• Palliser Bay Station at the bottom tip of the North Island is for sale for the first time in 30 years.
• The coastal station includes terraced fields overlooking Te Humenga Dunes and has a CV of more than $9.5 million.
• The sheep and beef breeding and finishing property with potential for diversification has already attracted interest, real estate agents say.

A huge seaside farming station at the bottom of the North Island is being sold for the first time in decades.

Palliser Bay Station occupies just over 3719ha of Wairarapa farmland, including terraced fields overlooking the ecologically significant Te Humenga Dunes, and with views across Cook Strait to the Kaikōura Ranges.

The Cape Palliser Rd station 51km southwest of Martinborough and 125km from central Wellington includes a manager’s home and shepherd’s cottage with sea views, and has a CV of $9,504,000.

A sheep and beef breeding and finishing property with potential for diversification, the station had already attracted interest, said agents Tim Wynne-Lewis, of Bayleys Havelock North, and Andrew Smith, of Bayleys Wairarapa.

Sale by tender closes on November 14 unless sold prior.

While farmed as a sheep and beef operation, the station included mānuka honey production and carbon sequestration, Wynne-Lewis said.

“Carbon farming could be further progressed on the less-productive parts of the station and the mānuka honey side of things could also be ramped up.”

Palliser Bay Station is a 3719ha sheep and beef farm on the Wairarapa coast south of Martinborough.

The station, which includes 7km of coastline, clear hill country, mixed scrub, river basins and regenerating and mature native forest, also had ecotourism, hunting and recreational tourismoptions.

Besides the three-bedroom manager’s house and shepherd’s cottage, there are two hunters’ huts and farming infrastructure including woolshed, covered sheep yards, stables and airstrip.

There are two homes on Palliser Bay Station, including a three-bedroom manager's house.

The property had long been popular with hunters by arrangement with owners, he said.

“Underpinning all of this is the sheer scale of the station and the coastal location, which is outstanding.”

The site had been important to many people across generations, Wynne-Lewis said.

“It has been owned by a series of passionate custodians and when traversing the station, it’s easy to see how it could really get under your skin, with hunters, beekeepers and archaeologists all drawn to [it] too.”

The property, which is held in five titles, has been owned by the Crawford family since the early 1990s, when they bought it from Farry McLeod, whose family had owned the station for three generations.

The land around the southern coast of Wairarapa was previously held by the Te Whāiti whanau of Ngāti Kahungunu Wairarapa, Wynne-Lewis said.

In 1927, the estate of IrāiaTeWhāiti sold two parcels of land to 20-year-old Murdoch McLeod, who also took on the lease of a neighbouring block, he said.

“Access back then was either by boat or a rough ride around the coast and the sprawling property was quite an undertaking for the young McLeod, who subsequently went into partnership with Bill McDougall, who later acquired what is now known as the Kawakawa Block.”

Murdoch’s son, Malcolm, took over the property from his father and also purchased the lease block in the 1960s.

Malcolm’s son, Farry, later farmed Palliser Bay Station until it was purchased in several titles, including the Kawakawa block, by Simon Crawford in the early 1990s.

There had been a “noticeable uplift” in inquiry and activity in the broader rural sector real estatein recent months, Wynne-Lewis said.

“Whether this is because it’s spring and people are enjoying the sun on their backs or it’s the promise of further drops in interest rates, there is confidence returning to the market and tangible interest being shown in rural assets.”

Cherie Howie is an Auckland-based reporter who joined the Herald in 2011. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years and specialises in general news and features.