Birchwood Station, a sheep and cattle farm an hour’s drive north of Invercargill, has welcomed travellers from around the world for 15 years, especially since becoming part of the Te Araroa Trail in 2011. This story is part of a B+LNZ and Herenga ā Nuku Aotearoa series celebrating farmers who open their gates to share the special places they care for.
One dawn around 15 years ago, a Southland farmer knocked politely on a tent pitched on his land, woke the occupant, and questioned him through the nylon.
“Can you hear that noise?”
The camper replied with even more of a Scottish lilt than is usual in the area.
“Um… aye?”
“Well, it’s a top-dressing plane, and it’s about to land on you.”
Dean Blair-Edie laughs as he recalls the fastest striking of a camp he’d ever seen.
“He was a nice guy, actually. Meant no harm. Sometimes they’d arrive after dark, couldn’t tell if it’s an airstrip or whatever – just that it’s flat.”
Afterwards, Dean offered the Scottish tramper more secure accommodation, which he gratefully accepted.
It’s just one example of the generosity and openness that have brought the world walking through Dean and Sarah Blair-Edie’s gate.
The Blair-Edies farm sheep and cattle on Birchwood Station, 2500 hectares of steep, rolling and flat country an hour’s drive north-west of Invercargill.
The station has been in Dean’s family for more than 100 years, with his and Sarah’s three children being the fifth generation to live there.
There have been many developments at the property in all those years, but perhaps none so colourful as its inclusion, around 2011, in the length-of-New-Zealand, 3000-kilometre Te Araroa Trail.
About five kilometres of the trail, whose name means “the long pathway” and which stretches from Cape Reinga in the north to Bluff in the south, pass through Birchwood Station.
A view from Birchwood Station, which hosts a section of Te Araroa Trail. Photo: Birchwood Station
It’s not uncommon for Te Araroa to cross private land.
Since establishing the trail in 2011, Te Araroa Trust has stitched together a world-class, continuous, usually north-south route, using scenic public land as much as possible. But occasionally, such as to minimise road walking, access needs to be negotiated through farms, forestry, and other private land.
Sarah Blair-Edie says the family enjoys sharing their unique home with walkers from around Aotearoa, and the globe.
“We’re just proud of being farmers. We have a beautiful farm, why wouldn’t we want people to see it?”
Every year, thousands of walkers from Aotearoa and around the world reach the station exhausted and starry-eyed, having passed through one of the trail’s most spectacular sections: the South Island high country.
They have one final major challenge to overcome before reaching Bluff — the Longwood Ranges, stretching from just south of Birchwood down toward Foveaux Strait.
That means the Blair-Edies’ former shearers’ quarters, now converted into walker accommodation, have become known as an inviting place to gird up for the last push: the final 150kms.
It has attained similar fame for those heading north, who are fewer in number. When they reach Birchwood, they are only about a week into the several months they will spend on the trail.
For them, Birchwood’s about drawing breath for the long, long journey ahead.
The Blair-Edies’ relationship with Te Araroa began around the time the trail was officially launched, in 2011.
Dean says it was partly due to a family connection that the family agreed to allow Te Araroa to cross their land.
“It’s a handshake agreement, nothing formal. It was a DOC [Department of Conservation] rep who put it to us, and he was a relative of my mother’s.
“He said this is Te Araroa, we’re hoping to put it through your property. We were never against it.”
Many reasons to open up
Some farmers might wonder: Why? What’s in it for you?
Dean says it’s simple hospitality.
“It’s welcoming visitors, New Zealanders as well as from overseas. It’s the long walk. It’s cool, it’s a good thing… you’ve got to share it, I think.”
He experienced the positives of public access to land while living in England some years ago.
“The rights people have to access land there is just amazing … we’re very closed-up compared to that, I think.”
Sarah agrees that hospitality is a reason.
“They’re walking past, there’s nowhere else for them to stay.”
With the nearest neighbours a day’s walk away, another reason is the benefits to the couple’s children, Lex, 10, Joe, 8, and Florence, 6.
“They’re not shy talking to people from all over the world. They’ll just chat to them. They sell them eggs: I get them to go down, do the transaction. It’s good for them.”
For pupils at a fairly remote rural school, her children are “pretty worldly”, thanks to the trail.
“Just by talking to all these different sorts – Japan, Germany, England.”
She also believes there is a reputational benefit for the sector.
“We had a Slovakian couple the other day, we were shearing the hoggets and invited them in to see what we were up to. It’s just showing people that farming is good.”
Sarah said she would encourage other farmers to consider allowing similar access to their land.
There could even be financial benefits, she said.
