OUR STORY
ABOUT US
Long term Wanaka locals Graham and Hayley Lee bought their Albert Town property in 2004. They had a vision of transforming their land into a unique outdoor space, accessible to everyone, and dedicated to fun and adventure. What you see now is the start of this vision; there are still plans in the pipeline for an architecturally designed restaurant, children’s adventure areas, walking tracks joining up to local walkways, and more! It’s been one heck of a ride to get here and now the Hook team are so excited to have you join us on the adventure.
OUR FISH
Our lakes are stocked with Chinook Salmon, also known as King Salmon, which were introduced to our rivers as game fish in the late 1800s. New Zealand’s Chinook Salmon now rates ‘Best Choice’ by Seafood Watch and is often regarded as the best salmon in the world. Salmon is well known for its health benefits. Chinook have the highest natural oil content of all the species meaning they are packed with Omega-3 for a healthy heart, eyes, joints and brain. Not to mention high-quality protein, vitamins A, B12, D, niacin, thiamine, selenium, and iodine. We think it’s important to know where your food comes from and our number one priority is the health and quality of our fish. They are fed a high-quality, sustainable diet which is free from any antibiotics, hormones, or other artificial growth promoters.
OUR ENVIRONMENT
Without a healthy eco-system, we wouldn’t have our healthy fish. We believe that when we use the land for our enjoyment, we have a responsibility to ensure that we maintain or improve its quality.
At the end of our property you will see a swampy wetland area. This is our all-natural water treatment facility. The plants thrive by absorbing the extra nutrients (a.k.a fish poo!) and ensure that the water leaving our property is top quality – in some cases even better than when it flowed in. We perform daily, weekly, and monthly monitoring tasks to ensure everything is working and thriving how we want it to. The next step is an ‘aquaponics’ type operation where we grow vegetables for our restaurant as part of this process – a truly innovative cycle of food production.
Our beautiful wetland area is also home to many native plants, insects and birds. This area will continue to flourish over time and eventually we will open it up for you to explore and learn even more about how our world works.
We have a strict waste management policy and our aim is to reuse, recycle or recover as much as we can. The biggest challenge we have set ourselves is zero fish waste! What we don’t eat or make into stock we will compost. We are trialling a large-scale Bokashi system so that we can create super powered compost for our gardens.
OUR FUTURE
Sign-up to our mailing list to stay up to date with our progress. We will let you know how our new restaurant plans are coming along, when we have new activities for the kids, when you can come and see first-hand how our wetlands work, and any other new ideas we have along the way.
