Welcome to your self-catering, stand-alone, luxury cottage in the high country.
Thank you for choosing to stay in one of our beloved farm cottages.
This page should help provide you with all that you need to know about your cottage and its fixtures and fittings and key cafes, restaurants, and activities in the spectacular Mackenzie Country.
The land on this farm was part of one of the oldest stations in the Mackenzie Country - Rhoborough Downs. Through a series of misfortunes and changing government policies that made it difficult for the farmer, he was forced to sell up, including several blocks on the lakeside of Pukaki, that he had planned to sell separately anyway. This was originally some of the most fertile land on the station and there has been no artificial fertiliser or sprays used on the land since the 1950s, which makes it organic.
When the farm was purchased the land was choked with wilding pines - pines that self-seeded from seed that was dropped by the government after the lakes were raised. Some called it a project to deal with erosion; others called it a "beautifying project" and others lamented the natural and beautiful landscape being taken over by the pines that found this particular environment so much to their liking that they rapidly occupied all bare land before it.
When the current owners purchased this land, there wasn't one small track they could walk to view it. Access could only be gained from the farmer's block beside this block. It was so thick with wilding pines that to walk anywhere had to be done with loppers and axe in hand. They persevered, and built a home, sheds, and cleared land in preparation for fencing and stocking the 135 acres. To date, approximately 35 to 50 acres has so far been cleared and yet, as they have cleared the land and replanted with trees and established orchards and gardens, they have come to realise that native birds also inhabit the pines and make their home here. Mosses and fungi of the forest set down a network for native growth to come back, protected by the pines. The pines provide shelter, homes for the birds and firewood and shade in the hot summers. So we have all learned to work in harmony together. It is a labour of love and a work in progress.
