Guilty by Association As many readers will know, following Covid, we have taken River Valley in a different direction. This different direction involves purposefully dropping the availability of accommodation at the Lodge. In particular, repurposing the space that was backpacker dorm rooms to a lovely big open meeting room, the development of new ensuited accommodation, [...]
Humpty Dumpty – Can it Be Put Back Together Again? It is a shambles. No floor, no ceiling cladding, no wall cladding. Old pink batts. The main lodge floor piled up with kitchen equipment, container after container of kitchen “stuff”, ovens and dishwasher sitting forlornly in the lounge area, and finally, load after load of [...]
Can Tourism Help Small Communities? Here are a few thoughts and observations regarding the effects of tourism on small communities after having just ridden the Alps to Ocean Cycleway. The Alps to Ocean Cycleway is one of New Zealand’s Great Rides. It starts at either Aoraki/Mt. Cook or at Tekapo. Over the following days of [...]
Fresh Eyes: What a Fantastic Country We Live In Some friends recently stayed at home with their motorhome for a few days. From Taihape, they journeyed south to explore Cape Palliser, Castle Point and Riversdale Beach, all on the Southeast Coast of the North Island. Amongst the messages, I got from them was this one. [...]
The Return of What Was Missing In one of my last posts, I recounted Cyclone Gabrielle's effects on one of our trap lines. Roughly one-third of the traps are gone, with the Rangitikei River reaching heights not seen for decades and certainly not since most of the traps were initially installed some ten years ago. [...]
Gabrielle, The River, and The Birds Last week I spent a day checking the Stoat trap line we have downstream from River Valley Lodge on the Rangitikei River. This particular line of about 40 traps consists of a mix of DOC 200 single and double, kill traps. The primary target species are stoats, but we [...]
Loops We have had quite a few cyclists staying at River Valley Lodge over the last few months. These have varied from couples to cycling-orientated tour groups. Some have used our hire e-bikes, but many brought along their own bikes – a mix of gravel, standard pedal mountain bikes, and e-bikes. It has been really [...]
Picking Yourself Up Again Picking Yourself Up Again I can only barely comprehend the scale of damage that Cyclone Gabrielle has wrought on parts of the North Island, especially just over the Ruahine Range in Hawkes Bay. There will be a staggering cost in money, materials, time and mental health before the devastation is remotely [...]
It is Always Good to Get a Gold Award What’s Qualmark? That was a comment from one of our more senior guides at a recent guides meeting where I mentioned that we had recently been assessed to Qualmark Gold under Qualmark’s Enviro awards. While we are delighted, of course, to have been assessed to this [...]
To Take That Photo or Not? Over the last few years, farming and farmers have taken a bad rap. Most of this bad rap has been driven by the impact farming practices have on the environment. These impacts range from methane emissions from bovine animals, cattle in particular, contributing to global climate change, to the [...]
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thelodge@rivervalley.co.nz / 0800 248666
