WHAKAHORO

On the evening of March 19th 2010 many New Zealanders settled in to watch a popular TV show called Country Calendar. It featured the hard-slog activities of a tough young central North Island farmer named Dan Steele and chronicled his imaginative, innovative efforts to turn his central North Island farm into a profitable enterprise.

Whereas Dan admitted that the land was, by and large, unsuitable for farming and should never have been broken in for that purpose, he had found that the remote location offered plenty of other business opportunities. It had great scenic beauty, within an exquisite confluence of rugged high hills and serene valleys, through which multiple major rivers or small tributaries flowed. There was ample scope to see rare species of native fauna and flora, which had all but disappeared from other centres around New Zealand. This steep and difficult hinterland gave visitors a real glimpse of what much of New Zealand used to be like as untamed wilderness.

Dan had found that there was ample tourist potential amidst the rugged beauty of his remote, back-of-beyond farm and built several valley lodges for hunters, backpackers and nature-lovers. As a part of ongoing development, he envisioned that his farm also needed a high country lodge offering stunning views out to the three majestic volcano's of the central plateau eastwards or Mt. Taranaki to the West. During the filming sequence for Country Calendar he took the interviewer to this highest point of his farm ... and then things started to get particularly interesting.

[link to www.celticnz.co.nz]