As a crow (or more appropriately, perhaps a majestic South Island Eastern Falcon) might fly, it is only 20kms from Omarama, at the southern end of the Mackenzie Country, to St Bathans, tucked, as it is into a narrow little valley to the north-west of the South Island’s great inland plain, the Maniototo.
In between, however are the tawny tucks and folds of the Hawkdun Ranges, and therein lies a challenge to spark the imagination and light the eyes of anyone with a 4WD and/or a sense of adventure.
Welcome to the Oteake Conservation Park. It’s grand, majestic ‘Big Sky’ country, and despite its open, seemingly benign nature can cut up rough as quickly as any in the South. As I write this, torrential rain in early January has closed…