A book detailing the land, history and people of a well-known rural Whanganui tourist attraction is set to go on sale.
The book Blue Duck Station is about the station of the same name, located deep in Whanganui National Park where the Whanganui and Retaruke Rivers converge.
Author Nicola McCloysaid the idea for the book came when she was listening to the radio while driving and an interview with station owner Dan Steele came on.
“It was that rare thing where I got to where I was going, and I actually just sat in the car and listened to the end of the interview and was late to where I was going because he was just so interesting,” McCloy said.
She found Steele’s views on combining farming, conservation and tourism - as well as his storytelling acumen - interesting and thought the story of Steele and the station deserved to be told.
Steele said publisher Bateman Books approached him about the idea.
“I thought, ... ‘That’s quite a privilege or an honour, if someone wants to come and write a book about your station’, so we took that opportunity,” Steele said.
The station started with Steele purchasing four acres in 2005 from his parents’ section and building the Blue Duck Lodge.
He later purchased two neighbouring properties, so Blue Duck Station now totals 3500 acres.
The land is used for tourism, farming, beekeeping, timber production and conservation, and Steele also runs his parents’ farm.
As the station was made up of a group of smaller properties, McCloy said the research process was particularly extensive and took up a large part of the time it took to finish the book.
“There were all these separate histories and separate stories, so the research took me longer than I expected, but it turned up some absolute gems,” she said.
She found many smaller stories on the history of the land, tracking its progression from being home to early Māori to the home of settlements for returned World War I soldiers to a farm/tourism destination.
“I love that, that’s the kind of thing I really enjoy about books like this ... because you’ve got the contemporary, you’ve got the stories that people are telling, like Dan’s telling and [those of] the people I met.”
She took a few trips to the station during the three years it took to complete the book, which was her favourite part of the process.
“There’s a brilliant simplicity to life there, even though it’s quite full-on because there’s so many moving parts to what they do,” she said.
“I think it’s the nature of the place, there were always just crazy things that happened.”
On one trip a boulder blocked an access road; on another, a massive thunderstorm broke out over the station, and one of her trips was ended prematurely by the announcement of the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns.
Blue Duck Station owner Dan Steele.
“Dan said to me, ‘Just stay, it’s only for four days’ and I think Auckland ended up in lockdown for four months.
“There was always an adventure, there was always stuff happening.”
She hoped the book inspired people to go bush and look into the history of the land around them.
“I like it when people read stuff like this and it helps them to look at places slightly differently.
“If it encourages people to just think a little bit differently about some of the places they see and wonder about, that would be really cool.”
She also hoped it would advocate for the conservation work Steele and the station staff do.
Steele was passionate about preserving the natural environment and endangered species of the area, including the blue duck, or whio.
“We’ve got to do everything we can to look after those and preserve what they need, otherwise what sort of a life and what sort of a home have we got?” he said.
The station would continue its environmental journey.
“We want to have some species that have disappeared reintroduced out here,” he said.
There were also plans to add value to the farming side of the business, which included wool, honey and timber.
His favourite part of putting the book together was to see it ready for people to read.
“It was a far bigger project than I envisioned, and getting the photos together and being a highly organised person is not really my forte.”
He felt lucky to have McCloy as a writer to tell the story of the place.
“I can talk all day but I’m not very good at writing things down. I can’t write articles - I’ve tried and I’ve failed miserably.”
He hoped readers would be able to learn about the way of life, history and potential of backcountry New Zealand.
Blue Duck Station is on sale from October 1.
There are also plans for Steele to do book signings at Whanganui’s Paige’s Book Gallery, but a date has not been set.
Finn Williams is a multimedia journalist for the Whanganui Chronicle. He joined the Chronicle in early 2022 and regularly covers stories about business, events and emergencies. He also enjoys writing opinion columns on whatever interests him.
