DAIRY CAREERS
Unexpected farmer Covid-19 saw New Zealand go into lockdown and our borders closed to international tourists, meaning many in the tourism industry lost their jobs.
Thomas Lundman worked in the tourism industry at Te Anau but when covid-19 locked down the country and the tourists stopped visiting, he went dairy farming.
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By Anne Boswell
T
he warmth and support of a Bay of Plenty farming community has helped Te Anau man Thomas Lundman navigate a dramatic career and lifestyle change due to covid-19. Plummeting tourist numbers saw him obliged to leave a five-year career at tourism company Real Journeys earlier this year, and his move from the deep south to the sunny north to take on a farm assistant position for Whakatane sharemilkers Chris and Rosie Mexted is not for the faint-hearted. Although he had grown up on a dairy farm at Winton, his family moved off the farm when he was 12. Throughout high school, he deliberated between a career in tourism or farming. “Given the popularity of Te Anau as a tourist destination, I decided to choose the industry that was thriving most in the region,” he says. He took on a position at the Te Anau Glow Worm Caves and witnessed the company go from strength to strength during the years he was there. “Our team had grown and grown, from 22 to 30 in its peak. We were working from 7am until midnight every day, and that was just at the caves,” he says. “So when covid hit and the team was reduced to five people, it was a really weird feeling. Once lockdown had finished, the team was lucky to do one tour on the weekend.” Lundman says they knew back in midJanuary 2020 that the tourism industry was at risk. “We knew bleak times were approaching as soon as the Chinese market dropped off, with the closure of the border to Chinese nationals,” he says. He finished up at Real Journeys in early April, and his thoughts turned to what he and his fiancé Alice Brogden would do next. “Alice’s family lives in Whakatane, so it was always going to be our destination,” he says. “We intended to work in tourism, or potentially dairy farming, but in the end covid made that decision for me.” He heard about the farm assistant
DAIRY FARMER
December 2020
