NZ Life & Leisure – Issue 91 by Lifestyle Magazine Group

ISSUE 91

& Leisure

Inspiring Aotearoa

MAYâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;JUNE 2020

Great Stories for All Times

IN TE RN A T I O N A L L I G H TI NG BRA NDS

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F ROM T H E E DI TOR THE TRUE MAGIC of this shut-down world lies in the wondrous filaments of human kindness connecting people from household to household, across mountains and seas, continent to continent. These connections are as delicate as the threads spun by spiders, and they too reflect rays of sunshine and hold droplets of nourishing water. Humanity is knit together in hope — hope that we can make a better world out of this. The web of a spider has incomprehensible strength. We too have incomprehensible strength when we catch one another from a stumble or when we cushion someone’s fall. When we hold each other upright, we begin to walk forward again. We will not be mended without a seam, and we will not have our old world reappear as if nothing had happened. Everything changes and anything is possible. From this, we might enhance the beauty of our planet and achieve world peace. Why not believe this? Let us accept nothing less. We had planned to celebrate 15 years of NZ Life & Leisure with you. We might not be with you in print, but we are in spirit with this beautiful digital edition representing 15 years of NZ Life & Leisure – great stories for all times. Welcome to our new world. It’s exciting to be doing something new. It’s been an engrossing process reading back issues and selecting the stories. I wanted to republish every story – truly. I reread my first editorial, and I’d written: “Something new is happening in society.” Here we go again, so hang in here with us. We intend to rise from the ashes to bring you the next 15 years of stories about Aotearoa and its people – one way or another. Artist Lester Hall (page 10) created the artwork for our cover. Thank you, Lester, for its beauty and spirit. Aroha mai (Love received) Aroha atu (Love returned)

Here’s me, 15 years younger and no grey hair, at Castle Hill Station in the South Island doing the first interview for the first story in the first issue. It still thrills me to be able to interview the country’s most inspiring people.

MAY/JUNE 2005

w w w .l e E f i e l d s t a t i o n . c o .n z

CONTENTS ISSUE 91

& Leisure

REGULARS AND SHORT READS

Inspiring Aotearoa

MAY–JUNE 2020

FROM KATE Welcome to our special digital edition

REMINISCENCES Readers reflect on 15 years of inspiring stories

FROM COVER TO COVER Every cover tells a story, says editor Kate

WAY OF LIFE The 94-year-old volunteer who keeps on giving

TALES FROM A FAR NORTH FOREST Polly regrets convincing her family to assemble a flying fox

CAREER PATH A foot-juggler reaches new heights in a topsy-turvy occupation

WEBSITE Tasty recipes, useful tips and interesting reads on thisNZlife

TASTE Announcing the winners of the 2020 Outstanding NZ Food Producer Awards

ESSENTIALS See what’s new from our classified advertisers

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Great Stories for All Times

ABOUT THE COVER Artist Lester Hall (featured on page 10) created the beautiful artwork for our cover to capture the pride and pain of Aotearoa in recent times. The ponga frond unfurls to represent hope, the intricate background patternation of Māori decorative arts blended with William Morrisera foliage celebrates our history against vibrant and joyous colours of orange and green. Capturing the spirit of our nation and calling for us to care for one another and care for our planet in te reo and English, proudly side by side. Purchase a copy of Lester’s Aotearoa Ensign here.

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FEATURES 10

20 YEARS AN ARTIST

TURN BACK TIME

Artist Lester Hall talks about his turbulent past, what he thinks is to come and looks back over several decades of his art. He is trying to make sense of our colonized nation

An Ōamaru family live off their land as if it were a traditional German farm in the 1920s: baking bread, hand-churning butter and homeschooling the kids. Welcome to the Vinbruxes’ selfsufficient corner of New Zealand

52 A WOMAN FOR ALL SEASONS

THE SEA OF EDEN

It takes a certain spirit to imagine a four-season wonderland in the remote foothills of Central Otago. Jane Falconer harnessed grit — and undoubtedly, magic — to transform a small garden into a nationally treasured estate

Andrea Thackwray has four beautiful daughters a menagerie and a seaside garden in her slice of Northland paradise. But rather than laying idly by the beach, this entrepreneur seeks happiness by reaching for the stars

38 THE MARLBOROUGH MAN Cinematographer Michael Seresin, who delivers sophistication and intellectual rigour to an international audience, was once desperate to leave New Zealand. Yet here is Michael, returning time and time again

78 AS TIME GOES BY The owners of a mid-century holiday house on Waiheke Island preserve its isolated, art-deco glory. Original furniture, duck-patterned crockery and a radiogram â&#x20AC;&#x201D; this home was party central in its 1950s heyday

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Painted carvings, sculpted reliefs of Māori chiefs and Lester Hall’s Barnet Burns artwork (left) form the nucleus of what the artist refers to as his Wall of Contemplation.

20 years an

ARTIST

LESTER HALL USES ART TO MAKE SENSE OF NEW ZEALAND’S MULTI-CULTURAL HISTORY — AND FUTURE W O R D S K AT E C O U G H L A N PHOTOGRAPHS JANE USSHER

NZ Lester Life donned & Le iVictorians u re

era garb for this portrait in an ironic nod to the period of the first contact between Māori and Pākehā, which often occupies his thoughts as an artist. It’s not his usual kit.

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LESTER HALL HAS a great idea, which is hardly news since the Northland-based artist is neither short of ideas nor the ability to articulate them in his work. He wants Aotearoa to initiate an international competition called the World Cup of Colonized Outcomes. Then he wants us to win it. “We are trying to make this relationship between Maori and Pakeha work, but we don’t take it seriously enough. If there were a world cup for creating the best colonized nation in the world, we would have a plan, and we would find ways to win it. Our politicians would lead us to victory. But they are silent and, like a bunch of spoiled brats, we just talk about money.” Lester’s work, often an eyebrow-raising tongue-in-cheek perspective on the connection/collision of the colonial worlds of Maori and Pakeha, has found its way into the homes and hearts of many New Zealanders. And no one is more surprised by this than the SEPTEMBER/O CTOBER 2010 artist himself. “I started the Ngati When NZ Life & Leisure first met Lester, in 2010 Issue 33, he Pakeha series 25 years called for Māori and Pākehā ago when it was still to listen to one another and learn about life from another ‘horis and whities’; perspective. In talking to Lester trying to make sense again for this anniversary issue we learn he’s upped the game. Lead on Lester, we are listening.

of stuff within myself. “It wasn’t to make money but I ended up with a business.” Lester has never planned his life, which is probably a good thing because for the most part, he hasn’t had a high opinion of himself. Without the serendipity of fateful interventions, he’d surely have sold himself short. “I never thought I’d create something good enough for me to respect; that I’d draw anything properly. I expected to fail. That there are some artworks I am proud of is an absolute surprise. I can’t believe it. I am astonished that I make a living from art.” The universe, however, saw otherwise and from time to time threw Lester a lifeline. The way he sees it, everything good has come along at the hand of fate — his art and health diagnosis being two great examples. Firstly his art. Meet Lester in his 20s. He’s left adolescence behind in his hometown of Wellington and moved to Auckland. He’s a boozer (a drunk, to be honest), a casual but skilled labourer, hooning around — sometimes drunkenly — on a 10-speed bike or in a “broken-arse” Fiat 127 with an old-fashioned dial telephone on the dashboard and a pair of Barbie dolls doing high kicks from the windscreen wipers. (His first car had been a 1960 Cadillac Fleetwood convertible in which there might have been some late-night speed runs along the motorway near Porirua with no exhaust pipes, flames lighting up the underside of the car. But that was another time, right?)

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While life doesn’t fit Lester comfortably, it is not entirely black either. Where he sees ugliness, he also sees the potential for visual improvements. He recalls, as a little boy, staring at the dashboard of the family car, wanting to make it look nicer with a thicker piece there, a slimmer one here... And always with him in this imperfect world are the teachings of the Catholic nuns and priests of his Island Bay childhood. Visions of terrifying demons and the everlasting flames of hell are unwelcome companions. “Women looking like Batman in their nun’s outfits telling me every day that there are devils everywhere. It is dreadful, as a five-year-old, to be constantly in a cycle of terrifying questioning: Is hell real? Answer: Yes, hell is real. Will the burning hurt forever? Answer: Yes, you will feel the pain forever.” These dark thoughts about sin, punishment and the unlikelihood of redemption quietly grind deep ruts in his neural pathways. Meanwhile, he applies for a job at the Auckland War Memorial Museum and there, in its dusty corridors, fate steers him towards art. Though he had applied for a maintenance job, he ended up creating displays of artefacts, including some famous pieces such as the Kaitaia Lintel and the display for Kave, an internationally significant Melanesian god. One day, his work involved a pre-colonial korowai/ cloak, which he had to help hang. “It was exquisite, with the elegance of the finest Italian wool suit.

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ABOVE: Queen of the Fern II is one of Lester’s most popular artworks. BELOW: He loves the intricacies of insignia design. For years, he has collected bullion badges, and they help inform his drawings.

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“I had been taught that the Maori were Stone Age people with Neolithic skills. And in my hands was fabric so soft and had such sophistication that it blew something in my mind. How could this be? Maybe Stone Age isn’t necessarily ignorant; Stone Age isn’t just hitting a shellfish with a rock. If Maori could create this, what else was I wrong about?” Lester says his art is a way of making sense of New Zealand’s multi-cultural history. “I am just a white guy trying to understand. I didn’t go to university and study ‘What it means to be Pakeha in the 21st century.’ I’m just a part of a conversation; take what you like and leave the rest.” Not everyone responds positively to his work; not that criticism bothers him much. “I’ve had a few threats and accusations that I’m an idiot and a maggot goblin [a derisory term for Pakeha]. But my art has made me friends and opened paths I never imagined. It has not bought crazed Pakeha to my door going: ‘Yeah, yeah, white supremacy.’ The opposite, it has brought Maori back into my life. “A gorgeous local ta moko artist, Paitangi, arrived at my door to sing a waiata she’d written and give me korowai. Out of the blue. That’s dumbfounding, humbling and uniquely Kiwi. “We are all in this together, whether we like it or not. But we’re not thanking each other. Yet an enormous number of people are putting themselves out, financially and politically, and often at a personal cost. Maori, in particular, are giving great forgiveness, but we are not ending up together over this.”

ABOVE: The korowai/cloak on the stairwell wall was a gift from the mother of fellow artist Paora Tiatoa in gratitude for Lester’s mentorship and delivered with a haka and waiata.

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LEFT: Lester not only creates his artworks, but also prints them, sends them out for framing and despatches them himself. He has been a self-supporting artist for more than 20 years and is proud of it.

THIS PAGE: An odd collection on the hall table includes a carving gifted to him (origin unknown), now wearing a bowler hat and a “shipwrecked” Italian chandelier adrift in front of a Lester-fied porthole, all sitting upon a zebra skin.

