Private Royalburn Station farm tour

Your guided tour takes in the livestock, the sunflowers and grain fields, the hen house and the market garden, alongside the people who grow the food and care for the animals. It is a personal, immersive look at real farm life. From there a private wine tasting awaits with Mora Wines, hosted on-site amid the farm's beautiful setting. You taste across Mora's premium Central Otago range of Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Bubbles and Rosé, each with its own character, and hear the story behind the wines and the people who make them.

Lunch follows at Prohibition House, a restored 1920s cottage on the station offering a secluded, intimate setting with sweeping rural views. A private chef prepares a farm-to-plate spread of barbecued meats, locally grown salads and vegetables, fresh baked breads, charcuterie and dessert.

From there the road winds down into the basin to Ayrburn, a farm first worked in the 1860s whose stone buildings have been restored as a cluster of restaurants, bars and gardens along Mill Creek, each named for the job the building once did: the Woolshed, the Dairy, the Manure Room. There is time for a glass or a coffee in the gardens before the last few minutes to Arrowtown, the best-preserved gold-rush town in the country, for an unhurried wander along Buckingham Street and down to the Chinese settlement by the creek, and then the drive back to your hotel.