The Clarence: New Zealand’s wild forgotten valley

Saturday, 13 June 2026

The autumn muster under way at Muzzle Station.

Lou Sanson is a former director-general of the Department of Conservation and has spent most of his life exploring and enjoying the South Island's wild places.

It’s late March and I’m on my annual back country motorcycle trip with 10 mates who I’ve spent my life knocking around in the mountains with, climbing, tramping, hunting and kayaking. Chris Milne, the former supermarket owner from Sumner in Christchurch, has organised our latest trip and gone to the extraordinary trouble of mountain biking most of our routes to check it all works.

We start at Lake Coleridge then go through Lees Valley, cross the peaks near Hanmer and take a remarkable ride high through the mountains from Oaro to the inland Kaikōura road - all through the generosity of high country farmers Chris has visited.

The rugged road into Muzzle Station climbs through steep hill country in one of New Zealand’s most isolated landscapes.

The last two days are the real highlight - a 160km trail ride over the Seaward Kaikōura Range and then following the Clarence River to the sea.

We climb to 1000m over Blind Saddle and enter a new world. Here, Thomas Pease from Muzzle Station has a team of dogs shepherding a mob of sheep to the Kaikōura stockyards along with a French farm intern. The road clings to high cliffs along Driving Spur as the mob spends its third day heading to the market from New Zealand’s most isolated farm - The Muzzle (named after a tight canyon just downstream from the homestead that looks like the muzzle of a shotgun). It is a breathtaking sight seeing the sheep coming off the steep mountain pass with sheer drops into canyons below us.

As we ride down into the Clarence Reserve the rose hip bushes are loaded with bright red berries, stags are roaring in the mānuka forest next to the road and the landscape changes dramatically. There are towering rough cast mountains with exposed twisted geological formations and crystal clear streams - it’s like entering a different world. New Zealand’s only “badlands” are strikingly reminiscent of Arizona and Colorado’s canyons and mountains. We meet two hunters who have just shot 12 and 14-point stags using ATVs and are as proud as punch as they hang strings of venison in a willow tree next to their camp.

Lou Sanson’s group of motorcyclists cross the Seaward Kaikōura Range during a back country ride through the remote Clarence Valley.

It is so good to be back in the Clarence and reflect on years of trips hunting, mountain biking and 4WDing here, along with kayaking and jet boating the incredible river valley. The road in is in the best shape I have ever seen it, proudly maintained by Muzzle Station. A $100 fee per vehicle covers the cost of maintaining it - one of our country’s wildest and most spectacular farm roads. No-one really wanted to pay local government or the Department of Conservation (DOC) to access this area, but are happy to pay Muzzle Station for road maintenance. Bikers help too and are charged $50.

Guy Redfern meets us at the ford across the Clarence with his large John Deere articulated tractor and river trailer. We ride all 10 motorbikes on and in no time are unloading on the other side.

The Muzzle Station homestead sits among a stunning grove of giant elms, towering poplars, birch, eucalypts, and fruit trees reflecting the fact it’s one of the oldest continually managed high country stations in New Zealand. It certainly is our most remote, with a three-hour drive over the Kaikōura mountains to the nearest shop. First farmed in 1860, it still has the original cob cottage, today festooned with delicious black grapes across the verandah that were planted more than 160 years ago. Old dray wheels sit in the paddock surrounded by hardy farm horses - the lifeblood of farming here.

Dwayne the cat's exploits were turned into a book, The Cat From Muzzle.

On the front porch is famous tabby cat Dwayne. When Guy’s parents-in-law, Colin and Tina Nimmo, left the farm to move to Kaikōura in 2015, Dwayne flew out in the farm plane with them, but vanished not long after. Seven weeks later, the cat turned up back at the original homestead having crossed the 1300m Seaward Kaikōuras and swum the mighty Clarence River. This amazing story hit the news throughout New Zealand and Dwayne became the star of a children's book, Cat From The Muzzle.

Guy and his wife Fiona farm 1100 hereford cattle and 7000 merino sheep over 16,600 hectares of their own land along with DOC-leased land. Fiona’s parents, Tina and Colin, had bought the station in 1980 and succeeded against the odds in farming it. Farming had been forced off three times previously by rabbits, isolation and poor stock prices. The Nimmos succeeded by investing in vehicles that can cross the Clarence, a truck that can take 40 bales of wool to Kaikōura over the 1000m alpine pass, and their superb use of horses and aircraft.

Fiona still flies the farm’s 1940 Auster aircraft purchased by her parents in 1980 to do the groceries when rain or snow makes the clay farm tracks unpassable. Now over 80 years old, the plane served years doing the run to and from the children’s boarding school in Kaikōura. Guy flies a Robinson R44 helicopter and a Cessna 180. A jet boat sits in the hangar for the times the Clarence is too high and dirty to cross. Every base is covered due to the farm’s isolation and distance from help.