Meet Lester two years ago, a renowned artist, in his 60s and 27 years clean and sober. He’s painting in his Kerikeri studio, fully engaged in his biggestever commission (to provide art and décor for the Duke of Marlborough Hotel in Russell as part of its multi-million dollar refurbishment).

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“I was told to be grateful, to have willingness and acceptance, and then a smile would come more easily. The fact is that sleep, self-care and kindness create a much happier day”

Of utmost importance to Lester currently is his mentorship of talented artist Paora Tiatoa, of Ngapuhi and Ngati Raukawa iwi, in a role he calls a “brotégé” (think, “bro” and “protégé”). “I am passing on to Paora, the lifeline thrown to me by my dear friend Craig Taylor, a business whisperer who taught me about “sales solutions” and other keys to avoiding the artist’s poverty trap. Art is not enough, an artist must develop a business-like attitude to the small things. Turning up to the mundane, like doing your invoicing, this is what I have to share with Paora. ” “The tough and hurtful question we have to face is that equal rights are not the same as equal opportunity, and so fraternity is incredibly relevant, which is why my relationship with Paora is significant to me. He is becoming financially successful, having enjoyed and followed my advice and contacts. “I have been a self-supporting artist with no breaks for 20 years, and I am proud of that. He searched me out and asked for help, and that is in itself extraordinary. You might say that we ‘brolaborate’.” Which brings the story back to another lifeline tossed by the hands of fate; the diagnosis of his mental state.

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THIS PAGE: Above the Lester-fied roll-top desk (inlaid with cowhide) is a special version of Lesterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ka Mate Ka Mate artwork waiting to be packed and sent to the Hori Gallery in Ĺ&#x152;taki. The serial upcycler is using a repurposed Crystal Head Vodka bottle to form a lampshade on a stand that has also been Lester-fied.

ABOVE: For several years, Lester has worked on the interiors of the Duke of Marlborough Hotel in Russell, owned by Anton and Bridget Haagh, Riki Kinnaird and Jayne Shirley. BELOW: Early Russell resident Charlotte Badger was a convict and a pirate and the inspiration behind Lester’s Charlotte series, which initially drew the attention of the Duke’s owners.

The phone rings, and he takes a call from Mike King asking if Lester would be one of seven artists to decorate scooters on which Mike and his team will travel the country talking to kids about mental health. “I had admired Mike’s direct talk and his kaupapa/agenda, so I was privileged to help. My bike, Pukana of Hope, was his personal ride and on it are the names of my grandnephew and the mother of a young Maori boy who had been admiring my art. They had both committed suicide in the year before.” At the launch of Mike’s I Am Hope tour, Lester found Mike alone and loading the scooters onto a trailer. Lester offered help and Mike told him everyone wants to be in the photo but not do the mahi (work). “Mike is a force of nature; shooting targets as they appear. He is a keen intellect and in a street fight for those kids and adults. He demands fierce energy from himself. I love that. “We criss-crossed the country doing three full talks a day, two schools and a community in the evening. Get up at 5.30am, sort bikes, have a team talk and breakfast, ride scooters that max out at 55 kilometres to school and talk, eat, ride bikes to next school, talk, ride bikes to town and talk, dinner and team talk. “I was keeping the full-time riders on the road and making sure they were safe.” The focus on wellness forced Lester to confront his own lack of mental health. That interfering old universe at it once again. “It was time to settle the unknowns. I booked myself into a $500-an-hour psychiatrist and, funny thing, the psychiatrist was late. ‘Hey dude,’ I told him when he finally appeared, ‘I am not happy that you are late, so you are going to

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get a crystal-clear view of my personality.’ He said he was sorry, and I replied ‘No, you are not, you only said that because I raised it. I’ve driven four hours to see you, and because you are late, I’ll be 20 minutes late getting to the Harbour Bridge, and this has ruined my window for a decent ride home.’ That’s how I see things.” The diagnosis? Neuro-atypical on the obsessivecompulsive disorder spectrum with severe posttraumatic stress. This is, curiously, a relief to Lester. “I now know it was me, my OCD personality, driving those ruts in my neural pathways about hell and the nuns. It is good to know this; the

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brilliance of being released from my hatred of that Catholic upbringing. “To understand why I reacted the way I did when my brother and sisters didn’t, to know why I see the world the way I do. Not that I am entirely at ease with myself, there’s still that lovehate relationship. “I don’t always like Earth; it can sometimes be a shit of a place. Everything here is eating something else. Getting sober helped in the way I view things; I was told to be grateful, to have willingness and acceptance, and then a smile would come more easily. The fact is that sleep, self-care and kindness create a much happier day. ”

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The Vinbrux family, from left, Christel, Judy, Richard, Danny and Sarah.

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The story of this resilient family prompted a huge interest when we published it five years ago. While living on the smell of a not-very oily rag, they follow music, eat like kings and each pursues his or her passion. There is a lot to learn from their example in days such as these.

A VISIT TO THE ŌAMARU SMALLHOLDING OF THE VINBRUX FAMILY IS LIKE BEING TRANSPORTED TO A TRADITIONAL GERMAN FARM IN THE 1920S MARCH/AP RIL 2015 W O R D S N AT H A L I E B R O W N

THEY’RE AN INTRIGUING FAMILY, the Vinbruxes. There’s an Amish

A reconditioned Shacklock stove cooks the food and heats the house. Pitch-roofed outhouses in the yard are painted in fanciful colours. One of these is a bakery with a wood-fired brick oven while another is a dairy equipped for producing cheeses, yoghurt, separated cream and milk. There’s a brew house for making hooch. Weekly grocery bills for the household of six plus a few Woofers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) come to about $90, which covers such staples as flour, rice, salt, sugar and olive oil. Other than that, they eat what they grow in the vegetable gardens and raise in the paddocks. Most of the land is in pasture that supports the livestock: horses, sheep, cattle, pigs, hens, goats, bees, geese, turkeys, ducks and pigeons. There are any number of mouser cats with dogs for stock work and companionship. Over the years they’ve planted a 1.5-hectare mixed wood lot, a half-hectare orchard and another half hectare in vegetable beds.

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look to their hairstyles and clothing. Put that down to home barbering and clothing from local op shops. From their conversation and the books on their shelves it’s clear that they’re well educated. Richard gained a degree in agriculture and qualified as a master baker in Germany and produces fabulous fare for the weekly Ōamaru Farmers’ Market while Christel holds a Masters in home economics from Germany and there’s nothing she can’t do with raw ingredients to make delectable meals. Christel and Richard arrived in Ōamaru in 1998 with the first four of their five children, bought 12.5 hectares of undulating farmland, set up an Icelandic horse stud to generate an income and began farming according to the biodynamic principles of Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. Their home is built from logs and furnished with rustic German antiques.

PHOTOGRAPHS TESSA CHRISP

Running a small farm like this is a full-time job for several people. Christel describes their daily routine: “Every day starts with a big Germanstyle breakfast of good coffee, bread, meats and cheeses for all the family. Then at 8am Judy (14) and I go out to do the milking. When we return the cows to the paddocks Danny (17) is there to feed the pigs and bring the milk to the cheese house. “If Richard is not baking he might make cheese or just separate the milk and cream, then the shed is washed and cleaned. All that takes up to two hours. Then Judy and I feed the rest of the stock with hay or haylage. Milking and feeding the animals takes us to about 11am, sometimes later. After lunch Judy does her schoolwork and the rest of the day is for garden and kitchen work – that’s usually me with help from Judy when she’s finished her studies, while Richard and Danny do general maintenance and farming chores.” Richard gets up at 4 or 5am on four days of the week to make bread and pastries for the bakery in Ōamaru which he set up to train their second son Jan (25) and on Sundays to stock Jan’s stall at the Ōamaru Farmers’ Market. After the evening meal the family relaxes. They read, maybe watch a DVD, and are early to bed. While eldest son Fabian (28) went through a conventional education, Christel and Richard home-schooled the other children. They made the decision after Sarah (now 19), who was born with an intellectual impairment, made much more progress with home tutoring than at school.

“Most of the time we can live quite comfortably off the smell of the rag that was lying next to the oily one”

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“This is the life we have chosen and we still choose it every day. We would rather work for ourselves than for money”

With typical German precision there’s a place for everything – garden tools hang from the woodshed wall opposite the farmhouse.

When she was 10 Judy began learning to play the harp because she loved the medieval look of the instrument.

Richard gets up at 4am four days a week to make bread and pastries for the family bakery in Oamaru.

opportunities. That’s why, in addition to the horse stud, they have established another niche for themselves with their self-sufficiency school. This offers both residential and day-long courses in different aspects of self sufficiency to people who want to get back to the land and to townies wanting to learn how to keep hens or make their own cheese. Or sauerkraut. Or brätwurst. Or... The younger members of the family are also making or planning their contributions to the household finances. While Fabian lives and works independently, Jan lives in town and trains at the family-owned bakery in Arun Street. At 25 he is not interested in living in a big city.

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“With home schooling you can tailor the lessons to the individual kid,” says Richard. The young Vinbruxes read widely, are well grounded in the basics, bilingual in German and English and remarkably more mature than others their age. From their earliest years they have been articulate, confident and respectful around adults and well able to prepare and cook meals while still of primary-school age. “We sometimes have 20-year-old Woofers who can’t cook even the simplest meal,” says Christel. The biggest risk in this way of life, they say, is depending on only one income stream and not being alert to other money-generating

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HENS, BEES & SAUSAGES

Danny is developing a new breed of hens called stracciatella, after the vanilla/chocolate ice cream. They’re white with black flecks, a dual-purpose chicken that lays well and also makes a nice soup. He also keeps 10 hives of carniolan bees on the farm and has plans to expand that operation. “I am just setting them up at present so don’t get a lot of honey. I don’t wear gloves when I work with the bees; they make you clumsy and you just piss off the

bees. I do wear a head and upper-body veil. carniolan bees come from Austria and are therefore used to the cooler climate here in North Otago.” Danny recently spent four months in Germany learning to make German small goods. “In Germany there are about 57 different types of sausage including the products we Kiwis call luncheon sausage as well as salamis and so on – all using different herbs and spices. German small goods have no fillers like flour or soy,” he says.

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“I like small towns and Ōamaru in particular. Besides the interesting people here, it’s easy to get almost anywhere by walking but I’m also thinking of getting an electric bicycle.” Danny will open a butchery next to the bakery this year, having recently spent four months in Germany learning to make traditional small goods. Judy milks four goats by hand and says, “After I’ve finished my schooling and when I’m 18, I plan to go to the Swiss Alps and learn more about breeding and running goats and how to make more and different cheeses. Then I want to have my own goat herd here on the family farm and make my own cheeses and sell them.” Sarah loves baby animals and it’s her job to feed the lambs, calves and dogs. She stacks the breakfast plates every morning, sweeps the floor, hangs up the washing, folds laundry.

