About Backcountry NZ
Backcountry New Zealand is committed to its clients, it is important that your experience in New Zealand is memorable and exceeds your expectations. We have been operating guiding services since 1990, and have been recreating and working in the New Zealand backcountry for as long as we can remember.
Getting our clients into areas that are unique and far from the maddening crowds is an important focus for us. We are able to achieve this through our relationships with private landowners and knowledge of our local area. Our clients to guide ratios are low so we can deliver a personalized, informative and rewarding experience. All backcountry guides have extensive experience and qualifications. We focus on a low number of quality experiences for visitors to New Zealand, so we can maintain a high service level and get to know you as an individual.
Meet the Backcountry New Zealand Team
Backcountry New Zealand’s staff love the environments they live and work within. This page introduces you to the characters you will meet on your journey and adventure in New Zealand.
Lindsay Hayman (Legs) - Head Big Game Hunting Guide
Lindsay has been a keen hunter since he was a young boy and an Alpine hunter since he was 18. With extensive hunting experience throughout the South Island and Stewart Island, Lindsay has brought a wealth of experience to the Backcountry team. Lindsay has spent his working life as a farm manager for a number of remote ranches and through this has developed some fantastic relationships and hunting opportunities on private properties. Lindsay is keen to share these opportunities and experiences with his clients.
Phil Stephenson - Head Fly Fishing Guide - NZPFGA
Head guide for Backcountry New Zealand Fishing Guides, Phil loves living and recreating in New Zealand's mountains. Phil's life revolves around trout streams and snow covered Alps. His knowledge of fishing and skiing, in combination with local familiarity of weather, history, and biogeography enables him to deliver informative and rewarding experiences. Phil has professionally guided many happy Backcountry New Zealand’s clients in the Canterbury and West Coast regions since 1995.
Donald Greig - Big Game Hunting Guide
Donald is a New Zealand Legend in his own right. Respectably involved in New Zealand’s pioneering days of helicopter wild deer culling and live recovery, Donald has lived and breathed wild animals ever since. Having successfully guided thousands of clients onto ‘animals of a life time’, Donald is well respected globally as a top New Zealand hunting guide. Donald specializes in helicopter access free range hunting and game estate hunts. We are pleased to have Donald accessible as an asset to the Backcountry New Zealand hunting guides team.
John Leath - Big Game Hunting Guide
John has been actively involved in the New Zealand outdoors for the past 30 years. He has worked in ‘personal development training through outdoor experiential learning’ courses and as an instructor in kayaking, rock climbing, and mountain craft. Having transitioned these strong life and outdoor skills into his love of hunting and guiding, John has a great ability to read people, their needs, and communicate clearly to achieve common goals. He has guided in Canada during the winter of 2008, extending his global hunting experience and networks. John developed his hunting guiding skills with a number of years in another hunting outfitting operator and we are pleased to have him join the Backcountry New Zealand hunting team.
Neil Goldie - Fly Fishing Guide - NZPFGA
Backcountry New Zealand’s salmon specialist! Many call him the ‘Salmon God’ and having fished for trout and salmon for 35 years throughout Canterbury and the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, Neil has an intimate knowledge of the rivers, streams, and lakes that are found in this region. His knowledge of the brown and rainbow trout fisheries in the South Island is impressive to say the least!
Jono Hay - Fly Fishing Guide
Born, raised and educated in the South Island of New Zealand Jono has spent a huge amount of time on the rivers of the West Coast, Canterbury and Marlborough fly fishing and kayaking. “ This has given me an appreciation for the diversity of fishable water that the South Island offers and the need to protect that water.” Time in the high country has also provided Jono with an intimate knowledge of the areas flora, fauna and weather patterns. This is the area he continues to spend as much of his spare time as possible in and Jono enjoys to help others share the experience.
Nigel Birt
Nigel directs the hunting & fishing operations and established the Backcountry New Zealand brand in 1998. Nigel has worked in a number of luxury fishing lodges in the South Island of New Zealand since 1985 and has been fishing guiding for over 20 years. His love of hunting and fishing in the South Island of New Zealand shows through in his desire to provide clients with an experience of a life time. Nigel will manage the organization of your hunt and stay in New Zealand, ensuring the quality of the experience. Nigel and wife Myriam own and operate Backcountry NZ Hunting and Fishing Guides.
Myriam Birt
Myriam assists in logistics around the hunting & fishing operations and adds all those special touches to your stay in New Zealand. Myriam also manages the financial elements of the company, and very much enjoys hosting visitors during their stay. As an experienced and certified Swiss ski instructor, Myriam is able to host non-hunting companions skiing or heli-skiing for those that wish to hunt during our winter months of June-August.
The Guild Family at High Peak Station
The Guild family are an integral part of your hunting experience with Backcountry New Zealand. We hold a very close relationship with the Guild family and their stunning and professional property. We all follow the same core values and approach to delivering a quality experience for you as our guest during your stay in New Zealand. Originally settled in 1856, High Peak Station is a high-country property owned by the Guild family since the early 1970s. A wide valley nestled between the Rakaia and Waimakariri Rivers 100km west of Christchurch and comprising ten thousand acres in size, the property is a large-scale pastoral farming enterprise raising sheep, cattle and deer. Forming the headwaters of the Selwyn River, the valley has private access, no through roads and a feeling of tranquillity and isolation despite our relative proximity to Christchurch, the South Island’s major port of entry.
The Guild family in May 2009, from left: Hamish, James, Anna, Amelia, Simon.
Mia, Annina & Ruben Birt - Carbon Neutral Programme Assistants
Motivated by their children and their learnings at school, Myriam and Nigel developed a carbon neutral programme that offsets clients travel emmissions. Mia, Annina and Ruben are the top tree planters within this important project to reduce our impact on the environment.
