Checking the sheep in the pens
Logging an old tree that fell over in a storm
Sheep herding in high summer
Our daughter, riding on the property with a friend
Tramping in the upper valley
Feeding the 'pet' sheep
A new flower pot for the garden!
A local ford, just up the valley
The farm tractor sets off...
Family holidays at Tapawera Hill Station have given us all a gift - moments in our lives to treasure....
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In the spring of 1995, my parents, then in their 60s, decided to give up a sea-going life and settle down in rural New Zealand -somewhere they had dreamed of living for more than 30 years. After a decade of running charter yachts in the Western Isles of Scotland and the sunny Caribbean, they felt it was time to hang up their deck shoes and come ashore to enjoy being grandparents and, while they were at it, build a life with a permanent base in which to enjoy their retirement. My mother yearned to grow roses, tomatoes and keep a cat - my father dreamed of writing his memoirs and raising something, maybe raspberries or apples, to supplement their pension.
After several months of exploring 'Godzone' country, they found the home of their dreams - 40 acres of land beside one of the South Island's most picturesque trout rivers, the Motueka. The house was just the right size, four bedrooms for visiting family without being too big, and had a shady verandah overlooking the garden and mountains beyond. The only sounds were birdsong, the bleating of the sheep in the surrounding paddocks and the occasional car heading up the dirt road into the mountains in the distance. A forty-five minute drive would take them 'over the hill' into Nelson, the region's main city, for shopping, restaurants and cinemas, while some of New Zealand's finest wineries were only a half-hour journey away. Even the garden was beautiful and my mother knew that without the time constraints imposed on the previous owners by bringing up a young family, she could make it even lovelier.
The only thing was, it wasn't a fruit orchard. It was a homestead, and it came with a few sheep – something my parents hadn't bargained on when they set out on their search for the perfect home. Never one to be daunted, my father took this in his stride and enrolled on a course where he learnt the basics of livestock management. If he could build a 38-foot sailboat and cross the Atlantic Ocean in it, he could learn to manage a few sheep and cattle and make them pay.
And so the dream of the property that we have grown to know and love as 'Tapawera Hill Station' was born (the name, implying something rather bigger than the property actually is, was based on a book set in the times of the British Raj in India - but that's another story!).
The thing was, as my parents settled down to a life of Garden Club get-togethers, feeding lambs with bottles, buying calves and growing hay, my wife and I found ourselves packing our bags and leaving New Zealand with our small daughter for an exciting new life in the Middle East. We were still at the stage in our lives when we wanted adventure, new experiences and the chance to see the world. Ten years in the bustling city of Auckland had seen my wife's career in public relations develop and when she was offered the chance to join her company's Gulf office, we said yes! My youngest brother, who had been dating a Kiwi girl that he met in the Caribbean, changed his plans to move to New Zealand when the relationship ended and went off oil prospecting in Venezuela instead.
Still, my parents were busy and happy and felt reasonably sure that we'd all return in the not-too-distant future. Sure enough, my brother found his way back to Auckland and started dating again, and we came over at Christmas 1998 for an exciting event - the birth of our second daughter.
This was the first time that we had set foot at Tapawera, and I was captivated from the first moment I arrived. Although I'd spent a decade living in New Zealand, the country still had the power to fill me with awe. It was early summer, but the mountain peaks of the Mount Arthur range were still snow-capped as I gazed at them from the verandah. The garden was in full bloom and the wisteria cascading through the pergola a beautiful shade of blue. Wind rustled in the poplars and the cattle moved slowly over the paddock, so close to the fence that I could hear them tearing at the lush, green grass. Tomorrow I had promised to take my eight-year-old daughter on an adventure down the river on tractor inner-tubes begged from the garage in the village.
Why on earth had we swapped our life here for the hustle and bustle of a Middle Eastern city? Then I remembered - we hadn't lived here, we'd lived in the hustle and bustle of a New Zealand city! Why hadn't we traded it for a rural idyll like this? Maybe because I wasn't ready to give up my design business to learn homesteading - yet. Still, the great thing was that we could always come here when we wanted to. Our children could play with the lambs, help chop firewood, learn to drive the tractor, climb trees, feed the ducks and swing out on that rope over the river.
And they have done all that - and more. Since that day the numbers of grandchildren have doubled with the arrival of twins, born to my middle brother and his wife in 1999. We spent the Millennium at Tapawera, celebrating with my parents' neighbours up the valley and next day hiked up into the hills with the baby in a backpack. The garden is now my mother's pride and joy - and she's also earned quite a name for herself in the local community for the cookery courses that she runs. My father found himself voted onto the local council and still managed to find time to plant a fine grove of specimen trees while dealing with the daily routine of homesteading. The plans for a cat never came to anything but Polly, the Aussie Cattle dog, was acquired as a small bundle of fur a couple of years ago and she has kept my parents busy ever since. She even rounds up the sheep and cattle occasionally!
Last Christmas the whole family gathered at Tapawera for a family reunion. We went wine-tasting; fishing and kite flying and my brother and his wife even climbed and camped on nearby Mt Owen, featured in the 'Lord of the Rings' movie. My father organized an ambitious treasure hunt for the children, finishing up at a picnic in the plantation, complete with Gran's Special Strawberry Cake. We held a 'Sports Day' including egg-and-spoon-races, sack races, throw-the-gumboot and even a golf drive contest! Henry, aged four, learnt to steer the tractor and even operate the bucket while his sister Isabella helped her grandmother make mince pies. Imogen hunted for duck eggs and endlessly 'trained' Polly while Christina, now a teenager, played games with the little ones for hours around the 'snow tree' in the paddock and bravely led the way down the river on inner tubes.
Then my parents dropped their bombshell. They had decided to sell Tapawera Hill Station and move back to Europe. The reasons seem sensible - my father is now over 70 and the physical demands of dealing with the livestock and maintaining the paddocks are becoming more difficult for him. My mother would like to spend less time chasing sheep and more time gardening. And they simply couldn't bear to sell up and just move into town after the years they have spent on their personal piece of Paradise. But, most importantly, none of their children and grandchildren is living in New Zealand any more and it seems less and less likely that we will return there. True, my youngest brother is engaged to a New Zealander and they plan to marry in Auckland in February, but their home is now in London. We are still here in the Middle East and so, now, are my middle brother and his family. As they get older the journeys to and from New Zealand to visit three lots of family every year are not only expensive, they are more and more difficult for my parents who have to travel at different times so as not to leave the livestock. Quite simply, they just want to be closer to their loved ones. Understandable.
But I don't want them to sell Tapawera! My children love it there and cried when they heard the news. Part of me thinks I'd like to buy some land from my parents, build a house on it and move the family back there. But the reality is that it's just not practical at this stage in our lives. My wife and I don't know homesteading and we have a good business here. I couldn't run a successful corporate design agency from Tapawera village and our elder daughter is due to take important school exams in two years' time - she has been educated in the British system and it's too late to change her to another system now.
So it seems that Tapawera is destined to pass out of the hands of this family, and I can only hope that it goes to another family who will fall in love with the place, and cherish it as we have. This is not just another rural property for sale, it's something much more than that and I hope that this site can impart something of the unique essence of the place. If it looks wonderful - it is, believe me!
Nicholas Lunn
November 2004
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