Ruapehu District: Blue Duck Station owner Dan Steele on farming ‘in the beginning of everywhere’

Blue Duck Station's rugged scenery is beautiful but can be hard to farm, owner Dan Steele says.

It’s safe to say Dan Steele has a lot going on.

He’s the man behind Blue Duck Station, a well-known rural Whanganui tourist attraction that combines farming, beekeeping, conservation, timber production and tourism.

Situated on the Whanganui River country and the Ruapehu District, Steele described the property as being “out in the beginning of everywhere”.

“It’s a pretty hard piece of country in a pretty remote area but it’s got a lot of attributes, like beauty and ruggedness,” he told The Country’s Jamie Mackay.

“It’s an interesting place to live.”

Blue Duck Station is an amalgamation of a number of farming properties encompassing 1416ha (3500 acres).

It all started back in 1993 when Steele’s parents purchased Retaruke Station.

“That was 30 years ago this year – another 20 and they’ll be local,” he quipped.

When Steele returned from overseas travel in 1999 he bought a neighbouring property and set up Blue Duck Station.

“Nowadays … we run the two properties together and call the whole thing Blue Duck Station for tourism and honey and one or two other things.”

Despite running 10,000 stock units, it’s those “one or two other things” that keep Blue Duck Station ticking along, he said.

“It’s pretty tough to make it pay - this is not your premium farming country. The costs are pretty prohibitive if you’re just farming out in this sort of country.”

Blue Duck Station owner, Dan Steele.

One battle Steele is happy to lose is defending his pasture land against native bush.

“We’re encouraging it to revert to native bush… because a lot of it should have never been cut,” he said.

“We shouldn’t really be producing food on this class of country… down here, so the best use for it is native bush.”

With “gorges in the bottom and bluffs on the top” the property was dangerous for cattle, he said.

“If you put the cattle up there they’re going to come down with the help of gravity and that’s not going to go too well for them.”

It wasn’t much better for sheep either, he said.

“Running sheep out here is barely economic at best.”

Therefore regenerating the land back into native bush was the best option, financially and environmentally, he said.

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“Honey is a great use for the [land], tourism is another use.

“[We need to] farm some of the better parts of it and work out how we’re going to make a bit of money out of the bush and regenerating it.

“And [also by] promoting the habitat for the species that have called it home for thousands of years.”

A new book by author Nicola McCloy called Blue Duck Station - The land, the rivers and the people, has been released this month.

The book pays tribute to the property’s rugged beauty through a series of stunning photographs and McCloy telling Blue Duck Station’s story.

“We’re very fortunate to have all this,” Steele said.

“You sort of pinch yourself some days.”

Also in today’s interview: Steele talked about soldiers’ unsuccessful attempts to tame the land as World War I development farms; his efforts to build a fine dining restaurant on the property and how at Blue Duck Station fared during the pandemic.