Darryl Wilson is the seventh generation of the Hadfields, who were one of the first European families to settle in the greater Nelson region, arriving in 1841. Darryl Wilson's mother was a Hadfield before marriage — and today he heads the award-winning, family-owned Wilsons Abel Tasman — the region's leading tourist operator.
The Hadfield family has had a long and constant involvement in the Abel Tasman, long before it became a national park. The original Hadfield homestead, on the Awapoto River, stands on 793 hectares of privately owned land within the park. It was offered for purchase to the Nature Heritage Trust and purchased by them in November last year.
There is enormous pride in the history and the heritage of the Hadfield family's involvement in the area and a major history on the family — Awaroa Legacy — was published in 1999.
The Wilsons have been tourism operators in the Abel Tasman since 1977. But the story really started in 1968 when Darryl's father, John Wilson built a launch, Matangi, at his home in Riwaka for the family to use in the waters off the park and the family bought holiday home at Torrent Bay.
A fortuitous wreck
This is pretty much where the story might have ended if a boat bringing visitors to the park had not been wrecked in a storm in 1975. That made John Wilson think about the potential for tourism in the park and he had the Matangi surveyed to operate as a commercial passenger vessel.
This worked so well that seven years later the family was granted a concession to take guided walks into the park and the cottage at Torrent Bay was extended for the first time to provide comfortable overnight accommodation.
Expanding services
Six years after that the company ordered a purpose built, 148 seater boat, the Abel Tasman Explorer, from Jack Guard, the legendary Nelson boat builder, and got into the tourist business in a very meaningful way. In 1994 the Wilson family rebuilt the original Hadfield homestead, Meadowbank, at Awaroa to operate as a 22 bed lodge with en suite bathrooms for people on the guided walks.
The next year sea kayaking was offered as another service and in 2001 the third rebuild of the Torrent Bay Lodge was completed with 13 single/double bedrooms with en suites.
Since then Darryl Wilson has taken over the running of the company and it's now an internationally recognised operator in the Abel Tasman National Park with a host of awards behind it.
Read about Abel Tasman here