reason realizing our potential. So I came home to

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Speaker 3: next door to my parents' place and managed to set

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Speaker 3: up Blue Duck station as a business. Yeah, so we

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Speaker 3: can share it with the world and share it with

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Speaker 3: New Zealanders and try and try and leave it as

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Speaker 3: a better place.

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Speaker 2: Was it nerve wrecking? I mean obviously just a startup

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Speaker 2: and even though it was a farm, it was a

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Speaker 2: startup for this agritourism, for the you know, the restaurant facilities,

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Speaker 2: et cetera. I mean, borrowing that kind of money to

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Speaker 2: get that going. That must have been a very stressful experience, though.

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Speaker 3: Was it? Oh, look at it, but it's it's still

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Speaker 3: nerve wrecking, But it's it's a journey, isn't it. And

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Speaker 3: you know we're quietly creating value as we go, and

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Speaker 3: that's just that's just part of the process. You know,

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Speaker 3: if it wasn't hard, everyone had be doing it.

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Speaker 2: What sort of reactions do you get from people when

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Speaker 2: they come back from the alter rain vehicle trip and

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Speaker 2: then dye.

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Speaker 3: Well, the reactions up at the shifts table are fantastic,

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Speaker 3: from people just going completely silent to other people bursting

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Speaker 3: out into tears. And it's it's pretty special that, you know,

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Speaker 3: jacking The team up there at the shifts table do

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Speaker 3: an amazing job and it's been great to see people's

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Speaker 3: experience as.

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Speaker 2: The what's this farry too of the conservation project? What

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Speaker 2: does that involve.

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Speaker 3: We've got quite a lot of on farm conservation around

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Speaker 3: Blue Ducks Kiwi, recreating habitat, all sorts of things, just

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Speaker 3: trying to do what we believe New Zealand should do

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Speaker 3: is turn it into the biggest conservation project on Earth

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Speaker 3: and then use the land for the best that should

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Speaker 3: be used for and then create value from that. And

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Speaker 3: we just try to showcase that to people and show

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Speaker 3: you know, every tour might be different because someone might

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Speaker 3: ask you a question and you are right, We'll go

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Speaker 3: over and look at some wetlands. Oh, we'll go and

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Speaker 3: have a look at a historic building, or you want

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Speaker 3: to see the Wanganui River, or if it's there's so

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Speaker 3: much we can sort of tweak and change and show

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Speaker 3: people when depending on what they want to see.

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

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Speaker 3: Yes, we are. Yeah, We've got twenty eight hundred hectares

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Speaker 3: out there and a lot of it we are recreating

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Speaker 3: mother nature of habitat and bush. But there's still some

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Speaker 3: good parts of the farm. We've got river flats, we've

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Speaker 3: got to we want to keep the farm in some

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Speaker 3: of the grass open, of course, because you don't want

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Speaker 3: everything to just to close in so you've got no views,

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Speaker 3: so you're walking and you're trekking. So we're still running

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Speaker 3: thousands of sheep and hundreds of cattle and a small

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Speaker 3: deer farm. You're very much still farming. But we're really

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Speaker 3: trying to be diversified. And our country particularly leads to

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Speaker 3: diversification because a lot of our country shouldn't be farmed.

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Speaker 3: But we're still going to have that as an important

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Speaker 3: part of the mix.

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Speaker 2: Percentage bit of internationals versus domestic tourists, do you reckon?

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Speaker 3: Oh, look, we're sitting probably coming back towards fifty to fifty.

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Speaker 3: Of course, over COVID we were, you know, one hundred

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Speaker 3: percent Kiwis, and before that we were too many internationals.

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Speaker 3: But our perfect mix, we believe would be about fifty

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Speaker 3: to fifty because the internationals bring in some really interesting people,

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Speaker 3: and they're starting to bring in people that can bring

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Speaker 3: capital to New Zealand and do all sorts of interesting

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Speaker 3: things and help us. But most people who want to

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Speaker 3: influence and show a good time, and that can really

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Speaker 3: make a difference to New Zealanders.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, what a lovely, lovely success story. It's at Blue

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Speaker 2: Deck Station, the Chief's Table, the award win a Den

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Speaker 2: congratulations again and thank you for your time.

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Speaker 3: Thank you very much.

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Speaker 1: Cheers for more from Simon Barnett and James Daniels afternoons,

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Speaker 1: Listen live to news Talks at B or follow the

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Speaker 1: podcast on iHeartRadio