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Wapiti Park Homestead

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Wapiti Park Homestead is a hosted villa that offers you an extraordinary opportunity to share genuine West Coast Elk farm life, close to spectacular World Heritage landscapes and remarkable outdoor and sporting opportunities. Grant and Beverleigh Muir promise the perfect leisurely mid-point stopover when touring to or from Queenstown, and for exploring the raw beauty of the Franz Josef or Fox glaciers.

Surrounding the modern country homestead are acres of parkland, the home of NZ's only herd of pedigree Rocky Mountain Elk: Wapiti is their Shawnee Indian name and means 'deer with a white rump'. Farm tours are a must, particularly at calving time. Helicopter flights from Wapiti to the wilderness to hunt chamois and Himalayan that attract hunters from round the world, and so a significant focus of the house is a magnificent trophy room.

The main bedrooms upstairs are truly spacious with high cathedral ceilings, en-suites, and a charming shared sitting room with calming vistas of grazing Wapiti, exactly what is needed after a spectacular drive through Arthur's Pass. The ground floor features an enormous lounge and the separate trophy room/games room which also displays Grant's startling example of quite how big brown trout can grow in West Coast waters.

Grant usually cooks the lodge's bounteous country breakfasts and dinners, served in a very comfortable separate dining room - whatever else is offered, beg for a bowl of his rightly-famed, chunky tomato and basil soup. The Lodge's extensive wine list features a selection of outstanding North and South Island wines.

Be certain you stay more than one night. Just north are the fishing and sporting attractions of Lake Ianthe, perhaps one of the West Coast's most beautiful and dramatic, and home to the endangered water-bird, the Southern Crested Grebe. Southwards are the Glaciers and World Heritage country with jet boat trips down the Waitangi river into pristine New Zealand native bush: October to February offers privileged visits to remote nestings of kotuku, NZ's rare white heron.

A stay at Wapiti Park Homestead means you'll share the life of native West Coasters, eat and drink wonderfully, relax completely. You'll continue your West Coast journey with memories for a lifetime - and a promise to yourself you'll come back.

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