Over the past eight months I have had the opportunity to visit some of New Zealand's most amazing high-country stations for a project that will conclude in 2016. These places are truly spectacular, often remote and it has been a real privilege to be able to work on a long-term project like this and to meet the people, dogs, horses and merino sheep who thrive in these vast tracts of land.
Just last week I spent time on Glen Lyon Station, up the northern end of Lake Ohau. Its 90,000 acres in total and sprawls right up the Dobson Valley. They also run Huxley Station which extends up the Hopkins – that's a pretty massive slice of Southern Alps. The station is run by Ken and Jane Wigley and their team. It's a challenging place to farm. It's enlightening to learn that managing a place like this is a tango with nature and seasons. You don't dominate a landscape like this, you learn to read it and to understand it. Ken and Jane seem to have that down, though they insist they're still learning. Timeframes for them are in the 20-30 year bracket – not next week or tomorrow as most of us default to.
I came out of Glen Lyon and straight into the autumn muster of the lake face at Cecil Peak Station – that's the big peak across the lake you dream about when relaxing in the cafés of Queenstown on a lazy morning. Cecil Peak is run by Philip and Kate Rive and their children Phoebe, Freddy and Emma. The tops of Cecil Peak are jagged and gnarled – perfect merino country. We tied the boat up in a tiny bay on the northern side of the peak at 7am and with a team of nine dogs walked into the muster block. You can tell Philip and Kate are naturals here just by the way they move through the country. We scramble over bluffs and terraces and the scale of the peak begins to reveal itself – a far cry from the illusion of my café dreams. It's massive. It takes forever to climb and there's a constant thought to keep the stream of merino moving in the right direction ahead of us.
Near the shoulder of the peak I watch a New Zealand falcon launch from a perch on a rocky bluff. In all directions the most breathtaking views greet me. My senses are overloaded. We walk off the hill as the sun drops out of the sky. It's been a huge day. I turn to my new mate Hutch and he agrees: "best day ever" he confirms with his tongue lolling out and the happiest look on his face.
Back to the coast this week and look what's coming.
See you at the beach ... Derek
PS A few hours before I headed inland I stumbled across a King's High School surfing event at St Clair Beach. Teachers Johnny Simmons and Darren Eade run the sport for the school and from what I saw they're crafting a fine pathway for our most promising young surfers. Check out Dunedin Secondary School Boardriders on Facebook to see what they're up to.
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