ABOVE: Sarah‘s intellectual impairment seems to create a remarkable empathy between her and the young horses. LEFT: Jan hard at work in the bakery.

It’s almost as if the Vinbrux family was born for Alert Level 4. Read an update on Vinbrux family life five years after NZ Life & Leisure’s original story, and find out how they fared in lockdown.

HAVE YOU GOT WHAT IT TAKES?

Would they recommend this life to other people? “Only if the whole family is behind it and you really love to do these things,” says Christel. “And,” adds Richard, “you don’t think physical work is demeaning.” There is no drudge work on the Vinbrux farm. Living selfsufficiently is grounded in a philosophy where manual work is enjoyed and celebrated. Richard says, “Getting rich was never a big part of our life plan. If we didn’t have the self-sufficiency base, we wouldn’t be able to sustain

ourselves financially. Most of the time we can live quite comfortably off the smell of the rag that was lying next to the oily one. You need to set yourself up so that you can do with very little money if things are not going well. We can make do with about $20,000 for a few years in succession but not forever. Sometimes we have a windfall that brings in another $10,000 or $15,000 and that allows us to make repairs, build or buy something we’ve done without before.” Christel adds, “But we eat like kings even if we don’t have lots of money.”

The milking herd is largely ayreshire but the Vinbruxes are aiming for a dual-purpose ayreshire/ meuse-rhine-issel herd. They butcher the bull calves for home consumption.

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She says, “Every morning I go with Mum to tame the foals.” Christel adds: “She’s very quiet and patient with the young horses and gently introduces them to wearing the halter.” The family agrees that Sarah is a joy. Every morning she wakes up singing. This life of self-sufficiency requires commitment and dedication. “On one level you are far freer than other people but on the other hand there are a lot of things that have to be done – like milking twice a day,” says Richard. “We take one day off in the week but someone needs to feed the animals and milk the cows so we take turns and try to finish up by 11am. We never take a holiday as a family. The children go to stay with friends and family both here and in Germany.” Richard and Christel have taken trips to Germany, but not as a couple. There always needs to be one or other at home on the farm. Nor can they afford to eat out as a rule, but world-renowned restaurateur Fleur Sullivan wishes them a happy wedding anniversary when they turn up at Fleur’s Place in Moeraki for their annual seafood dinner. Richard sums up their way of life: “If anyone wants this life they need to be able to live very simply. If we were prepared to pay for the things we’d like to have we’d need to find jobs off the property. But this is the life we have chosen and we still choose it every day. We would rather work for ourselves than for money.”

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Reminiscences INSPIRATION IS AN easily tossed-around term these days, so I decided to dig a little deeper into why the arrival of NZ Life & Leisure is such a pivotal moment in our house every two months. Yes, I love the houses, décor, scenery and fashion in your pages. Still, more than that, it’s the Kiwi spirit that oozes out of every article that I eat up with ferocity and savour with equal measure. It’s that no-one in your stories seems to settle. They have the courage to build successful businesses, move around the world, help those less fortunate than themselves, be wonderful parents, tackle health issues head-on, and surround themselves with beautiful things and people they love. There’s no such thing as too much, too hard or too busy — or luck. It’s almost as if they’re more afraid of ruts than risks. It’s not that I’m living my life to emulate your ideas, or even be featured in your wonderful pages one day. I’m living my life to be worthy of being featured in your wonderful pages one day. Lucy Leahy, California

FIFTEEN YEARS OF this wonderful magazine made me look back at the first issue; your signature is the same, the pages are gloriously full of colour, it’s great reading and the square of Whittaker’s Milk Chocolate is still attached to page 131. Your editorial made me wonder how many of your goals were achieved — did you ever get to see Earth from space as you wished and how is your acrobat training going? I kept the first issue as I knew one of your interviewees and thought I would share the magazine with a mutual friend, then I kept the second issue as there was someone else I knew in it and, of course, by then I was hooked. If Issue No. 1 was published now the articles, the people, the ads and even the recipes would be as pertinent and relevant and enjoyable as they were 15 years ago. Thank you for my bi-monthly highlight – it’s a joy to read, always. Well done. All the very best for the next 15 years. Charlotte Brebner, Auckland Ed’s note: What great restraint you’ve shown with the Whittaker’s Chocolate square still attached to the page.

Cover image: Kieran Scott

Kate recently asked readers if they remembered the first issue of NZ Life & Leisure. Indeed you did, and very warmly, with many saying how you’d fallen for the beautiful cover. Thanks for your 15 years of memories.

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I’ve just re-read it and came across where I had torn-off the subscription order. You certainly wouldn’t pick that very first issue to be a nearly 15-year-old magazine. I am pretty sure I still have every copy. They are always beautifully produced, inspiring and interesting, so many people doing incredible things and amazing places. Thank you for a great read and all the best for the future. Annette Copsey, St Heliers

From left: Back in the day, at our launch in 2005, editor Kate Coughlan with former advertising sales manager Trudy Parsons-Smith and creative director Yolanta Woldendorp.

The acrobat training didn’t really fly, to be honest. Nor did seeing Earth from space though I love the images of our extraordinary planet, all glorious blue and white, sent from space stations.

I STILL HAVE the first edition, given to me by a friend who wanted the magazine to thrive. A friend, who has some design cred in the fashion industry, said: “It won’t survive” which disappointed me because I’d purchased a subscription by then. I’m so pleased she’s been proved wrong as since then I’ve gifted three subscriptions and continued my own. The first gifted subscription was for a medical practice where the specialist for various reasons chose not to charge me so I promised to buy the magazine to ‘add value to the waiting room experience.’

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HAS IT REALLY been 15 years? I can still remember how I felt when I saw the first issue of NZ Life & Leisure in the bookshop. It was so beautiful and I loved the weight of the paper and matt finish when I picked it up.

IN NORTHLAND WE have had a wonderful summer, hot (sometimes too hot), lots of wonderful evenings, where we are able to enjoy the stars. Today I have received issue 90 in my letterbox, and it has the most wonderful cover I have seen for a while. It is fresh, cool and inviting. I have only got as far as the wrapping, but with some peppermint tea I will be ready to sit outside and enjoy. Great magazine, I have read every one since Issue No. 1. Julie Steyger, Mangawhai

Then I gave a sub as a Christmas present to a sister-in-law, then most recently to a friend who has a bit of a tough life because of several health issues. She passes it on to her daughter whose life is really busy – a bit of lovely escapism for them both. I still have every Castle Hill Station from Issue No. 1 captivated reader issue – can’t bear to throw Meredith Hicks (whose letter is below). them away but am going to have to rationalize this hoarding sometime and gorgeous photos. I had to buy it. soon – can’t expect the daughters-in-law to I remember the delicious anticipation of cope with all those when I’ve gone! Thank you saving it until we had children in bed, and I had for a lovely magazine, and with best wishes for time to savour before a cosy fire with a cup of the next 15 years. tea. I was captivated by the story of Christine Jan Galloway, Wellington Fernyhough buying Castle Hill Station after being widowed and never being a farmer – I SPOTTED THE very first issue while queuing brave. Then Simon Kaan, who my husband at the supermarket. I was in my mid-30s, a stayknew from art school in Dunedin, and Geoff at-home mum with two young children and I Chapple and the new trail the length of New had been loyally buying Next magazine since Zealand. This story came back to me years later graduating from university, but I was ready for a when I bought Geoff’s book about Te Araroa. magazine to represent the place my husband and That is on my bucket list. There was Sam Neill, I were now in. We’d renovated our first home in an iconic New Zealander with whom who I had the suburbs and had taken a second mortgage a connection as my father had worked for his (eek) to buy 4ha of land on which to build an ecofather’s company, Wilson Neill. Food and travel friendly home and raise our family. Big dreams! articles, some interior design and more creative I vividly remember the cover. Was it the title people – all things I enjoy reading about. I had and what it promised? Was it the soft blue found my new magazine, and it had uniquely colours of the picture? Was it the excitement New Zealand stories. of a new magazine not seen before? The paper I still have that first issue and every one felt unlike other glossy magazines of the time. since, all read cover-to-cover. I have enjoyed I flicked through and saw the variety of articles OPPOSITE: Vintage tools have not outlived their usefulness; hand shears leave the merinos with enough wool to weather the bitter winters, wool bales are stencilled with this timehonoured piece of equipment and the grappling hook is used to hoist the bales. Dipping the sheep in summer is essential to minimize dreaded fly-strike.

2 4 NZ L i fe & Lei sure

N Z L i fe & Le i s u re 2 5

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the variety of people and places showcased over the years. Although I occasionally feel there is a tendency to showcase people with vast amounts of money, allowing them to pursue dreams the majority of us never could, I still feel on the whole the magazine is a success. It makes me proud to be from this little island nation tucked at the bottom of the world, punching way above its weight. And I do like those inordinately wealthy people securing our country’s natural and manmade heritage for future generations. I have just reached 50 and our three children are now teenagers with the eldest about the head away to university. Eleven years ago we moved into a passive solar

Where air surrounds you while fire lights your way Discover the magic of the towering Redwoods by night in a place where the four elements – earth, air, fire and water – exist in their most potent form.

RotoruaNZ.com

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house on our land. We are slowly developing it while both holding down jobs and raising busy children. My husband was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour last year. Our dreams for the next stage of our lives have been turned upside down but, through all of this, is NZ Life & Leisure always providing me with a place to escape, beautiful pictures to enjoy and inspiration for the life we can still lead. I leaf back through that first issue and it seems ageless and would hold its own today. I will continue to enjoy buying this magazine while it remains as beautifully produced as it is. Keep it coming and thank you to your clever team. Meredith Hicks, Ōhoka

From cover to cover EVERY COVER TELLS A STORY, SAYS EDITOR KATE, AND HERE ARE SOME OF HER FAVOURITES

MARCH/AP RIL 2015

MAY/JUNE 2010

Beguiled by the story of young aquaculture grad, Mop Anderson (Caroline), and her life fishing commercially on an old kauri launch in the Marlborough Sounds, we asked if she and her South American conure parrot, Starboard, would do the honours for our cover. It’s as magical now as it was a decade ago. Photograph: Tessa Chrisp

Art director Yolanta Woldendorp’s Sundance Ranch in west Auckland is often the setting for photoshoots. None more appealing than this evening barbecue for friends. Not so much fun was lugging in the very heavy pizza oven which, of course, had to be lugged right back out again afterwards. Photograph: Jane Ussher

JANUARY/FEB RUARY 2016

MAY/JUNE 2017

Who doesn’t love a Kombi van? We parked this beauty at a Northland beach, surrounded it with matching vintage props and owner Andrea Beattie (sitting) and my niece Courtney graciously consented to model for us. I see why blue is considered the colour of optimism.