“The opportunity for people to make money by supporting the trail is growing. A lot of the walkers are on pretty tight budgets, but if you provided some more upmarket accommodation, I think enough people would go for it that you could make some money.”
Quarters in a storm
Sarah says the family’s relationship with the trail was pretty ad-hoc at first.
“We’d just get the odd person coming through. We’d find them camped at the side of the road. If it was a stormy night, we’d go and grab them, put them in the quarters, say ‘help yourself’. It was somewhere dry, with hot water, a fireplace, toilets and showers.”
Walker numbers began to pick up around the time Sarah stopped paid work after having Lex.
Christmas Day at Birchwood began to be a thing.
“People who don’t want to be walking, or alone, on Christmas Day. They wait it out here, knowing they are going to be looked after.”
The family’s agreement with Te Araroa Trust means the section of the trail through their land is closed for lambing from September 9 to November 9, inclusive.
From that point on, walkers doing the trail both north- and south-bound arrive pretty much every day until April.
The availability of the old shearers’ quarters is due to the shearing now being done by locals who come and go each day, unlike the old days of travelling gangs.
“The Hut”, Birchwood Station’s former shearers’ quarters, have gained fame among walkers from around the world as a cosy place to shelter — and experience a Kiwi farm. Photo: Birchwood Station
Now referred to by both the Blair-Edies and walkers as “The Hut”, it has a big bunk room with twelve beds. On a busy night, there can be as many as eight more people sleeping on mattresses on the floor, plus a tent or two pitched outside.
Sarah also holds “bounce boxes” for walkers – parcels mailed ahead containing everything from new boots and messages from home, to treats and staple trail foods.
“We’ve had a lot of great people through – some we still stay in touch with.”
Dean says there are no real negatives to having so many strangers walk through, despite some farmers’ perceptions.
“The walkers respect your property … they’re not going to steal your diesel, your tools. They’re walking the length of New Zealand – they don’t want your stuff.”
He has had many good chats with interesting characters on the trail, including an actor from Lord of the Rings who has since become a family friend.
“They walk in hot and bothered, we share a few beers. You meet people from different walks of life.”
And the early tendency for some walkers to pitch tents where they shouldn’t? Gone, because of the growing fame of The Hut.
Rewards of supporting access
Te Araroa trail manager Dan Radford said the Blair-Edies’ generosity was typical of one of the main charms of Te Araroa: it was built on, and is held together by, the goodwill of rural New Zealanders.
“Te Araroa could not exist without the private landowners that allow the trail to cross their land, and really the support and acceptance of all those that live and work on the land near it.
“But beyond that, ask anyone walking Te Araroa what makes it special, and I guarantee the ‘Sarahs and Deans’ of the trail will be right there at the top of the list.”
Dan Radford said he had often heard from landowners and others about the rewards of supporting access for the trail.
“Each summer Te Araroa takes a few thousand domestic and international travellers into parts of the country where tourism is not the main industry.
“Not to say that doesn't cause some problems, but it also makes Te Araroa what it is — an authentic and uniquely Kiwi experience that brings the world to rural New Zealand, and vice versa.
“Wherever I travel along the trail, I hear similar stories from farmers, shop owners, publicans (and their patrons) about how they enjoy the exposure, not to mention good business for a few months of the year, that they may not otherwise get living in a remote place.”
Sheep gather in the sun on a frosty morning on Birchwood Station in north-western Southland. Crossing the farm has become a favourite memory for thousands of Te Araroa walkers over the last decade or so. Photo: Birchwood Staton
Northerly-facing Birchwood station carries 20,000 stock units, mostly Romney sheep and Hereford / Angus beef cattle.
Historically, the area’s greatest claim to fame has been the Birchwood Hunt, established in 1886.
But it is now possibly even better known for a five-kilometre stretch of the nation’s trail, a warm welcome, fresh eggs, and a hot shower.
This article was written as part of a joint project between Beef + Lamb New Zealand and Herenga ā Nuku Aotearoa, the Outdoor Access Commission, to highlight the ways sheep and beef farmers around the country are supporting public access to the outdoors.
Read more
- Tararua sheep and beef farmers Marty and Debbie Hull have made their “magical” waterfall accessible to the public for the entire 20 years they have owned the farm.
- The Stuart family of historic Cable Bay Farm near Nelson has long welcomed New Zealanders and overseas visitors onto its scenic land via a public walking track.
- The Lewis and Harrison families, running neighbouring Northland farms for more than five decades, are now finding that their mutual support for a public trail is a win-win.
More information
- Interested in having public access through your land? Benefits of creating legal access on your land
- More about Te Araroa trail
- Would you or someone you know like to share a story like this? Get in touch: [email protected]