She’s lived in Wanaka for almost 24 years and in that time has established three businesses, one of which, Chapter 5, still continues. She’s witnessed the growth of Wanaka first-hand not only as a resident but also from a commercial perspective and still chooses to call Wanaka home.

Claudia MacAulay has lived on Mt Alpha’s foothills since the early nineties when she and her husband, Ron, and two boys, Shayne and Dan, relocated from the Waikato. The boys attended Wanaka Primary and Mt Aspiring College, while Ron became one of Air New Zealand’s first long-distance commuter pilots, travelling from Queenstown to Auckland to go to work.

Purchasing 90 acres of rural Wanaka to establish a private airstrip, hangar and the homestead was designed to be part of Claudia’s first business in Wanaka. The concept was to create a unique "Sky Lodge” - a place where like-minded people from the flying community could fly in for short stays while Claudia provided dinner-bed-and-breakfast.

"The intent was "Air BandB” - land your aeroplane and stay the night; it would have been amazing but the council put the squash on that and made it all too hard to get consent,” Claudia said. Having built the house with six bedrooms and five bathrooms, Claudia still ran a bed-and-breakfast in the traditional sense, juggling it simultaneously with her second Wanaka business, Coco’s Hair Salon.

For Claudia, Coco’s was a natural extension of what she had been doing since she was a teenager. At 16, she left school for a hairdressing apprenticeship and by 20 she owned her first salon. She operated two salons in Auckland, married Ron, travelled, and gave birth to her sons before relocating to Wanaka. "We moved from Waikato to Wanaka,” she said, "So I’m not really a JAFA.”

At the time she established Coco’s on Brownston Street, Wanaka’s resident population was fewer than 2000 people. Only the streets in the centre of town were sealed and while New Year’s was relatively busy with a massive influx of holidaying Kiwis, the shoulder seasons stretched interminably. "I hated the quiet times when you used to be able to fire a rifle down Helwick Street…”

Coco’s built a loyal clientele and Claudia operated the salon until a repetitive shoulder injury, caused by decades of hairdressing, forced her to put down her scissors. "I never understood why people refer to it as a glamourous vocation,” she said, "I never saw it that way in 36 years as a hairdresser. It’s bloody hard work.”

"Stuffed legs, shoulders and backs are common with hairdressers,” she said. She sold the salon as a going concern but still keeps her hand in. "I still love it, still do it a little bit,” she said. "But making people feel good about themselves, that was the best part, that’s why I did it for so long - that and it satisfied the artist in me .”

Claudia at her retail store, Chapter 5, in Pembroke Mall. PHOTO: Wanaka App

That artistic sensibility also led her down a new path to establishing her fifth business. One of the longest running businesses in Wanaka still operated by its original owner, Chapter 5, a retail clothing store in the heart of Wanaka’s Mall, was opened 14 years ago.

Her vibrant store assaults the senses with colour and that is partially why she’s attracted to being a clothing retailer. "It’s the colour, the style, the textures, the fabrics and, once again, it’s the satisfaction of making people feel good about themselves.”

"When we had the idea of the shop I said to Ron I want a point of difference that no other shop has in New Zealand.” Kacper (pronounced like the ghost) shoes became that touchstone. They went to a shoe trade fair in Melbourne and were blown away on first sight by the colourful Polish brand of men’s and women’s shoes on display.

Their first trip to Poland in 2004 was an eye-opener - for the Polish manufacturers. "They were rapt,” Claudia said. "They couldn’t believe their shoes were selling in New Zealand, let alone a small alpine town so far away.” Now you can find Kacpers in Australia, she said, but Wanaka was the first downunder market for the Polish brand and Claudia is still the only New Zealand importer. "They’re still pretty stoked about it.”

At the time, being new to the retail business, it was a gutsy move. "You don’t know it’s going to work out but sometimes you’ve got to take a gamble. And it worked. Fourteen years later they’re still selling like hotcakes.”

Chapter 5 is also known for its massive Easter Sunday sale which has become something of an institution. Outside tables in the mall are filled with excess stock selling at low prices. Claudia started the Easter sale in the second year when she had some extra stock.

Having witnessed the feeding frenzy of shoppers looking for bargains around the tables, she said "It’s bloody awful, but it works. Even my accountant says it’s much better moving the stock on than having it sitting in a box at home.”

"People call us from all over saying they’re coming to Wanaka for Easter, asking will the sale be on again? And if we don’t do it one Easter Sunday - I think we’ll be in trouble.”

Having experienced almost a quarter century of growth in Wanaka, Claudia’s willing to share her opinions on that growth. "It’s good and bad. The infrastructure is improving and I like it when there’s more people around,” she said.

And while Claudia said she doesn’t have a problem with more visitors per se, she admits to a low tolerance of overseas visitors who disrespect our environment and make no effort to adapt to the New Zealand culture. "We’re a relaxed, considerate culture; we don’t barge in front of people and we’re not generally impolite and arrogant as some of the foreigners who come here. That’s my experience anyway.”

When she gets a chance to relax, her garden or her art beckon. "Gardening and painting are my space-out times.”

Claudia has been "arty-farty” for a long as she can remember. Acrylic paint is her favoured medium and she paints for her pleasure, as well as on commission, and she’s exhibited her paintings and sold several in auctions and fundraisers.

She also confesses to having "a wee bit of a green thumb” as her new "edible garden” attests with lettuces still growing in outdoor pottagers during June, and nothing protecting them but some good mulch and peastraw. "I love growing something that you harvest and eat and share with others. There’s something really nice and satisfying about it.”

"I’ll probably stay here for the next...who knows? Being an old age pensioner now I’m allowed to paint, and do my garden, and see my grandchildren a bit more.”

Aviation is the reason Claudia and her family moved to Wanaka. While she has learned to fly and still enjoys going on flying adventures with the family, she doesn’t share the same passion for flying as the "three men in her life” (all commercial pilots).

Wanaka provides easy access to a naturally beautiful environment, she said. "Being able to fly into the bush for a day’s outing, landing in a riverbed…. I realise we’re very fortunate and I hope it doesn’t change. I love it here because my family calls it home and they love coming home.”