Paul Wilson - A Good Kiwi Bloke
As a youngster growing up in Frankton during the 1960s, Paul Wilson enjoyed the life of Riley – summers were hot and winters were big, skating on ice, fishing, biking, and roaming the hillsides.
His parents Dick and Noeleen Wilson owned the first Frankton service station and general store during the 1950s. His dad then built a new service station where the Mobil Station is now. “Our house was right beside that, where McDonald’s Restaurant is now. You could look through and see everyone’s clothes lines made from Number 8 wire.”
“Our playground was down at the river or lake, eeling, fishing or swimming, skiing and skating in winter,” he says.
Dick and Noeleen owned the Frankton Beach ice cream stand, often manned by their kids. “Frankton Beach would be absolutely packed with people in summer.”
Freshly-laid eggs and manure for Dick’s garden were collected from the chicken farm where Kawarau Place is now.
Every Friday Paul’s mum sent the family to eat out at Lakes Restaurant at the top of the Mall.
As a kid Paul watched the spectacular White Star Hotel fire in central Queenstown as it burnt to the ground on New Year’s Day, 1970.
“If you were smart enough as a teenager you knew how to get into Buckham’s Brewery (Novotel Gardens site now) and try to get a few beers or drinks.” Not surprisingly, he got “a few boots up the backside” from Queenstown’s notorious Police Sergeant Warwick Maloney when he got out of line.
Fourth out of seven children, Paul had two fantastic role models as a kid. My godmother, Mary Aitken, lived up the Rees Valley and ran Paradise House back when tourists came and went on the Earnslaw.” Paul would travel up on the Earnslaw and spend his summer holidays there. “I have great memories of early days on the Earnslaw. Glenorchy is still my special place.” A widow with six kids, Mary taught Paul “the Glenorchy way of life”. “I’d sit up and listen to her stories.”
“My other mentor was my 1970s school teacher, Willie Solomon, who’d take us boys up to the Branches Station and Jardine’s woolshed for the weekend,” says Paul. “He’d take us eeling and camping as our parents were all busy at the time.”
“Willie took me to his home patch in the Far North on the Railway bus and train when I was nine or 10 and I have him to thank for immersing me in Maori culture.” Willie is still a close friend 50 years on and visits the Wilson family’s Kiwi Birdlife Park to help plant native trees. “That early Maori teaching is now reflected in the park’s programmes,” says Paul.
In the 1980s Paul got invited to train as a chef at Queenstown Travelodge. “It was the place to eat then.” A keen hunter, Paul clicked with the German chefs who loved to hunt deer, venison, hare, and to fish.
He went on to have a successful chef career around Australia, opening a restaurant in the Kakadu National Park, near Darwin, with its large wildlife sanctuary and strong Aboriginal focus.
Then Dick had an idea. “People would come into the garage and ask Dad where they could see kiwi. There was an old refuge dump site in town with a spring so Dad applied to use it for a Kiwi Birdlife Park in the mid-1980s,” says Paul, who quit his successful chef career and headed home to help.
Paul, along with his wife Sandra, has run the park for 36 years breeding many threatened New Zealand native birds, including kiwi, with great success at what is now internationally renowned as one of New Zealand’s most renowned bird sanctuaries. The park, has won multiple awards within the zoo and tourism industries and is also renowned for its involvement in breeding programmes with DOC, originally the Wildlife Service.
These days son Richard and daughter Gemma are at the helm and he’s enjoying stepping back to focus on his regenerative farming projects in the Glenorchy area. Paul’s passionate about conservation and reckons if we don’t correct our soils climate change will only continue to reach catastrophic levels. “We managed to keep the whole Kiwi Birdlife Park team employed through Covid with regenerative farming projects, planting the likes of sunflowers, clover and linseed to enrich the soils and using them for stock feed.”
The Wilson family’s other passion is supporting young people with mental health challenges, after the tragic loss of Paul and Sandra’s eldest daughter at 19. The family now donates thousands of dollars a year through Wakatipu High School, awarding two scholarships, including the Sophie Wilson Award, to a student of the school’s choosing facing mental health issues. That money helps fund University. The family also funds counselling or support for another student, nominated by the school, who is suffering mental health issues. “It’s wonderful to see how this issue is being brought out in the open now,” says Paul.
He now owns a property in the Rees Valley and is settled there, where everybody knows each other and they still have time to stop and chat.
“Queenstown will never lose its spectacular charm. People love it,” he says. “But it’s becoming a city and the development and upgrades are necessary. You once went to Eichardt’s and The Mountaineer for a beer and did your business there, talking over a jug, but we need a large council team to run the place now with these big numbers. The upgrades will all be worthwhile in the end.”