The 1940 Auster aircraft remains a vital lifeline for one of New Zealand’s most isolated farms.

We are put up in the shearers’ quarters and Fiona has cooked us a delicious lamb roast with home-made bread - though Guy jokes it’s “not merino lamb as that is far too valuable to feed to you lot”.

The woolshed is stunning - the result of 38 truck and trailer trips bringing in materials in six-hour return expeditions. It is covered with prize ribbons for best merino sheep and wool and dog trail successes. Their market is to some of the best wool brands in the world: Icebreaker, All Birds and Mons Royale.

The valley’s natural and cultural history is fascinating. In Māori mythology, the hugely dissected landscape and towering 2000m mountains are linked to the story of two rivers - Waiau Uwha (the Waiau River) and Waiau Toa (the Clarence River) - who were lovers that drifted apart. Large spring floods are said to be the broken-hearted lovers’ tears as winter snows melt into the rivers.

Muzzle Station musterer Thomas Pease moves sheep through the rugged high country near Blind Saddle in the Clarence Valley.

For Māori, the valley was once the realm of the grassland moa and Haast’s eagle/pouākai, which roamed the dryland landscape of tussock grassland, cabbage trees and matagouri. Today, we see some of New Zealand’s most unique rock and scree plants, including the Marlborough daisy and lilac, along with 12 species of lizard and three species of giant wētā. The number of endemic species here is startling for such a dry place.

Geologically, the landscape behind the Māori mythology was shaped by two giant fault systems branching from the Alpine Fault, uplifting the Inland and Seaward Kaikōura ranges. Today, this tortured and twisted terrain shows thousands of years of fault contortion and Earth’s deep heat and pressure. These rock formations and vivid red volcanic bands set among barren ridges and deeply dissected gorges create scenes like no other in the country.

Just down from Muzzle Station is one of the world’s great geological formations: the Iridium Line - a razor-thin worldwide layer of clay created at the exact moment a giant asteroid struck Earth near Mexico, wiping out the dinosaurs.

The original cob cottage at Muzzle Station, built in 1860, still stands more than 160 years after it was built.

Historically, the Clarence Valley dates back to some of the first high country farming in New Zealand. Bluff Station and the Warden Run were first farmed in 1860, with sheep driven in from the Awatere Valley. The cob buildings at Muzzle and Quail Flat — made from clay, tussock and cow dung — stand as a unique testament to that era, although the Muzzle buildings were seriously damaged in the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake. DOC has since done a wonderful restoration job on the Quail Flat cookhouse, barn, shepherds’ quarters and musterers’ huts.

By 1879, Joseph Ward had 47,000 sheep in the Clarence Reserve. When rabbits inevitably arrived in 1909, the grass virtually disappeared, with entire hillsides seeming to move beneath swarms of rabbits. Cats were later released to control the rabbits, leading instead to an abundance of feral cats.

Sweet briar rose was introduced so its fruit could be used to make jam for poisoning rabbits, but it quickly spread out of control. By the 1920s, several farmers had been driven off the land, and vast quantities of carrots were being grown at Quail Flat to produce rabbit poison.

Autumn colours begin to spread along the Clarence River as willows and poplars turn gold beside the water.

At one stage, rabbiters were making more money from rabbit skins than sheep, and at the peak of the infestation were killing 300,000 rabbits a year. Aerial control operations eventually began in 1948 using an Auster aircraft, helping turn the tide against the rabbits’ destruction.

A bounty on kea was introduced in the 1930s in an effort to protect sheep. Cattle were first brought in during the 1950s, but soon faced the threat of bovine TB, which had become endemic in the Clarence Reserve. Along with blowfly strike and extremes of heat and cold, it was one hell of a place to farm.

In 1961, the New Zealand Forest Service started deer culling shortly after the first road was built over the Seaward Kaikōura Range. The way forward to farm the Clarence successfully had become a reality.

Cattle are moved through the rugged Clarence Valley high country.

In 1980, Tina and Colin Nimmo purchased part of Bluff Station to try a new approach at The Muzzle.

In 1993, the Government’s Nature Heritage Fund moved to protect the 52,000ha Clarence Reserve Pastoral Occupation Licence through covenants and land purchase. The grazing licence stretched from the crest of the Seaward Kaikōura Range down to the Clarence River, but the farming operation had fallen into difficulty.

The fund recognised that while much of the area contained very high biodiversity values, there were serious problems with feral cattle, goats, and weeds, especially in the lower areas near the river that were suitable for sustainable grazing. An 8000ha special grazing lease was created across the floor of the Clarence Valley, with public access, pest control and fire management becoming priorities for DOC.

