Feehly Hill

Feehly Hill (or Daggs Hill, depending on your genealogy) is an asset to Arrowtown. Its close proximity to town means it can be easily accessed for a quick hike up its slopes. A small plateau on its eastern flank is a good spot to take children to enjoy the views. Feehly Hill is Arrowtown’s hill and it deserves to be cared for so that residents and visitors alike can enjoy its slopes and the views from the top.

The Arrowtown Village Association has been involved in efforts to return Feehly Hill to its condition of the 1960s and 1970s, when it was a open landmark spot without the weeds and scrub that grew up in the following decades. At the suggestion of the Department of Conservation, the AVA secured funding for the restoration from Suburban Estates, a developer who was then proposing a subdivision in Manse Road next to the hill.

AVA volunteers, DOC, QLDC, the Wakatipu Reforestation Trust as well as the residents who supported community planting days have between them done a great job of removing wilding conifers and sycamores, weeds and broom, replacing them with beech, coprosma and corokia. Some of the beech trees are already more than four metres high.

Feehly Hill became part of Project Gold, DOC’s scheme to reintroduce kowhai, in 2011 and the AVA has been active in funding ongoing spraying work. The association  is currently revising the plans for Feehly Hill to keep control work active.