Te Mania - The Land
Matai Peak is located on Te Mania - one of New Zealand’s most iconic Angus stud farms. Te Mania is the largest Registered Angus seed stock producer in New Zealand.
In February 1928, Mr Frank Armstrong of Akitio, Southern Hawke’s Bay gave his daughter Esther, on her marriage to Edwin Wilding, four top Angus cows and an outstanding bull Tiniber Bay of Akitio. These were the founding cows of the Te Mania herd. In 1934 the Wilding family, together with the cattle, moved to Conway Flat in North Canterbury to a property named Te Mania.
In 1982 Tim and Katie Wilding took over the Te Mania herd. Tim continued with a performance driven cattle breeding programme. This resulted in Te Mania being the first New Zealand herd to use Australasia Group BREEDPLAN. In the mid 1990s a joint venture was set up in China and two plane loads of heifers went from Te Mania to establish this joint venture in Northern China. Through the acquisition of more land and the use of ET and AI, saw the herd expand rapidly to over 800 breeding cows.
Today the fourth generation of the Wilding family are responsible for the running of Te Mania with Will Wilding looking after the cattle operation and Sam Wilding overseeing the agronomy and events.
On your visit, you will have the opportunity to find out more about our history and experience this very special part of the world for yourself.
Our Footprint
Te Mania has a proud record of environmental protection with a large portion of the property in QE11 covenant that has been fenced off to allow the regeneration of the unique coastal native bush and bird species to occur. The property has been managed and farmed under strict Biological farming principles for over ten years and has a policy of not using any fossil fuel based fertilisers and limited spraying to ensure the health of the soil biology and our farming environment is protected.
We have implemented a planting program around the hut where we would like our guests to join us in leaving their mark by planting a native tree or shrub that is local to the area. By planting, we create a long-term carbon sink offsetting a proportion of carbon produced by travel and our operations. Just as important, we help replenish the local vegetation and thereby support the native bird populations, which include rare and endangered species.
