Hunt Dragons in a Stunning Native Forest
Learn the ancient skills of archery and experience one of the last few 5% of remaining virgin New Zealand forest. A tranquil and beautiful nature experience combined with the thrill of hunting game and fantasy archery targets awaits you. No experience needed and all gear provided.
Unique Archery Adventures in Amazing Scenery
Dragon Hunt Archery Experience
Experience an Archery Adventure as you hunt for Dragons and lifelike archery targets while enjoying ancient NZ native bush at its finest. You’ll be crossing glistening streams, listening to the songs of native birds and sneaking between the trunks of giant trees during the Dragon Hunt. No experience needed, full training and all the high-quality traditional Archery gear is provided. So, are you ready to hunt a Dragon?
Archery Battle – Fast and Fierce
Are you ready to shoot a mate with bow and arrow? Archery Battle is our take on the game of Archery Tag – fun, fast, safe and full of action. Think of Archery Battle as a cross between Dodge Ball, Paintball and Archery. There are no painful bruises like after paintball and it’s completely safe. Great fun for teams and groups. Come out for an action-packed afternoon of adrenaline and a good dose of competitive fun.
Team Building Activities
Looking for an activity to excite your team at the next corporate event? How about something that’s fun, active and a little competitive? We tailor your event to suit your needs. Compete for the best archer on our range and try your skills at lifelike archery targets or battle it out in an epic Archery battle. To mark the occasion and reward the most deserving, medals are provided to the organiser to give out to the most legendary competitor.
Have-a-Go
at Archery
Maybe you’ve always fancied having a go at Archery – feeling like the movie legends. Maybe the thought had never crossed your mind but you think it could be something you’d enjoy. Maybe you’ve done Archery before and would like somewhere to practise. Come to our range during the casual drop-in times and get first-class instructions, tips, tricks and all the traditional Archery gear you need. Come on, give it a go.
NEW: Check out our 3 Day Course!
Our Most Popular Archery Adventure – The Dragon Hunt
The Dragon Hunt Archery and Nature Experience
Arrive at Archery Park, only 15 minutes from Nelson City (with an optional free pick-up from i-Site visitor information centre), and embark on the Archery Adventure of a lifetime.
Your trusty guide, Markus, is an experienced archer and superb teacher. As a certified archery coach, he can turn even absolute beginners into good shots .
All gear is provided. You’ll receive a real longbow, arrows and leather quiver, and, of course, complete instructions and a chance to practise before embarking on the Dragon Hunt.
You then make your way into the stunning native forest as part of a small group with Markus, your guide. Sneak between the trunks of towering trees and through stunning native forest after walking along Nelson’s cleanest glistening stream. Birdlife is abundant and you will hear about nature highlights along the way.
Experience the thrill of the hunt as you make your way through the native forest where lifelike fantasy and game archery targets await you.
No need to worry about photos either – Markus takes loads of photos throughout the trip and will send them to you by email, so you can immerse yourself completely in the experience .
Testimonials
Our visitors, young and old, local and foreign, experienced and absolute beginners alike have raved about their experience at Archery Park.
But no need to take our word for it – see for yourself what they have said:
Highly recommended
Markus is calm, collected, friendly and professional, and his archery and instructions went down a treat with the kids at our 3 day course. Highly recommended.
It is not to be missed
Do it, it’s a lot of fun
Do it, it’s a lot of fun. Marcus is friendly and has a passion for archery and that shows during this lifelike experience. Not your typical range by no means. A+
Expect a great time . . . And then see your expectations exceeded!
What can I say? The activity was organised by my adult kids and I went along expecting to shooting arrows for an hour. Instead we got a 3+ hour adventure. We got a first-rate tutor, Markus, who gave clear, safe, practical instructions (and patient too) teaching us the basics. Then, it’s off into the forest hunting for dragons and creatures, Lord of the Rings style. The amazing thing was how deceptively Marcus improved our shooting skills with each target increasing in difficulty. I could not believe that we were hitting targets as accurately as we did. The scenery in the forest was beautiful and surprisingly cool for such a hot day. We had a blast . . And recommend it 100%. . . Worth every cent.
