Bring your workplace into nature
Nature and Nosh offer a range of unique and unplugged corporate experiences for your team to disconnect from the office and reconnect with nature.
Our packages are based at Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari (South Waikato) and can include:
- Mindful hiking to prime your brain, reduce stress, calm anxiety, boost your mood and increase clarity, promote creativity and wellbeing.
- New Zealand's first bush boardroom table! Take your planning meeting, team lunch or leadership session outdoors and unplugged!
- Wild food foraging workshops
- Unique team building in the great outdoors
- Accommodation for overnight retreats
All our corporate packages can be tailored to suit your organisation and can run from half a day to multi-day. Please view our packages to see minimum and maximum numbers.
All packages INCLUDE a built-in contribution from your company to the incredible conservation work of the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust.
Mindful hiking
There's bodies of research to support that time spent in nature reduces stress, lowers blood pressure, elevates mood and can even boost your body’s immune response.
Walking in nature can also boost creative output (divergent thinking) by 60% on average! So it's far more powerful than sitting around trying to solve a problem or come up with new ideas. In fact, Steve Jobs was known for his walking meetings. Come on a mindful hike with us - we can prime your team's creativity for an afternoon session by taking a short walk, letting their unconscious minds roam.
Step into our bush boardroom
Imagine sitting around a rustic boardroom table, underneath an ancient canopy with birdsong echoing around you.
We can offer a unique opportunity for up to 16 people to use our bush boardroom table, nestled in the pristine Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari, for a corporate meeting, team training or facilitated strategy or leadership session.
Wild Food Foraging
Did you know our native bush offers a smorgasbord of edible delights that were used in traditional Māori cooking and medicine?
Join our experts for a foraging experience and learn about the abundance the forest has to offer. Search for native plants and herbs, learn about their medicinal properties, and how Māori use them for healing and wellbeing. Try a wild food foraged spread and learn about the surprising nutritional benefits hidden in nature's bounty. *Note: We do not harvest from Maungatautari
Meaningful conservation
We are proud to work with Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari as Inspired Kaitiaki, and to offer our unique corporate packages.
A world-class conservation project, this ancient eco-system is enclosed by the longest pest-proof fence in the southern hemisphere. By removing all mammals from Maungatautari it has provided a safe environment to reintroduce some of New Zealand’s most endangered species back to their natural habitat. Show your company's commitment to conservation by making a donation or getting more hands on...
Team building in the bush
Challenge your team to an Aotearoa style survival experience in an ancient setting.
Develop strategy, leadership, team work, problem solving and communication in a unique and fun way while each team is presented with a fun survival scenario and sent off into the bush. We can also a tailor a mindful hike as a team building exercise with interactive activities along the way. Work together on our kite of kindness for a morale boosting exercise that will give everyone warm fuzzies.
Local food and wine tasting experiences
We've got the keys to the backdoor of a collection of artisan food producers in the Waikato. Our great relationships with them, means we can get your team in for a private tasting and tour at a local winery, award-winning cheese producers, gelato makers, hand-crafted chocolate from bean to bar, honey producers and more. Each experience is created to your team's tastes. Cheese tasting at our bush table anyone?
Active fun
Explore the Waikato river by kayak with the team and enjoy the magic of the Pokaiwhenua canyon with Lake District Adventures.
We can organise a fun team building activity at 'the landing', or you can simply relax as you paddle gently and enjoy stories from local guides. For something extra special, try the night time Glow worm kayak experience. As night arrives over Lake Karāpiro, paddle slowly up the stream and through the canyon carved out by water over many hundreds of years. When darkness falls, float silently back downstream, being guided by the glow worms on either side sparkling like fairy lights.
Client testimonials
"Forget the stale air traditional venue! Keeping our attention, energy levels and engagement levels high was easy in this unique and inspiring setting. From the moment you enter Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari you're treated to an enriching experience. Kylie and the team coached us through a mindful hike which made the “head noise” disappear and enabled us to have a productive and engaging team working session. Being amongst the trees around a table with no pesky technology to get in the way of good old face- to-face conversations (not presentations) was priceless. We were treated to top notch “Nosh” in a wonderful setting."
- Douw Van Der Merwe, Director, Anthem Homes
Taking care of business: Your host
Nature & Nosh owner Kylie Rae's love for the outdoors was cemented early in life, literally following footsteps of her hunter Dad, traipsing around the bush with him. After a couple of years spent hiking around the world, Kylie and her husband moved back to Aotearoa and set up Nature & Nosh Tours - a tribute to the two things they love most, hiking and food!
While innovating during the pandemic, they realised that they both often solved their business and life problems while hiking. There was something about nature and movement that gave them clarity, perspective and creativity.
Thanks to Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari, they can now offer corporate groups a completely unique and bespoke experience, while giving back to the important conservation work of the trust.
With a decade of experience in business management, conference and event organising, Kylie will ensure she designs and runs a corporate experience for your company like no other; with wellbeing and nature at the core.
More optional inclusions
- Do you have your own external facilitator? Why not suggest a session with them at our bush boardroom following a 'walking primer' - a little more exciting than a four-walled room and whiteboard!
- Team building with a twist! Build in a fun activity in the middle of your kayak tour in the Pokaiwhenua canyon!
- Give back to conservation: Is your team feeling fit and strong? Get hands on with giving back to conservation by lending a hand to the rangers by clearing monitoring tracks.
After boutique accommodation?
For overnight or multi-day retreats packages, we have a handful of local boutique accommodation providers in the area that we can suggest.
In the media: Seven Sharp tell our story
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Transport: How do we get there?
All all packages are bespoke so we can either arrange transport for you from Hamilton, Cambridge, Te Awamutu or surrounding areas, or you and the team can meet us at Maungatautari at 99 Tari Road. Although we base our packages primarily around Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari (20 minutes from Cambridge) we can also create a package for you at a different location within the Waikato or Coromandel accessing one of the over 20 walking tracks we operate on, or visiting one of the several artisan foodie producers we have great relationships with.
Fitness requirements and accessibility
We know that not everyone will be experienced when it comes to the outdoors and hiking, and that's fantastic. Getting a little out of comfort zone in safe hands is what it's all about. We can cater to most fitness levels and abilities and will work within your groups capabilities. As a rough guideline, individuals should be able to walk for an hour continuously with some incline at a comfortable pace.
100% New Zealand owned and operated business
We are a family run business who have been running highly rated hiking and food tours since 2017. We're approved DOC concession operators and we've achieved a GOLD Qualmark endorsement for our experiences.
Say hello
hello@natureandnosh.co.nz
Phone: +64 204 130 5060