I loved this cover. It’s got everything; a man and his son, an artist at work, a happy dog, a beautiful view out the door. Canterbury sculptor Raymond Herber and his son Luka didn’t even need to pose for this image. It was just a normal day in their lives.

Photograph: Rachael McKenna

Hospice

Hero

DESPITE RETIRING LONG AGO, THIS DUNEDIN NONAGENARIAN HAS NO INTENTION OF STOPPING WORK AS A HOSPICE VOLUNTEER W O R D S C A R I J O H N S O N

AT 94 YEARS OLD,

Helen Bardwell still potters around her garden and eats everything she shouldn’t. In normal times, she drives her car and attends an exercise class every Wednesday. The retired primary school teacher still volunteers at the Otago Community Hospice, going on 25 years of service. “I may be getting very old, but I can still work in the hospice shop,” she says. She remembers when hospices didn’t exist in her hometown of Dunedin. The global hospice movement first gained traction in Otago in the 1980s, aiming to provide equal access to palliative and endof-life care. The city’s first hospice opened its doors in 1990. But it was too late to provide comfort for Helen’s sister, who died of cancer in her 40s. “She had no help whatsoever with her four children. She lived on pills until she died. It was sad. When I learned about hospice, I wished it could’ve been there for my sister,” Helen says. She began volunteering in the hospice kitchen in 1995, later adding shifts at the hospice shop in Bond Street. She retired her cook’s spatula two years ago and shifted her focus entirely to a world of

pre-loved homewares and knick-knacks. These charity op shops are essential to raise funds for hospices so their services can remain free for people with life-limiting illnesses, and their families and caretakers. The Otago Community Hospice has six hospice shops around the region, which partially subsidize what the Southern District Health Board doesn’t cover. “Some people still think the hospice is just a building where people die. But it’s so much more than that. The hospice is no longer just about in-patient beds — it’s now focused on providing amazing community care. The hospice offers a holistic view, looking after everybody concerned with the patient. It’s not just a place of death.” Every Friday, a volunteer collects Helen from her home for a four-hour shift. The shop keeps her on her toes with cleaning, pricing items, and offering counter service to keen bargain-hunters. Helen has never seen age as interfering with her usefulness. “People ask me what my secret to health is, but I don’t have any. I don’t worry about my diet. I can’t drink alcohol – I’ve never been able to as I get as silly as a two-bob watch. I have good genes. I’m one of the lucky ones.”

ANDY KING

ABBE JEAN

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NZ Life & Leisure 13

THIS PAGE: Michael’s Pete Bossley-designed home in Waterfall Bay, Queen Charlotte Sound, is a boat access-only sanctuary.

The

Marlborough

man

CINEMATOGRAPHER MICHAEL SERESIN IS MORE INTRIGUED BY LIFE’S GREAT MYSTERIES THAN HE IS BY GREAT DREAMS FOR HIMSELF W O R D S K AT E C O U G H L A N PH OTO G R A PH S PAU L M C C R E D I E

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THIS PAGE: A shelf along the glassedin bridge between the living area and Michaelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bedroom holds a collection of heart-shaped stones.

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MICHAEL SERESIN’S MOTHER told him she knew even when he was a small boy that he would not stay in New Zealand. “She said I was ‘different’ and predicted I’d leave as soon as I could.” She was right. Michael first left New Zealand as a 22-year-old heading for Rome via a boat to Sydney, a train to Melbourne, a boat to Naples and a train to Rome. It was the 1960s when going overseas literally meant that. And he’s been sort of leaving, over and over again, ever since. “It was a pretty flimsy decision to go to Rome actually. At the time I was an assistant cameraman [trained by John O’Shea at Pacific Films in Wellington], I’d seen a bunch of Italian films, I loved them, so I wanted to go to Italy and make films. A totally emotional decision... Deirdre [Michael’s wife at the time] had a friend who’d gone to Rome and married an Italian businessman who was a friend of the brother of [Italian film producer] Dino de Laurentiis. I thought ‘Great, I’ll go and get a job with de Laurentiis’.” Europe wasn’t as foreign a concept to Michael as it was to many New Zealanders in the 1960s. His father was a White Russian Jew, though born in Hamburg, Germany, who came to New Zealand in 1939 when he was 19. His mother was the daughter of a shoemaker who had returned with his family from England after the 1st World War, having previously emigrated to New Zealand. Michael’s leaving might have been inevitable but it is his coming back, again and again, that is most intriguing.

Michael often cooks Italian food, predominantly vegetarian apart from locally gathered cockles and mussels.

People who challenge cultural biases are invigorating. This expat was great company for his love of the country and his impatience with his countrymen. All the same we were clapping loudly when Michael was awarded the highest honour in the land, the New Zealand Order of Merit, several years later. We were pleased to catch up with him recently and to know he was safe at Waterfall Bay.

SEPTEMBER/O CTOBER 2007

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“I suppose that is what I am doing here. Establishing a cultural oasis”

THIS PAGE: Sittingroom comfort comes from 1936 Marcel Breuer plywood chairs and table and ‘Arco’ lamp by Achille Castiglione.

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Consider the following things about him and his life: he is one of the world’s most highly regarded cinematographers, sought after by leading directors; he has close relationships with ex-wives, lovers and former girlfriends including the mother of his youngest and much-adored son Misha; he also has close relationships with all his five children (aged eight to 41) and with his six grandchildren; and he owns a home in London’s Little Venice and a long-term lease on a very beautiful 11thcentury watermill in a village in Tuscany that is the Seresin family holiday home. All of this rich family and working life is firmly rooted in London and Italy where Michael says he feels, and has always felt, most culturally at home. And here’s some of what he thinks about New Zealand: “It’s a raw and vigorous nation and fundamentally not that sophisticated. Having an espresso machine doesn’t make a culture. A lot of the stuff that passes here for culture is crap. They’re trying but fundamentally it’s not a cultured society.” Yet Michael returns time and time again to this place, the New Zealand he was so desperate to leave, and to a society that drives him to dyspeptic outbursts. This is what makes him so interesting and such great company. Michael thinks New Zealanders are lacking in curiosity and are so hostile to European ideas and influences that they engage in “pissing contests” to out-manoeuvre anyone with an Old World patina.

ABOVE: The umbrella lamp in the sitting-room was designed by Fortuny in 1906. LEFT: The west-facing view of the 12m high entrance to the house.

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THESE PAGES: Michael’s bedroom and bathroom, midway up a beech tree close to the water, offer him a relationship with visiting boaties that’s a bit too close at times. He’s heard some candid views on his house including “that must have been designed by a man because how would you ever clean those bloody windows”.

that survived long enough to produce Michael and one younger sister, Nicola. It was the 1940s and 50s and Michael’s mother (proud and headstrong, he says) moved from place to place waiting for a state house. There were 30 such moves mostly in and around New Plymouth and then more permanently to Tauranga where home was half a house on one occasion and “someone’s bloody garage” on another. His father, meanwhile, was living quite another sort of life. A well-known Wellingtonian, Harry Seresin’s colourful existence at the epicentre of an artistic and culinary revolution in the country’s capital seemed exotic to young Michael on school-holiday visits. There were stepmothers, his father’s lovers, stepsiblings, soirées, wine, theatre and the arts and intellectual discussions.

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Also (and let’s listen carefully as he is no Europhile suffering last century’s cultural cringe) we are big skiters with closed minds. His is an invigorating and challenging perspective and not at all like that of expats who attribute their success to their New Zealand upbringing. Hell no. There is no compromise with this man, no niceties, no platitudes. His childhood “in state houses on the outskirts of places like New Plymouth and Tauranga with nothing to feed the soul” is what drove him to leave. Even he is not sure why he is so hard on New Zealand. But he’s hard on himself and hard on the “many wonderful women” in his life — so hard that now, in his mid-60s, he is alone and lonely for the close companionship of a successful relationship. He had a tough childhood though not without love. His parents had a tempestuous marriage

Among Harry’s many legacies to Wellington (and New Zealand) are Downstage Theatre (formerly Hannah Playhouse), an “exotic European” café above Roy Parsons’ Lambton Quay bookshop in the then newly completed Massey House, a (failed) European furniture import business specializing in (highly prized today) mid-century classics and the very longlived but now defunct Settlement restaurant. But what does Michael Seresin do in New Zealand – beyond keeping us on our cultural toes by delivering a sound slapping for lapses of sophistication and intellectual rigour? Mostly he pours in money, usually into the Marlborough economy and largely through his eponymous organic/biodynamic vineyard and winery. Then there are the arts patronages and endowments. In the past two decades he has invested millions of dollars in Seresin Estate. This includes three vineyards, 8000 olive trees, experimental pine nut plantings, an organic vegetable garden and a biodynamic livestock farm as well as the development of a pristine corner of Marlborough’s Queen Charlotte Sound. Now, tucked quietly into the green beauty of Waterfall Bay, is a Pete Bossley-designed home and boatshed plus a restaurant with a commercial kitchen. “Why am I so hard on New Zealand?” he asks himself. (Why are you so hard on yourself? wonders this writer.) “What I say about New Zealand is something of an exaggeration, a shotgun blasting away at the place, so take it with a bag of salt. Because I do love it here but that’s also how I feel about the place. It just

frustrates me to realize that New Zealand can’t be something it is not.” So why does he come here – why not set up a vineyard in Italy? It is curious that he established such a big business and made such a heavy financial commitment to a life in New Zealand. His children are not connected at all with New Zealand; why would they be? All but Leah, his eldest daughter, grew up in London. “Wine represented elements of a cultured life, especially when I was growing up. Now it’s the norm – nothing special for my kids who grew up in Europe. I suppose that is what I am doing here. Establishing a cultural oasis.” Seresin Estate does represent an oasis of diversity in the blanket of vines that has overtaken Marlborough province since Montana first planted grapes in 1973. Seresin Estate’s biodynamic principles are rooted in a belief that it is important to be in harmony with nature. Of course it is much harder, and more expensive, to grow vines biodynamically but when did that deter Michael? The hard road seems to be the one he travels by choice. “Part of me wishes that I was more easy, more able to roll with the punches. I try to think why I am so demanding and so uncompromising, so intolerant at times. I went to a shrink once and worked on it. I have been in love with many wonderful women but not able to sustain a relationship — it is a loss, surely.” He is, he says, very hard to live with even for himself. Here’s to Michael and to his being able to sustain this relationship with the land of his birth. New Zealand is the richer for it even if, at times, it does feel his scorpion sting.

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MICHAEL ON FILM Michael has worked on 30-plus feature films including The Life of David Gale, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Angela’s Ashes, Mercury Rising, City Hall, Angel Heart, Birdy, Shoot the Moon, Tattoo, Fame, Midnight Express, Sleeping Dogs, Bugsy Malone, The Ragman’s Daughter, Pan, Gravity, The Cab-Ride, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Retrospective, War for Planet of the Apes, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle.

