Royalburn Station owners Nadia Lim and Carlos Bagrie hosted 142 people at their high country station, on the Crown Terrace, in the first of three planned open days.
All money from ticket sales will be split evenly between KiwiHarvest Queenstown, Arrowtown’s Baskets of Blessing and nationwide charity Garden to Table.
Lim, a chef and entrepreneur, and Bagrie, a fifth-generation farmer who recently won a Nuffield Scholarship, have owned the regenerative alpine farm for just over five years.
"We just had a lot of people interested in visiting the farm and we thought why don’t we open up the farm, but at the same time kill two birds with one stone and raise some money for charities?," Lim said.
"The feedback, from what I’ve heard, has been awesome.
"It’s not like a touristy show farm, this is a real working farm and I wasn’t sure if people were going to like that or not, but people seem to really love the fact it’s really real — we haven’t changed anything, it’s just been business as normal, with how the farm’s staff are working, which is really cool."
Two more tours are scheduled, on February 5 and March 3.
