Crowdfunded Central Otago ecoretreat looking for management team

A CROWDFUNDING campaign to establish a Central Otago wellness retreat will not begin until a New Zealandbased management team is found.

The idea of creating an ecofriendly tourist village, therapeutic spa and ‘‘sustainable’’ farm is the brainchild of Czech national Hana Fisherova, of Christchurch.

In July, Mrs Fisherova approached the Otago Daily

in Oamaru, as she and an associate began to look at land they believed would be suitable for a coowned village, spa and farm, to launch a crowdfunding effort in the style inspired by campaigns when in 2016 more than 35,000 people gave about $2.3 million to buy Awaroa beach in Abel Tasman National Park.

After creating an online presence for ‘‘Happy Hills’’ and scouting out what she believed was a suitable location for the balneotherapy — a hydrotherapy approach to the treatment of disease — retreat, the proposed Happy Hills site had been found, she said, at Earnscleugh.

The 1,142ha plot she found had four natural springs.

‘‘Slowly, slowly we have created a team that is working right now,’’ Mrs Fisherova said.

‘‘The main thing is really to involve local people.

‘‘My role is really only to create the project. I would be happy to see that it is in the good hands of other people.’’

The Kiwi management team she was seeking would include about half a dozen New Zealanders, ‘‘specialists ’’ in project management, tourism, hospitality, health services, farming, horticulture, construction, the arts, or event management.

The two Russian partners who started the project with her had backed off and left New Zealand, she said.

But Mrs Fisherova remained optimistic about the possibility of finding likeminded people to develop the site and build up to 100 log cabins on the site at Lake Dunstan.