The best possible experience
Congratulations,Marcus, on setting up a world class archery park. We loved the archery in the woods experience and range of 3-D targets – so much better than a bullseye target. Your excellent safety briefing, top notch archery training and quality equipment (long bows, arrows, arm guards and quivers) ensured the best possible experience. Thank you for an awesome archery adventure.
Great fun for us as a couple
Markus was well organised and explained everything we needed to know.He gave us tips on how to improve our shots which really helped when it came to shooting the foam animals in the bush. Great fun for us as a couple and i would definitely go again and recommend to friends
Great activity for a team Christmas Party!
Markus and his team are great teachers and very willing to help and make sure everyone is having a great time. They have a number of different options on how the day can run and what activities to do and cater to each group individually. Lastly was an amazing setting with great shade from the summer sun.
A fun afternoon for our work team
We were looking for an activity for our work team, to back onto our annual planning workshop in Nelson. Archery turned out to be a great option that we all thoroughly enjoyed! Markus, our tutor, was very knowledgeable, friendly and had a great sense of humour. He worked in with our limited time frame to get us all up to speed quickly with the basics of archery and we were all hitting the targets quite proficiently in no time. With health and safety and the keys to building good technique under our belts, we headed up into the bush for some competition, which was great fun. I’d thoroughly recommend this activity for families, groups of friends or teams of all ages and stages.
I can’t wait to go back with more people
We will return and recommend to friends
We had a great morning at Archery Park. The group and individual instruction from Markus was excellent – we were hitting the target in no time. Markus was flexible and accommodating for a first time group of 21. It was fun. We will return and recommend to friends.
Wonderful introduction to Archery
Wonderful introduction to Archery. Marcus is very professional, taking us through the basics, safety, technique, target practice and game hunting. Excellent equipment and very well thought out and fun 3D range. Marcus is a talented Archer and we are looking forward to more occasions with him as we improve and evolve our skills.
I fully recommend this to anybody
We recently took a group of 24 kids down to the Archery Park, the children and staff that attended had a fantastic time. The instructors there were brilliant with teaching the children how to use the Bow and Arrow, then getting the Children to have a walk around the course having a turn to shoot the targets, the whole experience was very safe and extremely fun for everyone on the day. The children are already excited to go back and have another go. I fully recommend this to anybody that wants to learn more about Archery and have a great day out.
Just Brilliant
Just Brilliant! Markus provides a fun, informative and very enjoyable opportunity to try 3D archery. Being run in small groups it’s great value and you get plenty of individual guidance to master the basics.
This was the most enjoyable day of our trip
This was the most enjoyable day of our trip! I had never shot an arrow before, but Markus made it fun and easy. I think I even got really good at it!
Highly recommend to anyone
On behalf of the team here that came to the archery park yesterday we would like to thank you and your team for making the day so enjoyable for us .I’m sure that the team would love to come and do it again sometime. Highly recommend to anyone to give it a go. Thanks again
We had a great Christmas do
A definite highlight
You may have tried archery before but this will be a totally new experience! Markus is passionate and knowledgeable, he will teach you how to become a great archer. You will be amazed at how much your aim improves with his helpful advice! Taking your skills from the range to the woods and aiming at life like 3D animals was a definite highlight! 100% recommend this experience!
The best place for a birthday party
I had an awesome 11th birthday party at Archery Park and definitely recommend it to anyone else looking for a fun day! Markus taught us all the techniques and coached us along the way while we had a great time trying to hit the target 🙂 The best place for a birthday party!!
Wow!
Wow! What an awesome experience. Markus is a top man with 17 years experience and great people skill. Definitely recommend to anyone in the Nelson area.
The Ultimate Vegan Hunting Experience
A great instructor, heaps of fun and walk through beautiful NZ native (That rivals many paid bush tours).
