Coming home to her parent's apple orchard after two decades overseas, Elspeth Collier has made the Matahua peninsula home for her family and a relaxing getaway for countless others. Felicity Connell finds out more.
The road gently winds down a hill, past grapevines and grazing sheep, with glimpses of the Waimea Inlet, distant hills and mountain ranges.
This is the Matahua peninsula, where Elspeth Collier spent most of her childhood growing up on her parents’ apple orchard. After many years living in Wellington, London and Sydney working as a freelance photographer, it’s where she returned to just over 20 years ago.
“My parents were in their 70s and starting to talk about retiring. I was living in Sydney with my then-husband Charlie and our four-year old daughter Nina. We were ready for a change of pace after years of big city living and loved the idea of a more relaxed rural life. Rural Australia didn’t appeal, so it was a great option to return home to Matahua and Māpua,” Elspeth explains. Living close to her parents, and Nina being able to spend time with her grandparents was also a major drawcard.
Half the orchard was sold and replanted as a vineyard. On the remaining half, the apple trees came out, and a new chapter for Matahua peninsula began.
Part of its new life was to transform three apple pickers’ cottages built in the 1950s into boutique holiday accommodation. Perched at the end of the peninsula, all three cottages have stunning views across the inlet to vineyards, orchards and mountains.
“The idea to renovate the cottages for holiday accommodation was hatched in Sydney. We lived down the road from a huge auction house. Every week, we would bid for furniture from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Back then it still sold for a song! We eventually had enough to fill a container to ship to Nelson. We arrived back in 2001 and welcomed our first guests only a few months later. After 20 years of slow and careful renovating, things are a lot more luxurious than that first season when the loos were still outside. They did have magnificent views though!”
“It’s been hard work, but also a lot of fun, especially when it comes to the interiors. I had a strong vision of what I wanted the cottages to look and feel like. It was a style that felt right for the cottages and fitted the eclectic furniture that we had collected. There is an actual term for this look now – ‘rustic luxury,’” she laughs.
For many guests, the outlook over the Waimea Inlet is the main drawcard. The inlet is the second largest estuary in the South Island, stretching between Nelson and Māpua. Its tidal nature means that there is an ever-changing play between light and water. The Inlet is famous for wading birds, and from Matahua peninsula you will often see matuku moana (white faced herons), poaka (pied stilts), kuaka (godwits), tōrea (oystercatchers), kōtuku-ngutupapa (royal spoonbills), pukeko, and occasionally a kōtuku (white heron).
“I’ve been on a huge journey over the last 20 years, learning about this unique environment and working to restore the original vegetation and bird habitat around the shore of the inlet. Nearly all the plants come from the wonderful team at Tītoki Nursery in Waimea West and are from locally-sourced seed,” Elspeth says.
“Planting, weeding and trapping are a community effort. We couldn’t have achieved what we have without the volunteers from all over the world who have been helping us from the start.”
Kim, Elspeth’s partner of 15 years, does predator trapping, checking traps around the peninsula as part of the Battle for the Banded Rail community project to protect and restore bird habitat around the whole of the Waimea Inlet.
“We have two significant natural areas (SNAs) here. One is the Matahua Saltmarsh which fringes most of the peninsula, and the other is a patch of remnant coastal forest. Over the past two years about 1,000 trees such as rimu, mātai, tōtara, kahikatea, putaputawētā, kaikōmako, and tiīoki have come to us through the Waimea Inlet Billion Trees Fund. These have been added to the coastal forest along with more than a hundred tawairauriki (black beech) trees that have been grown from the seeds of a very old beech tree which has been on the property as long as anyone can remember.”
Elspeth and Kim also have a large organic vegetable garden and home orchard, growing everything from citrus to artichokes. Breakfast for the cottage guests includes freshly laid eggs from their chickens, and jams and marmalades such as Seville orange marmalade and greengage and vanilla pod jam, all made by Elspeth from their own fruit trees. Honey comes from the beehives up the hill.
“Looking after the property is a big job, and so the volunteers that come through the Willing Workers on Organics Farms (Wwoof) scheme and Workaway are an important part of life on the peninsula. We’ve built many wonderful and enduring friendships,” Elspeth says.
“Some stay for six months or more, and even years later we’re still in touch. We’ve had chefs, architects, doctors, builders, engineers, tattoo artists, musicians, artists, and, not surprisingly, lots of environmental studies graduates.”
“It’s such a great way to exchange skills and knowledge. They get to spend time here and learn about our restoration projects and I nearly always end up learning something from them too. A recent volunteer was a chef and expert fermenter, pickler and preserver. Luckily his stay here coincided with late summer when the orchard and garden were at their peak. I learnt a lot from him about sauerkraut and how to ferment and pickle all kinds of other things.”
Like everyone else in the tourism and hospitality sector, the Covid-19 years has had a big impact.
“Pre-Covid we were focused on the international tourism market, which was very seasonal,” Elspeth says.
The big shift for The Apple Pickers’ Cottages has been the growth in the domestic market while the international borders were closed.
“We have been very lucky with the renewed interest in short, local breaks. We have a lot of repeat guests coming from Ōtautahi (Christchurch), Marlborough, and across Te Tauihu, including Nelson, wanting to go somewhere where they can get away from it all, without being too far from other options like wineries, cafes and restaurants. Māpua is just 5 minutes away by car.”
Elspeth and Kim know from first-hand experience how relaxing it is to stay in the cottages.
“A few years ago, before our own house was renovated, if there was a gap in cottage bookings we would pack up and head 50 metres down the road for a mini break. It’s very close to home but in many ways it’s a world away. It’s pretty easy to relax there, follow the rhythm of the tides, watch the wading birds amble around the saltmarsh. All three cottages are set amongst native bush and are so private and peaceful. For the romantically inclined, there have been a few marriage proposals, and some of our guests have tied the knot under the shade of the trees overlooking the inlet.”
Now that both international and national travel restrictions have been lifted, Elspeth is finding that locals are still keen to explore their own backyard. “The international guests are coming back, but for my own carbon-conscience I love hosting domestic travellers. It’s the perfect low-carbon footprint holiday for locals, especially if you bike or have an electric car!”
“We think it is a spectacular location, and we know others do too. It’s been wonderful to watch the transformation from apple orchard back to a much more natural environment over the past 20 years and to be able to share it with others. We’re planning to be here for a while yet, and leave it in good shape to hand on to the next generation.”
applepickers.nz