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LEONARDO WONG UNSPLASH

L i FEST Y L E

Tales from a Far-

North forest LIFE WHIZZES PAST WHEN JAMES AND POLLY BUILD A FLYING FOX W O R D S P O L LY G R E E K S

EVEN BEFORE WE started our house, James began planning the sauna. Sometimes we debated where it came on the list of building priorities, but I’d always known it would rank highly. My husband’s passion for saunas was such that he took me to one on our second date; a public rendition of hot, sweaty courtship, so-to-speak. In the end, our homemade sauna arrived after the construction of the indoor kitchen and bathroom but before the kids’ bedrooms. James built it during the leadup to last Christmas, producing a handsome outdoor box from piles of recycled materials and untreated eucalypt. While other Kiwi families headed to beaches and rivers during hot summer days, we traipsed across the courtyard to sweat it out, sweltering as a tiny woodstove pumped heat into our new wooden room. Although it’s

perverse taking saunas beneath a fiercely blazing sun, James spoke so persuasively about the health benefits, friends soon arrived to perspire alongside us. The sauna wasn’t the only thing being fulfilled on personal wishlists. Imagine stepping out your back door to discover a zip-line or flying-fox whizzing off downhill from the garden. I marketed it to James as every child’s dream, but we both knew who really desired it. Sadly, there’s been a notable dwindling of spousal enthusiasm for my ideas since we first met. “A man on You Tube installed a DIY one in just under two hours,” I added alluringly. We bought the components from a hardware store but James was too busy crafting the sauna to get the zip-line installed for Christmas. “The kids can help make it too,” he declared on

Christmas Eve, festively wrapping the steel cable, pulley and various turnbuckles. He denies saying it would be family fun. It certainly wasn’t. Five-year-old Zendo had both the 30-metre cable and parental joviality tangled in knots before James had even donned his tool-belt. A long and trying afternoon followed, clambering through prickly totara trees and barking for misappropriated tools but eventually we had the zip-line pulled tauter than a tightrope. Rather grandly, we announced it ready for the maiden ride. Scrambling to be first, eight-yearold Vita plonked on the seat and promptly sank to the forest floor. “Oh.” She eyed us reproachfully. Mentally blocking the You Tube man’s claim about two-hour ziplines, we rigged it all up a second time, only significantly higher, before again pronouncing it ready.

NZ Life

It could’ve been a homeschooling opportunity to ponder on velocity and physics but our ride-greedy daughter leaped on the seat before my words formed. Her victory yell morphed into a high-pitched scream as she hurtled downhill in a blur. The speed she picked up was extraordinary. There was just time to register an impending crash before the pulley slammed into the stop-plank nailed between two trees. Filled with momentum, our daughter shot past it like a chicken fired from a canon. “Owowow,” she shrieked. Was she laughing? I let out a hopeful chuckle but swiftly rearranged my features when it became evident her gasps were, in fact, wails. Dangling several metres overhead, she took some persuading to drop into our arms.

Arnica cream was liberally applied. A car-tyre was wrestled up to soften the endings and bicycle inner tubes were added to form a self-braking system but for some unfathomable reason, James also greased the pulley before he called for another tester. The children again fought. This time neither wanted to go first. Finally Vita conceded to ride it from halfway down. Her shriek could’ve been one of pleasure. “Was that better?” we asked hopefully once we’d helped her down and inspected her new impact-bruises. “You ride it,” she said through gritted teeth. Guilt saw me clamber on. My screech was involuntary. The hideous sensation of careering into trees at whiplash speeds entirely erased my zip-line enthusiasm.

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After numerous offshore adventures, Polly Greeks, husband James and children Vita and Zendo chose to put down roots in a stand of isolated Northland forest where they are slowly building a mortgage-free, off-grid home and discovering an entirely new way of life. Read more from Polly in her blog Off-the-Grid and online every second Wednesday at thisnzlife.co.nz

In creating Clachanburn Country Garden Jane Falconer was inspired by Central Otago gardening guru Glad McArthur who told her, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Water is at its most beautiful when viewed beneath the bough of a tree.â&#x20AC;? Jane sited the top pond to be visible at quite a distance through a vale of trees.

A woman for all

seasons 52

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CREATING A GARDEN OF NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE IN THE REMOTE FOOTHILLS OF INLAND OTAGO WITH ITS EXTREME CLIMATE AND HEAVY CLAY SOIL TAKES A BODY OF STRONG BONES, A WILL OF IRON AND A SOUL OF MAGIC

W O R D S K AT E C O U G H L A N

PHOTOGRAPHS JANE USSHER

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autumn

MAY/JUNE 2016

Most garden photography for magazines takes place in spring and shows fresh growth and vibrant flower colours. But that’s only one act in mother nature’s playbook. In a harsh climate such as the Maniototo’s, each season brings dramatic changes and to fully appreciate their glory we photographed this property over the course of a year. It was worth it.

JANE FALCONER MOVES like

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a spirited nor’wester through her garden calling fondly to her spoiled donkeys, Toby and Molly. They honk happily back to her from somewhere in the paddock beyond the boatshed on the lower pond. There are no running shoes or digital fitness devices on this gardening legend for whom most days are a dawn-to-dusk workout. It’s all go in Jane’s two-hectare corner of Central Otago’s remotest Maniototo Plains. She’s never heard of the gear known as “idle”. Neither, it seems, has the John Deere tractor on which she roars forth each morning with its front-end bucket filled with horticultural hardware she might need before the fading of daylight sends her back inside. What that poor tractor misses in rest, it reaps in high praise. “It’s my man. I can pick up railway sleepers, stones and small rocks and when I’m finished, I put it in the shed and switch it off. There are not too many men who you can put in the shed and switch off and know they’ll still be there in the morning and not wandered off in an odd direction.” This slip of a woman, mother of two and grandmother to three, was a freshly qualified home-economics teacher in 1971 when she turned her Mini-Minor off the main highway at Ranfurly and sped along a dusty road through the then blink-and-miss-it town of Patearoa (today having something of a revival) for another 20 kilometres to the foot of the Rough Ridge.

NZ LifeCharlie & Le i s u re THIS PAGE: Grandson Falconer is an eager garden helper, especially if it involves a good burn-up, driving the John Deere or sitting in his happy place, which is the boatshed. OPPOSITE: Jane and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Miracleâ&#x20AC;? Margot Hall, who gardens with Jane one day a week, love autumn for its cooler temperatures, colourful seed heads and the glorious shades of the rowans, poplars and maples.

NZ Life

In a previous life the boat shed was the local Patearoa dog trials’ hut but was re-sited by Jane after she had her late husband, Charles, dig her a second pond. And the reason she needed a second pond? Well, Jane was given a very cute clinker kauri dingy and it needed a pond to sit against. It didn’t look right in the top pond.

She was a new bride, wife to Charles Falconer, whose family had owned Clachanburn Station since acquiring it in a ballot after Second World War and who bred cattle and ran sheep on the flats and the lower slopes of Rough Ridge. Newly-wed Jane understood the lie of the land as her family property, Gladbrook, lies in a similar north-east-facing valley near Middlemarch 100 kilometres to the south. The garden in her new home, however, in no way resembled the gracious Gladbrook grounds which had been developed by several generations of Jane’s forebears, the illustrious Roberts. The founder of the Roberts clan (Jane’s greatgrandfather) Sir John Roberts was a mayor of Dunedin, chair of many significant 19th-century businesses and institutions, and inducted into the Business Hall of Fame in 2017 — posthumously of course. The Clachanburn garden was small and tucked like short socks around the ankles of the farmhouse with just one ornamental plum in the handkerchief-sized front lawn and a few flowering plants in narrow beds. Jane took no notice as gardening wasn’t on her agenda. “When I first came here I thought I’d be heading off each day to teach home economics at a local school. But Charles’ father said, ‘No, your job is to stay home and look after your family. We will not be having people think we can’t support you.’

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Donkeys Toby and Molly (left to right) earn their keep supplying nutritious garden fertilizer.

“This was a most unwelcome shock as I loved teaching and I was good at it, but that was that. I was to stay home and be known as Mrs Charles Falconer. A woman didn’t have her own power in those days, I was an appendage of Charles and it was bloody awful. When you are in this situation, in these isolated places, you just have to try to be happy and find a little path you can go up – maybe sewing, cooking, feeding the family and making a simple happy life for yourself. That path took me to the garden.” This young wife, and then mother to children Susan and John, was drawn to a valley just below her new home from where she could see the distant Kakanui Mountains and hear a lovely stony creek (which gave the property its name Clachanburn, Gaelic for stony creek). But to do so, Jane had to scramble through a fence and past a large row of poplars and willows.

winter

One sad day Jane found herself sitting at her kitchen table bawling her eyes out. “It was 1985 and my two babies had gone away to boarding school – both on the same day. I was sobbing and going stark staring mad so I told Charles to take out the garden fence so I could create a new garden and have a project.” She promised the new garden would go only as far as the creek. Initially, Charles wasn’t too pleased as Jane laid out an undulating edge to her garden and if there’s one thing a farming bloke likes, it is a straight fenceline. Knocking down that first fence and several poplars and willows was just the warm-up act for a show that has now gone on for three decades.

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Stopping at the creek? Today the garden extends twice as far beyond it. Pony paddocks have been eaten up, cow byres have been demolished and majestic pines that once stood lonely in paddocks now live in gardened luxury and brush their lower boughs with elegant shrubs. However, in the last few years she might have hit the final frontier as the nuttery (her latest extension) meets steeply rising mountainside which even Jane, indomitable as she is, might not be able to conquer. Thoughtfully, she’s left her son, John (now Clachanburn’s farmer), just enough room for a deer raceway between the nuttery boundary and the mountains.

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THIS PAGE: Winter at this altitude (590 metres) is not for sissies. The ponds freeze over, water freezes in the pipes and Jane has to bash them with a hammer to get it flowing. She attacks the vegetable garden with an axe and boils water to liberate the frozen carrots. OPPOSITE: Jane adores winter as it is time to see if she obeyed the edict of yet-another gardening legend, Christopher Lloyd of Great Dixter, who said, “Form, foliage, flowers – in that order of importance.” She says hearing him say this was like a light bulb going off. “In winter, a garden shows its bones. If, even in its nude state, it still looks good then it’s going to be good in all seasons.”

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spring The view to the Kakanui Range drew Jane out through an original fence, past a line of willows and still gives her daily pleasure. The classic theme of the round garden is reinforced with simple plantings in white and yellow, bare silver birch trunks and rounded forms in the pots and obelisks.

