Mandy de Vries (Herron) - Mountain kid-turned-tourism entrepreneur

She grew up in the rugged Wakatipu backcountry – resilient and independent, ready to give anything a go, so it’s hardly surprising that Mandy de Vries (Herron) now runs an innovative, award-winning tourism business in Fiji.

The middle of three girls, Mandy’s British mother Alexa Herron displayed that same gutsy resilience, arriving from London and falling in love with their dad, her “Kiwi outback cowboy”, Branches Station owner Lin Herron.

Born in Queenstown in 1966, Mandy was a preschooler during the Herron’s Branches Station days, there until she was five. However, there were many fun holidays there with the Herron’s successors, Lorraine and Arthur Borrell and their children – family friends growing up.

“Dad had a serious helicopter crash with (Sir) Tim Wallis and broke his back, so we moved to our Frankton house, where Mum based with us over winter,” Mandy says.

There was a farming stint in Palmerston, near Dunedin, where the three mountain girls rode their ponies in the sea while the seals swam alongside.
“We all got a pony for our 7th birthday. My birthday fell while we were in England visiting grandparents, so I was gutted. I got a Cindy doll horse,” she laughs, but the real deal arrived back home.

Lin, a skilled horseman, taught them to ride bareback so they could hold on.

Later, while on Wakatipu High School Branches Camp - founded and welcomed during the Herron’s station days, Mandy and her friends would “sneak up to the house” to Lorraine for fresh scones, scared they’d be caught by teacher Ian Daniel.

Lin bought the 15,782ha (39,000-acre) Ben Lomond Station and they moved into Moonlight Lodge high above Arthurs Point. “We discovered we could smack out a week’s Correspondence School work in one and a half days. We all had working dogs and we’d head out mustering with Dad,” Mandy says.

The large dining room with 10 huge tables, massive dance floor, bar and big open fire attracted many conference groups, the girls and their Queenstown mates, waitressing. “Barry Thomas gave us beautiful pearl necklaces for doing the Skyline conference one year.”

They’d roam free on their ponies. “It’s a wonder we survived,” Mandy says. “We’d climb down a cliff to a dangerous spot on the Moonlight River and swim. The current swept us under a rock, and my older sister, Jackie, had to pull us out.”

Kiwi backcountry icon and writer Barry Crump and his wife moved into the Seffertown huts on the station, an historic site where Barry mined.

“He’d be barman at the conferences and parties at the lodge. Dad would bring his horse, Tony, into the bar. Barry would say, ‘What would you like there, Tony?’ and pour Tony a big glass of beer which he drank.” The three girls and their friends were always on hand for impromptu shows – tennis racquet handles made great microphones.

Pioneer Kiwi filmmaker Grahame McLean, who bought McConnachies Cottage on the station, even enlisted their talents, the Herron kids starring in a movie that he and renowned Kiwi director Lee Tamahori made. “Dad starred, galloping over the hill with a gun in his hand.

“Mum thought we were getting a bit wild, so they built a house at Arthurs Point and we went back to school in Queenstown.” They’d still ride back to Moonlight at weekends crossing rockfall and slips.

Possum trapping from age 11 earned $400 in a year and the girls bought a Welsh pony and gig.

At 17 Mandy left school, trying newspaper sales for Mountain Scene. “They sent me to Te Anau, not allowed to return until I sold ads.”

A keen photographer, she worked for Jan Warwick at Smile Click, photographing skiers, Kawarau Jet and the Earnslaw.

At 21 she headed overseas with a friend who nannied for a film director and Mandy scored work exercising Quarter Horses in the mountains for a movie stunt man. Here she learned barrel racing was not the Glenorchy Races kind!

Back in New Zealand staying with Barry Crump and his new partner, Mandy discovered his old short stories and poems, never published, and created a book, later used in high schools as a great example of Kiwi publishing.

With her first husband she headed to Western Australia and Alaska, narrowly escaping being mauled by a mother bear while goldmining in the mountains.

Back in Queenstown they started a very successful dial-a-delivery business while raising two small daughters.

After a move north to Patumahoe she worked for the IRD in Manukau, flying home each year for duck shooting at Jackie’s farm in Athol.

A promotion to Dunedin later proved too cold and Mandy and now husband Howie de Vries, a Queenstown tourism photography entrepreneur, moved to Fiji where he founded their award-winning modified electric bike tour business – Ecotrax.

They scored a 20-minute segment on primetime Australian TV starring on Bachelor in Paradise Australia in 2018. “It went absolutely mad and has never stopped. We’re always booked three months in advance,” she says.

And with four grandkids in tow now, so is their beachfront home!