Ruapehu’s Blue Duck Station wins at NZ Tourism Awards

Blue Duck Station staff (from second left) Mel Rickards, Jack Cashmore, Dan Steele and Sandy Steele at the New Zealand Tourism Awards 2025 dinner with Conservation Minister Tama Potaka (left) and Visit Ruapehu PR and trade manager Mahalee Guieysse (right).

Blue Duck Station, the working beef and sheep farm and eco-tourism destination in Whanganui National Park, has won the tourism environment category at the New Zealand Tourism Awards.

The station is a conservation project turned tourism hub, named after the threatened blue duck (whio) which populates the area. It has one of the highest populations of blue ducks and kiwi in the country.

It aims to increase conservation efforts for the blue ducks and other native species, while protecting native bush by integrating tourism experiences to help fund, educate and support.

“[It was] humbling really to be recognised as the environmental winner,” Blue Duck Station owner and founder Dan Steele said.

Steele and his wife, Sandy Steele, along with Blue Duck Station operations manager Mel Rickards and Jack Cashmore from the Chef’s Table, attended the NZ Tourism Awards 2025 dinner on October 29 in Wellington, where they received the KiwiRail Tourism Environment Award.

They joined other tourism businesses from across NZ, some much larger with bigger budgets, “so it was lovely to win and quite unexpected”, Steele said.

Formerly a supply depot, then military training ground, then settlement for soldiers returning after World War I, the area was abandoned in 1944 due to its inhospitable landscape.

In 1993, Steele’s parents bought neighbouring Retaruke Station. In 1999, Steele bought the rest of the land, merged the two and set up Blue Duck Station.

“It’s a really wild, remote place and with rainforest all around and DoC land and big rivers running through it, the Retaruke and the Whanganui River ... a lot of history and a lot of stories and magic out there really,” he said.

Steele said he became passionate about conservation through being an outdoorsman and hunter from a young age.

“The bush is the best place in the world to be,” he said.

“It’s such a ... beautiful thing that it’s pretty natural to look after it now, and start to really care for it.”

The station offers visitors accommodation options and outdoor activities through the rugged native bush and Whanganui River, including kayaking, hiking, horseback riding, mountain biking, jet boating, guided hunting packages and tours to historic and natural sites.

There is local, sustainably grown and foraged food at the cafe and the fine dining experience, the Chef’s Table - an award-winning restaurant located at the highest point of Blue Duck Station, overlooking Tongariro National Park and only accessible by horse or ATV.

Visitors can choose to sponsor trapping efforts run by the station, which couple with its guided hunting tours to control invasive species populations in the area.

“Blue Duck Station stood out for its deep environmental commitment and is a very deserving winner of the KiwiRail Tourism Environment Award,” KiwiRail executive general manager of passenger Tracey Goodall said.

Blue Duck Station has received the Ballance Farm Environment Award three times and the Department of Conservation’s Services to Conservation Award.

Steele said they hoped to continue to expand the station, offering more tours and expanding some of the more popular experiences, including the Chef’s Table.

“We’re really hoping that this becomes more mainstream, for more businesses to do more conservation work and pay their rent to NZ for looking after our natural capital,” Steele said.

“My hope is for NZ to become the biggest conservation project on earth.”