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“What do you do with your time and creativity when you live in very isolated places? I was never going to be sitting in the pub”

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Now he can move Clachanburn’s 4000+ elk between the deer shed, the mountains behind and the flats below. Though she did get him to build the ha-ha of all ha-has – an elk-sized one with schist rocks each the size of a small barn. Not even an elk could leap up its massive sides to wander along a garden path. Jane says in the early days her garden grew at a slow pace due to her having very little money to buy plants to fill vast empty areas. She went on lots of garden club trips and one day saw a garden with a pond. She realized she had a creek, so she could have a pond and what’s more she had a husband with a wee bulldozer — a perfectly pond-sized bulldozer.

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“A fortnight later when Charles was still digging, I said, ‘Charles, when is a pond not a pond? When it becomes a lake. Charles, get out of this pond before it becomes a lake.’ He replied: ‘You’ll thank me for this one day’, and he was very proud of the fact that his pond has never leaked – not to this day. “A lot of country women have this same story as mine; their garden growing out through the fences. What do you do with your time and creativity when you are living in very isolated places? “I was never going to be sitting in the pub. And as far as a golf club went – what was I to be doing with that? Futile if you ask me.”

In all lives some rain must fall – though in the Maniototo there’s seldom enough of the real stuff. On the positive side came the commissioning of the Maniototo Irrigation Scheme in 1984. It was a significant development for Jane’s gardening career, ensuring as it did Clachanburn’s water supply. On the opposite side of the ledger, in 1997 Charles suffered a minor stroke, which shocked the family and left them worrying about the future. Within two years he had another, and this time a major stroke, leaving him wheelchairbound and the farm teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Jane is sure financial near-ruin caused Charles’ stroke. She and son John

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THIS PAGE: “We don’t have posh plants in this garden,” says Jane of the masses of lupins, catmint, grasses, hebes and roses that flower round the pond in summer. “We plant what does well and that’s what always looks best. When I chose a new plant variety, I give it one go. If it dies, I might plant it again but I will never persist with planting a third one. You have to go with what likes to live here. You can’t force a garden.”

(who flew home from elk farming in Canada to take over) worked themselves near to the bone to keep Clachanburn going, took on even more debt in a risky dairy conversion (which worked) and Jane took paying visitors into the garden. Charles died seven years later. Jane has come to love her garden visitors (about 700 a year prior to the pandemic) and looks forward to seeing them return after the pandemic restrictions in early 2020. She particularly loves the international visitors who cannot believe one woman lives alone in such a huge garden. That makes her laugh and be ever-more grateful for all her good fortune. And for her John Deere, patiently waiting in the garden shed.

OPPOSITE: Clachanburn’s many paths lead visitors on a wonderland-like tour always to a garden seat, a view or to another part of the garden. Despite the magical feeling, Jane takes no nonsense from her plants. “I can’t be doing with badly behaved plants that want to bolt out the gate to Patearoa the minute I turn my back.” Learn more at clachanburn.co.nz

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Topsy

Turvy

A YOUNG CONTORTIONIST KNEW HER WORKING LIFE WOULDN’T BE SPENT COOPED UP BEHIND A DESK IN A NINE-TO-FIVE JOB WORDS AMANDA MCCONCHIE & CARI JOHNSON

1990-2007 A FLEXIBLE CHILDHOOD

Emma Phillips loved performing on stage as a child and dreamed of being a ballet dancer during her years at Whangarei Girls’ High School. “I guess you could say I love showing off,” she says. She saved “performance careers” as her top Google search after seeing the Cirque du Soleil at age 15, opening her eyes to opportunities beyond traditional ballet.

2008-2010 Setting the stage She enrolled in the Diploma of Circus Arts at Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology to study aerial hoop, foot juggling and adagio (partner acrobatics). Emma then joined Circus Aotearoa for five months before being invited to attend the Beijing International Art School. She was one of 15 foreigners among 500 Chinese pupils, majoring in foot juggling and contortion. 2011 A young contortionist Emma has always been flexible; from a very young age she could do the splits and high kicks with ease. But in Beijing she learned that the art of contortion takes years of training to reach the level required to perform internationally. She spent two summers with Fuse Circus in Wellington before returning to China to finetune her act at a distinguished acrobatics school. She spent more than a year living in the small village of Wuqiao (south of Beijing). The experience pushed her body to the limits and required mental strength. “No one spoke English. I didn’t really have internet or contact with the outside world. It was the most formative time of my life,” she says. 2012 Selling the act Emma set her sights even further across the globe after returning to New Zealand. She dreamed of joining the ranks of circus acts in Europe, to juggle and twist among world-class performers, comedians and musicians and showgirls at elegant dinner shows in restored theatres. Emma began emailing videos of her foot-juggling act to theatre directors as far away

as Russia and Spain. “You have to ‘sell’ your act to directors,” she says. “They could be getting hundreds of emails a day so you have to give them something different.” 2014 Foot-juggling in Europe In 2014, she was offered a theatre contract in Finland, followed by another in Venice. Emma has moved from city to city since to perform her foot-juggling and aerial hoop act for 2-3 months at each theatre — sometimes with less than one day between contracts. Such contracts included “bucket list” theatres such as the GOP Varieté, Friedrichsbau Varieté, Roncalli’s Apollo Varieté and cruises with the luxury liner MS Europa II. Crowds would applaud as Emma, dressed in a cabaret-like costume, would flip upside-down to gracefully toss Chinese parasols or tables into the air with her feet. 2020 Circus Roncalli In February Emma took another stomachflipping leap in her career and she began training for a one-year tour with Circus Roncalli, a German troupe known for (cruelty-free) animal holograms and sell-out shows. But on premiere night, pandemic restrictions on group gatherings forced the circus to postpone. Emma returned home to join her sister in Whangarei, where she plans to ride out Alert Level 3 with her niece and newborn nephew. After that? The show must go on. “The arts have served as a source of inspiration for society during many challenges throughout history,” she says. “Our job as artists is to provide a moment of relief or pure pleasure when that time comes.”

WATCH A VIDEO OF EMMA’S FOOT-JUGGLING ACT

JANUARY/FEB RUARY 2012

We met Emma through her sister Cheree (Insider’s Guide editor) and we were enthralled when Emma visited us and put on a dazzling display. My heart was in my mouth as she did warm-ups on our boardroom table with her head facing one way and her legs over her back, feet resting by her head. It is hard to describe – imagine doing it.

The SEA of

eden FROM A HOME SET IN PARADISE WITH FOUR GORGEOUS DAUGHTERS AND A MENAGERIE OF BEAUTIFUL ANIMALS, THIS RESOURCEFUL NORTHLAND WOMAN PROMOTES BUSINESSES THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY W O R D S P O L LY G R E E K S PHOTOGRAPHS TESSA CHRISP

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NZ Life & Leisure 67

The Thackwray family enthralled us with their animalfilled beachside life in the winterless north. Three more girls have since joined the family. “Micki’s little ones, “ says Andrea, “and we are still surrounded with many pets; baby bunnies at the moment, chickens, ducklings, a papillon puppy. Nothing has changed.” Meet the newest arrivals to the family on page 74.

In a recent issue (May/June 2019) we met daughter Bridget again and her partner, Topher Richwhite, as they traveled the world.

JANUARY/FEB RUARY 2013

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“Michelle and I work and work, then we step out here and relax with a swim or we go diving,” Andrea says, describing office lunch breaks. The ferro-cement sculptures were the result of a family holiday project some years ago.

With only three permanent households in the bay, Andrea and her daughters have the place practically to themselves although they’re always happy to share their space with visiting dolphins and orcas.

ANDREA THACKWRAY is the sort

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of woman who grows bored simply soaking up paradise. Put her in a Fijian resort and she’ll end up managing a team of 15 gardeners as she landscapes the grounds. Place her by a Northland beach and she becomes a diving instructor. Ask her to plan an overseas family holiday and she’ll come up with a scheme for a tourism business that may, one day, encompass every country on the planet. Take her on a family trip around New Zealand and she turns her kids into a work team of actresses, film crew and marketing advisors as they take in the sights.

“When she does something, she goes all out. She goes to bed at 11.30pm and is always up at 5.00 the next morning,” daughter Michelle says of her mother. “I never see her in bed. She’s always at the computer. She doesn’t stop.” Viewing the beautiful Northland bay the Thackwrays call home, it’s amazing that Andrea ever started. Hidden at the end of a dirt road winding between lumpy paddocks and bushclad hills, the Thackwray’s house is smack-bang in the centre of postcard country. The house is as beachy as they come, with wraparound decks and the ocean lapping just metres away.

Michelle, watched by mother cat Angel, records her kittens’ lives from the moment they’re born, posting images on her website for future owners.

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With a custom-built boat in the shed, four ponies to match the four long-haired, longlegged girls, orchard trees swelling with the promise of summer plums, a tree house overlooking the vegetable garden and the protective arm of Mahinepua Peninsula encircling a bay heaving with kai moana, simply enjoying the place could just about be a full-time endeavour. Behind the house is a hill, bulldozed into a more respectable form back in the 1980s when building consents weren’t so starchy and prim. Citrus and olive trees march up its steep sides and so too do the girls on their ponies, heading for the panorama of the ocean from top of the four-hectare property. To the right, the Cavalli Islands mass on the horizon like a fleet of stone ships while the view directly below the headland is of pretty scalloped beaches and clear turquoise water. It’s not a bad backyard for a kid, daughters Penny, aged 10, and Holly, 8, agree. Andrea hopes their appreciation lasts. Her dream is for her daughters to build homes of their own one day on the three further house sites staggered up the hill. Evidence that Andrea is not one to lie idle in this slice of Eden is dotted about the property. Her substantial seaside garden has been grown entirely from clippings. When the walls of the house required art, she learnt to paint landscapes, going on to sell pictures for $2000 a pop, while the ferro-cement statues dotted about the grounds are also her own work.

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CATS ON CAMERA

She wasn’t quite born with a camera in hand but Michelle Thackwray has been making short videos for almost as long as she can remember, selling her first promotional video to a Fijian resort when she was 12. “Photography is my passion,” the 20-year-old says, adding that she takes around 1000 pictures a day, largely focusing on the ragdoll cats she’s been breeding since she was 14. “I got a breeding pair because I wanted a kitten.” She now has a successful hobby selling her New Zealand Cat Fancy-registered cats via a website that features promotional videos of the beloved felines. See the kittens on ragdollkittens.co.nz

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Penny on Ayla and Michelle on Savannah enjoy riding bareback along the beach.