Fully booked each time
I’ve been to Archery Park Nelson quite a few times now. First for myself, and then started taking the holiday programme I run too. Every time it’s been an amazing adventure for the kids and it’s never the same. Markus knows what he is talking about and makes it a fun experience for everyone. Highly recommended. We have been coming back every holiday programme, and are fully booked each time. I think that says it all.
We all had a blast
We had a great visit for our end of year work celebration. Although there was a drizzle of rain for part of it we all had a blast. There was 16 of us and they kept us busy the whole time. Lots of friendly competition and banter. Thanks Archery Park Nelson 🙂
A must do
Definitely recommend! A must do. Markus gave excellent instructions and we had a great time. Thanks again 🙂
You can shoot at your colleagues!
Had a great few hours of archery with or work team… and what’s a better way of improving team chemistry than shooting foam arrows at each other?
Awesome afternoon
What a great afternoon we had with Markus and the team. We had a group of 18 adults, male and female, for a friendly competition. We had four rounds of archery battle, where we were actually firing, rubber ended arrows at each other. Painless and fun. Then we went on to classic low bow archery, on a range. We finished off the afternoon at the cafe with great pizza and nice cold beer. Great value, great fun.
Getting to Archery Park Nelson
Archery Park is only a 15-minute drive from Nelson Central. We’re located at Cable Bay Adventure Park on 194 Cable Bay Road, Nelson.
Drive 14km north from Nelson City towards Picton. Turn left into Cable Bay Road at the sign posts Cable Bay. We are 2 km down Cable Bay Road on the right-hand side – look for the Archery Park Flag and the Cable Bay Adventure Park sign.
Free pickup: We offer a free pickup from Nelson i-Site visitor information centre for all Dragon Hunt Archery Adventure bookings.
Come join us for the Archery Adventure of a Lifetime
Check Out Some of the Great Things We're Doing for our Community
Robin Hood
Scheme
We truly believe that traditional archery has a positive effect on people of all ages. But the ones that need an adventure experience the most are often also the ones that don’t have the means for such an activity.
That’s where our Robin Hood Scheme can help. Under the scheme, we work at cost to provide reduced rates to health and social services and community groups with a social purpose. We love to help because we care about people and the feedback we’ve received has been outstanding.
Archery
Club
Archery Park is a social business – our main objective is to grow the sport of traditional archery in Nelson and New Zealand. This passion was desperately needed to keep us motivated to deliver you the most exciting news since we have started!
Our plan is to offer a regular weekly club session where archers get together for archery lessons on our practise and 3D archery range and to have a good old yarn about archery. We’re even planning to host upcoming competitions.
Conservation
Efforts
We love nature and the New Zealand wildlife, so we wanted to do our part for conservation from day one – with the aim to become a Carbon Negative business. Our servers are hosted green and all material is printed on recycled paper. We are also reducing the amount of foreign plant life, removing non-native weeds and aim to give our natives space to thrive.
To give birds a better chance of survival, we have started a trapping programme and we’re baiting for wasps.
School Holiday Programme
We partner regularly with local School Holiday Programme providers to allow kids to have a go at archery at Archery Park during the school holidays. But be quick, we’re usually the day that is booked out first.
We also have a lot of families visiting us during the school holidays. And what could be better than half a day outside, strolling through the bush, equipped with bow and arrows? Get in touch if you are interested to hear about options.
About Us
About Archery Park
Archery Park is dedicated to the sport of traditional archery. It is based at the Cable Bay Adventure Park and has a fully equipped practise range and a 3D field archery range following a 3km course through stunning native bush.
Archery Park gets consistently rated 5* by its guests, locally and from all over the whole world.
Beginners rave about their first experience of traditional archery and experienced archers love the setup and passion put into the 3D field archery range.
Markus, the owner, guide and coach of Archery Park, is a certified archery coach and member of the New Zealand Field Archery Association, a member of the New Zealand Bowhunter Society and a member of the Traditional Archery Society.