A rider makes their way through Muzzle Station.

Today, the protected area is larger than many of New Zealand’s national parks.

In 2002, Forest & Bird proposed a network of reserves running all the way from the summit of Mt Tapuae-o-Uenuku (2885m) to the Kaikōura coast, incorporating some of New Zealand’s finest dryland flora and fauna, as part of a proposed Kaikōura National Park.

The Clarence Valley’s rugged drylands landscape are not unsimilar to the canyon country of Arizona and Colorado.

The plan was declined by the New Zealand Conservation Authority, and no new national parks have been created in New Zealand since. The most recent was Rakiura National Park in 2002, which I led as conservator of Southland.

In 2007, Tina and Colin went through tenure review for The Muzzle pastoral lease. This resulted in DOC taking over 11,000ha of land, mostly high in the Inland Kaikōura Range, while also protecting some botanically rich areas, particularly those on limestone soils and bluffs.

The 8000ha DOC Special Lease across former Clarence Reserve land in the Seaward Kaikōuras was granted to The Muzzle for 30 years. The Nature Heritage Fund purchase agreement also provided Muzzle Station with secure access south over Blind Saddle as an alternative route to civilisation, rather than relying solely on northern access through Bluff Station.

In 2008, the Government finally agreed to create the 90,000ha Ka Whata Tū o Rākihouia Conservation Park, recognising the unique drylands landscapes and ecology and encouraging public access to the area.

Legendary DOC ranger Mike Morrissey shot more than 500 TB-infected wild cattle in a week to reduce the threat to farming. The Nimmos were granted the special grazing lease over the lower 8000ha of the DOC land to help reduce briar, broom and willows. This partnership between farming and conservation is now a model for high country management, also replicated on the adjacent Molesworth Station, with recreation and biodiversity protection prioritised alongside farming.

Today Guy and Fiona follow in Fiona’s parents’ footsteps with increasing diversification into sheep, cattle, horses, and 680 beehives creating blue borage honey. I first met them 15 years ago on a jet boating trip up the Clarence when Fiona had newborn baby Arthur. As she said at the time, “Arthur is probably the most isolated baby in the country.” Arthur, now 15 and his sister Matilda 11, were both brought up at Muzzle Station. To return and see how great their farm looks now was a real privilege.

I still recall the magical spots on the river from kayaking, jet boating and hunting trips, the incredible pure huge mataī forest in the lower Clarence, the challenging rapids “Jawbreaker” and “Nosecrusher” - named after past accidents, the deep blue gorges and the incredible sound of crickets around the campfire at night, and the Milky Way looking like a bed of twinkling gems in the dark sky above.

The relationship with DOC remains close, but at times is strained by constantly changing staff and priorities around weed control. When I was in charge of DOC, I could sense some of that frustration.

Following the Cave Creek tragedy, new capital funding led to a chain of modern huts being built down the river to encourage commercial and recreational rafting opportunities. But no-one had checked with the rafting operators who preferred the magic of camping on the river, with night-time fires on the riverbed.

I was hugely encouraged to see a bid from Kaikōura community to construct a new Great Walk linking the Clarence to Molesworth through the stunningly beautiful Lake McRae. After a full evaluation, the Hump Track was chosen ahead of the Clarence-Molesworth Great Walk. Its time may yet come, given the international success of New Zealand’s Great Walk network.

This remarkable landscape still faces new threats. Exploding deer populations in the Seaward Kaikōuras are moving west, broom from the Clarence headwaters near Hanmer is slowly strangling the gorgeous river flats. (A New Zealand leading research experiment with control by broom mites has faded.) Wilding pines from neighbouring Molesworth Station will inevitably blow over the inland Kaikōura mountains. Fire in this windy valley where temperatures can reach 40C remain a constant threat, and sadly lupin have just come in on vehicle tyres down the major access route.

In many ways, this cherished and little-known New Zealand landscape is what it is today because of a handful of high country farmers who live and work in such an isolated place: the Redferns at Muzzle Station and the Murrays at Bluff Station. The future of this magnificent country sits in their hands, alongside the work DOC does on pests and weeds. Remarkably, after so many attempts and failures under their care, it still produces some of the finest merino wool and best beef in the country.

It really is a privilege to visit one of New Zealand’s most isolated farms and rivers at such a stunning time of the year. Our ride out becomes curtailed by the cyclone moving south and after 3mm of rain the farm tracks become too slick and greasy for the motorbikes. We sit and wait for it all to dry out. Here the Clarence River rules as it has done so for hundreds of years. The power of nature here has to be seen to be believed - there is nowhere else like it in New Zealand.