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So when this Northland businesswoman describes herself as a sun-seeker who’s been known to drive from Milford to Nelson in one sitting just to catch some blue sky, it’s obvious she has more on her mind than acquiring a tan. What’s motivating her is a desire to showcase New Zealand’s finest tourist offerings to the world. Pursuing the sun is all about capturing picture-perfect imagery of each region for her online promotional business See and Do New Zealand. “Places have to be seen at their best. That means no clouds when we film.” The inspiration for this came four years ago when Andrea decided to take the kids on holiday to Europe. “I was trying to find somewhere to go in Italy and started thinking how good it would be to have a map of the country where I could click on places and get short video clips of what it’s like.” Realizing visitors to New Zealand could also benefit from such a service, Andrea busied herself in filling that niche. So far, she’s driven the length of the country three times, collecting footage for her website See and Do New Zealand which was launched in November 2011. And even though her four daughters have been able to climb mountains, heli-ski, cruise on boats, paraglide, sample spas and swim with dolphins, they aren’t just along for the ride. Younger girls Penny and Holly are solely actresses/models. There they are, cutely splashing in surf, jumping off yachts or strolling down small-town streets while their sisters Bridget (19) and Michelle (20) can be seen looking suitably gorgeous atop mountains, in forests or reclining in hot pools.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;You get way more sense of satisfaction when you live your life conquering challengesâ&#x20AC;?

Andrea, Bridget, Penny and Holly (perched above) investigate a rock pool, helped by Louie and Tipsy the chihuahua. With cats, dogs, birds, ponies and the various specimens brought home from the sea, Andrea says the number of family pets can seem a little crazy at times.

Holly, squeezing juice from homegrown oranges, watches as Penny teaches her ducklings table manners supervised by Louie, the long-haired weimaraner.

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every room of the Copthorne and Scenic Hotels and most other accommodation in Northland.” She wants regional See and Do promotional videos to be screened in accommodation throughout the country, with Auckland her next focus. Constantly planning and scheming further ways to grow, she’s translating her website into Mandarin, Japanese and Korean, runs touristappropriate event calendars and, when she’s completed coverage of New Zealand, aims to launch a See and Do website for the South Pacific. She’s also launched See and Do videos for Hong Kong, England and Paris. Operating on a large scale is stimulation for this woman who admits the word “can’t” is like a red rag to a bull for her. “I thrive on challenges. I tend to move on once I’ve conquered something.” That means a string of successes has been left in her wake. Her first business saw her at age 21 employing 15 staff, running a factory creating fabric sculptures, place-mats, oven gloves and cushions and turning over $10,000 a month. When now ex-husband Phil entered the scene, she packed it all in to come north. Together they drove diggers and trucks for their contracting business and, utilizing the warm, clear water of Mahinepua’s bay, Andrea became a professional dive instructor. She also set up a website design company with a girlfriend, identifying the potential for online promotional videos early on.

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More often than not though, Michelle is behind the camera directing, shooting and, later, editing the scenes. Bridget’s also involved with web design and both girls help their mum market the business. Visiting the nation’s choicest places and sampling what’s on offer looks like fun and it is, Andrea and the girls agree, but behind the glamour is plenty of guts and grind. “The girls know they have to look like they’re having fun as they jump off that boat,” Andrea says, “or else they’ll just have to jump again. And again. And sometimes that water is really cold.” While providing pretty pictures of the country is helpful to potential tourists, such altruism doesn’t pay the bills. Andrea has cleverly married See and Do New Zealand with her other business, Promotional Videos Ltd, which makes advertising videos for business clients to use on their websites. Tourism operators paying for a promotional video are given the option of appearing on the main website and in regional videos which are provided to motels and hotels along with an easy-to-use booking menu for activities. Starting in Northland, Andrea contacted every single accommodation provider to explain why they should screen her promotional Northland videos to their guests, with commissions and prizes offered as incentives to take part. “We’re now showing on over 2000 screens and we’re running on a dedicated tourism channel in

After Phil found work in Fiji, creating a subdivision for the Musket Cove resort, the family relocated to live there. It was, Andrea says, boring as hell. A keen gardener, she landscaped the resort, oversaw her daughters’ correspondence education and later worked with resort engineers on concept plans for their own resort development. To keep her older daughters entertained on the Fijian beaches, she began teaching them the computer programmes Photoshop and Dreamweaver. “They’ve been doing animated gifs since they were little.” It’s proved to be the ideal training for their roles now. Techsavvy, hardworking and just as passionate as their mother about See and Do New Zealand’s

potential, Michelle and Bridget are an integral part of the business. Working as a cameraman and programme developer, Michelle’s partner David Smith is also on board as a full-time employee. There’s now a full-time sales rep in Northland and Andrea’s just taken on another for the Auckland area. With up to five workers crowded into the office, things can become a little hectic at times, but the postcard scene just beyond the door helps keep things in perspective. “It’s all about having a wonderful life,” Andrea says. “This isn’t a job job; it’s a passion. Sure it’s hard at times but it’s a challenge and you get way more sense of satisfaction when you live your life conquering challenges.”

NOW

The Thackwray family in 2020. FROM LEFT: Penny with her pet rabbit Grey, Bridget holding Michelle’s daughter Lilly (4), Andrea with Michelle’s daughter Kate (2), Michelle with her baby Emily and Holly holding Tipsey the chihuahua.

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THIS PAGE: The Dream House received its moniker during a house-warming party in 1959. The house is positioned on the ridge between Deadmans Bay and Awaawaroa Bay on Waiheke Island. OPPOSITE: Curving inner walls – one a wall of the kitchen, the other of the main bedroom – are a flourish of inspiration between the foyer and the sitting-room.

CAPTURED WHILE STILL IN ITS FULL MID-CENTURY GLORY, A HOLIDAY HOUSE ON WAIHEKE ISLAND REJOICED IN ITS ORIGINAL RETRO ATTIRE

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WO R D S R E B E C C A H AY T E R

PHOTOGRAPHS TESSA CHRISP

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The spacious kitchen is a further tribute to retro, including pull-out breadboards and spice cabinet. A Shacklock coal range and what Margot Robinson (daughter of the owner) believes is an electric sterilizer for dishes are never used but retain the character.

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Margot with cocker spaniels Jack and Sophie.

When a house looks the same after half a century, the designer/builder clearly got it right

JANUARY/FEB RUARY 2012

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ONE DAY IN APRIL 1959 “about 80 friends”, according to The Manukau Progress (“the paper loyal to your district”), boarded a charter launch for Waiheke Island. They were the excited guests of Mr and Mrs D McCallum of Captain Springs Road and were going to the house-warming of the McCallums’ newly finished holiday residence. The new house commanded the ridgeline between Deadmans Bay and Awaawaroa Bay, not the easiest site on which to build, but the house was perfectly positioned and designed to absorb the best of the sun and the views. The guests were besotted and promptly named it The Dream House. If they were to return today, they would be thrilled to find it resplendent in its isolated, art-deco glory, barely changed from their first visit. When a house looks the same after half a century, the designer/builder, Mr McCallum, clearly got it right. The retro integrity begs the visitor to enter and admire. Oh my, it’s like revisiting the home of a best childhood friend.

This story makes me smile as it reminds me of the flash, new houses of my childhood era with their revolutionary floor-to-ceiling windows and interior feature walls of exposed Summerhill stone. I think it is just as gorgeous now as it was then. The house with all the original furniture was subsequently sold and kept “as is”. It is currently for sale again.

Whitford; Margot remembers barging cattle and sheep across the T maki Strait between farms. Sometimes she brought her horse, Goldie, across on the ferry. “I had to hold onto him the whole way. The ferries had open railings then.” After Keith sold the farms, Clare bought the Awaawaroa property to retain the family’s links with the island. The sale included furniture, ornaments, paintings, duck-patterned crockery and the radiogram and LPs. Clare and Keith often flew in by helicopter, landing either north or south of the house, depending on the wind. The more usual access is by gravel road, about 20 minutes from the ferry at Matiatia. As it had been for the McCallums, the house became the Hattaways’ social centre on Waiheke.

The peninsula separates Deadmans Bay and Awaawaroa Bay – visitors swim and picnic at whichever side is most sheltered.

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Oh my, remember that wallpaper? The same beaten-metallic-style Formica as the bathrooms at boarding school and, oh I don’t believe it, a Reverbiogram radiogram with a drop-down shelf that reveals the turntable. Do kids today even know what an LP is? And so it happens with every visitor. Margot Robinson, one of the daughters of current owner Clare Hattaway, smiles. “People always comment on the era,” she says. “They find it fascinating to think that there’s a still a place that’s original and not pretentious: just a great, relaxing place.” Margot and her sister Diane Hill spent most of their childhood holidays on Waiheke Island, on land farmed by their father Keith Hattaway at Little Muddy Bay and Cows Bay, from the 1960s to the 1980s. He also farmed at

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Light pours in from the sitting-room’s large semicircle of windows. A mighty pōhutukawa provides the Christmas decoration. “It’s a big room but it sort of encases you,” Diane says. “If you sit at the dining-table in that curve, it actually echoes.”

The twin wall lamps and paintings, including a familiar print of a Caribbean beauty, came with the house – another version decorates the main foyer. On many a New Year’s Eve the house has rocked to 1960s’ and ’70s’ LPs played on the radiogram.

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Friends anchored their boats in either bay and came for lunch or dinner. What was on the menu? “Seafood,” Margot says. “Mussel fritters – there is a spot we were told to keep very quiet about – snapper kokoda, oysters. We’d put out the flounder net for breakfast.” Whether they sat inside or outside, friends could be guaranteed sun and views. If it was windy they could choose whichever beach was sheltered. On New Year’s Eve the house rocked to the music on the LPs. There are still faded boxed sets of Nana Mouskouri and Abba. After Keith died in 1988, Clare brought friends over, a tradition that stopped only three years ago when she suffered a stroke. “I used to ring them up and ask: ‘How are the Golden Girls getting on?’” Margot says. “They’d say, ‘Oh, we’re just having lunch’ or ‘We’re getting dressed for happy hour’. If I came down with them, I’d serve the hors d’oeuvres and top up their Pimms. “On Saturdays, they’d go up to the market at Ostend and buy their fresh vegetables for the weekend. It really was Mum’s sanctuary.” Many houses of the era were built to face the road but Mr McCallum designed his to straddle the ridgeline, which means the pathway leads first to the tradesman’s entrance, then to the main entrance overlooking Awaawaroa Bay. There is a strong sense that the house evolved in his mind for years because it works so well. Diane agrees. “I understand [from the farmer who sold him the land] that he had a model made out of matchboxes that he kept playing with.

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In the main bedroom a panelled interior wall curves around the bed and the dressing-table matches cabinets in the sitting-room â&#x20AC;&#x201C; all were custom made when the house was built. There is also a double guest room with views over Awaawaroa Bay and a twin room, providing beds for eight.

THIS PAGE: The blackand-white tiles flow through the bathroom, toilet and kitchen. The bathroom of black and chartreuse is retro on adrenalin, if not providing the most soothing soak in the tub.

“Then he went ahead and built it,” she says. Diane, with black Labrador Magic, and Margot, with cocker spaniels Jack and Sophie, and their families use the house regularly, entertaining friends, walking the surrounding farmland and swimming and picnicking on the beach. Guests at the housewarming in 1959 enjoyed these same activities, as recorded in the The Manukau Progress: “but I am sorry to say that they caught only one fish, and that was a tiddler. Most of the ladies went for a tramp over the hills (go on, did

they find one? – Ed). Some of the fortunate ones gathered mushrooms.” And later that evening: “Items by the Te Papapa Women’s Bowling Club’s nightingales, Mesdames N Burgess, M Butterworth, R Larking and J Howarth, were received with great acclamation.” The McCallums planned their housewarming as carefully as they planned the house and imbued it with a party spirit. “It’s always been a happy house,” Diane says. “It’s always been a fun place to go to and enjoy.”

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Visit our online home, thisNZlife, in May and June for exclusive interviews, recipes, DIY projects, gardening advice, giveaways and more GET IN THE GARDEN

AS EASY AS PIE

Floortje | iStock

Although the weather is cooling down, there’s plenty to do in the garden. There’s still time to plant spring bulbs in the flower garden and in the veggie patch – broad beans, daikon, kale and other winter greens.

Simon Gault’s hearty Smoked Kahawai Pie is a classic Kiwi fish pie with a delicious twist. Simon’s pie recipe includes Dutch Babies, an Americanstyle pancake popover similar to a Yorkshire pudding.

FLOURISH OF CRUMPETS Nicola Galloway’s sourdough recipes on thisNZlife have been shared like hotcakes during the lockdown. This easy sourdough crumpets recipe uses up excess sourdough starter.

FEELING SHEEPISH LOTS IN POTS

COLD COMFORTS

New Zealand-born Aaron Bertelsen is a gardener and cook at the worldfamous Great Dixter garden in East Sussex. He shares tips for growing veggies in pots — plus a lentil soup recipe.

Colder weather calls for savoury pies, roasted vegetables and fragrant curries. We’ve collated 14 of our favourites including the delicious Pumpkin and Chickpea Coconut Curry pictured.

Garden guru Lynda Hallinan’s father was once a sheep shearer. What he must think of his daughter’s efforts to learn to shear her pet sheep on her Hunua farm beggars belief.

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BAKE UP A STORM

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W IN Kefir is a crisp, soda-like beverage more probioticdense than kombucha. Forage & Ferment’s Ginger Root flavoured water kefir was named champion of this year’s Drink category at the Outstanding New Zealand Food Producer Awards. Be in to win one of two Wild Kefir Soda 750ml 4-packs, valued at $47.96.

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Fruits of the earth Join us in toasting the winners of this year’s Outstanding New Zealand Food Producer Awards. They come from throughout the country to bring the finest tastes to our palates. NZ Life & Leisure salutes the medalists and urges you to support them by buying their delicious goods.

The better the quality of food we consume, the healthier we will be as individuals and the more robust our economy. This year’s winners demonstrate a high level of sustainability, says NZ Life & Leisure Taste editor and ONZFPA judge Lucy Corry, so the planet is being well looked after in the process. Could it get any better? There was a 25 per cent increase in entries this year over which the 25 judges sniffed, tasted, licked, chewed and swallowed, blind-tasting under the watchful eyes of eight stewards. Products ranged from value-added meat to dairy-free yoghurt, convenience pre-cooked meals to vegetables and seeds and everything delectable in between. The new Drink category was also strong with soothing teas, kefir and kombuchas. Don’t forget that you can buy many of these products at a single click from our online NZ Life & Leisure Farmers Market at thisnzlife.co.nz Browse and shop from the comfort of your armchair.

See the full list of medalists and champions at outstandingfoodproducer.co.nz 90

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Brothers Ben and George Bostock and a small herd of happy chooks.

CLUCKING GOOD A family-run business producing premium poultry is the Supreme Champion in the 2020 Outstanding New Zealand Food Producer Awards WORDS LUCY CORRY

ABOUT 18 MONTHS ago, Hawke’s Bay chicken farmer Ben Bostock told television’s Country Calendar he had two goals. The first was to take a holiday; the second was to produce New Zealand’s best chicken. He’s managed to tick off both. The holiday — a jaunt around the United States in an Airstream caravan with his wife and young son — came first. Now, Bostock Brothers, the organic chicken business he runs with brother George, is the Supreme Champion in the 2020 Outstanding New Zealand Food Producer Awards. Bostock Brothers’ Organic Whole Chicken, which the judges described as having outstanding flavour, won the Paddock category before taking out the supreme champion title. In a world where food production has become ever faster, the Bostocks have deliberately plotted a slower course (see NZ Life & Leisure, November/December 2014). Quality, not quantity, is their motto.

They let their chickens grow slowly, feed them a diet of organic maize grown on the property, and let them frolic around a former apple orchard. The chickens sleep in French-designed “chalets” and enjoy longer, happier lives than conventional free-range chickens (who are often free-range in name only). “When we first started, I went to see a big free-range chicken farm, and I was horrified,” Ben says. “I was from a farm, so I thought I knew what production was like, but they were growing chickens like they were tomatoes, keeping them in temperature-controlled sheds. I knew I didn’t want to operate like that.” Instead, the Bostocks opted to become New Zealand’s only organic chicken producers. This means meeting strict regulations on flock size and density, so they keep a small flock and give them large areas in which to roam. The entire food chain — from the chickens to what they eat and where they graze — is free of chemicals, antibiotics, growth-promoting products and genetically modified organisms. Committing to running a poultry business based on organic principles hasn’t been easy or cheap, but the brothers wouldn’t have it any other way. “The organic standard is strongly audited and regulated, but there are no regulations on the term ‘free-range’,” Ben says. “A lot of people ask us if you can be organic and not free-range, but the answer is ‘no’. If we had 50,000 chickens in a shed and one person looking after them, our costs would be 10 times lower. “But the additional costs are directly

his future lay in poultry, leased an eight-hectare block of the family farm when he started in 2014. Being a genuinely family-owned business has multiple benefits, George says. “I studied marketing at university and Ben did science, so I suppose we have certain strengths in different areas, but we both have relationships with buyers, and we share everything.” “Working together means problems are halved,” Ben adds. While their childhood likenesses appear on their logo, the Bostocks aren’t just the face of the brand for marketing purposes. Transparency about their operations is hugely important to them, and they both genuinely enjoy connecting with customers big and small, George says. “Earlier this year we were selling hot rotisserie chickens at the Horse of the Year show, and so many people came up to us and said, ‘Oh my god, I can never go back to other chicken now. Yours reminds me of how it used to taste when I was growing up.’” For stockists, see bostock.nz

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proportionate to the costs of maintaining better animal welfare.” That includes keeping all aspects of production as sustainable as possible. The Bostocks use non-treated wood shavings from a local sawmill for their chicken sheds. (The shavings are later scooped up and turned into compost.) They’re also the first meat producers in New Zealand — possibly the world — to wrap their products in plant-based, compostable packaging. Beneath the Bostocks’ laconic, laid-back style lies steely focus and absolute adherence to their principles. “We process about 3000 to 4000 chickens a day, which is what the big guys do in 10 minutes. We’ll never be able to compete with them on volume, so we’re happy focusing on quality,” Ben says. The Bostocks grew up in Hawke’s Bay, where their parents John and Vicki pioneered growing organic apples on a commercial scale. Ben, who dabbled in several occupations before deciding

BUTTERED UP Another winning seed and nut mix from a small Wellington nuttery, which has big ideas on how to take great flavours to the world WORDS LUCY CORRY

AS FAR AS NUT butters go, this one’s a little bit country and a little bit rock’ n’ roll. The clue is in the name: Fix & Fogg’s Everything Butter is a winning blend of hemp, chia, sesame, sunflower, pumpkin and flax seeds with peanuts and almonds. “We wanted to do nuts and seeds justice, not just have nuts in the spotlight. It has a great flavour and ingredients, but the best thing about it is the mouthfeel. It has a whole lot going on in terms of texture,” says Fix & Fogg co-founder Roman Jewell. Judges agreed that this jazzed-up nut and seed combo was a step up from most spreads, praising its delicious, roasty aroma, easy spreadability and balanced flavours. Roman thinks it’s the first locally made butter of its kind to include hemp seeds, which were legalized for food consumption in New Zealand in 2018. Giving people something extraordinary has become the default position for the small

Wellington company, which Roman and his wife Andrea started in their kitchen nearly seven years ago. The couple, then both looking for a way out of legal careers, began selling their first premium peanut butter at Wellington markets as a hobby. Before long, demand required them both in full-time nut butter production. Now, Fix & Fogg employs around 20 staff in Wellington, where it produces 10 nut butters (including the Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter, which won two Outstanding New Zealand Food Producer Awards in 2017). Fix & Fogg’s wares are sold nationwide, as well as in Australia, Singapore and the US, where the couple has opened a nut-buttery factory. “Going over there was a big move, but we want to grow it just like we did here — by starting small, being ourselves and being true to what we do,” Roman says. “We put a lot of effort into producing something that’s great quality, and it’s good to see people appreciate it.” For stockists, see fixandfogg.com

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DRINK

GURGLING GOODNESS Clevedon’s queen of fermentation has brewed a natural, low-sugar beverage that packs a probiotic punch WORDS CARI JOHNSON

THERE’S A PECULIAR beauty to

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cabbage gently gurgling away in a probioticrich brine. While fermentation may make some people squirm, Kelli Walker finds the burbling and babbling to be a lovely thing. “Fermented foods are, in my opinion, the future,” says Kelli, owner of Forage & Ferment (see NZ Life & Leisure May/June 2019). “It’s about looking back to see how we’ve done things in the past and how we can make them relevant today — bringing some of these ancient wellness elixirs back into the spotlight.” That’s why Kelli recently launched Wild Kefir — a crisp, soda-like beverage — as another nutrient-dense offering from her Auckland fermentary. The naturally fizzy drink, called water kefir, is lighter and more probiotic-dense than kombucha. Water kefir is also a bit trickier to produce commercially. “Living beverages, and even more so water kefir, can be tricky to upscale, maintain consistency and minimize alcohol content.

It’s been a journey to master all the variables, but it was worth it,” says Kelli. The magic starts with a simple concoction of lemon, ginger, organic dates and organic sugar, which feeds a culture of bacteria and yeast. After the initial brew, the drink is flavoured with roots, shoots and berries in a second ferment. The result is a low-sugar drink with a light, refreshing flavour. “We like to refer to it as a probiotic powerhouse loaded with billions of gut-loving bacteria. The more ferments in your diet, the more diversity you acquire in your gut,” says Kelli. Judges, not privy to Wild Kefir’s microbial profile, found the beverage pleasantly tasting and refreshing, noting its light effervescence. Forage & Ferment’s Ginger Root flavour was named champion of this year’s drinks category. She started the business by trialing jars of her homegrown ferments at the Clevedon Village Farmers’ Market in 2017. For stockists, see forageandferment.co.nz

THE BIG SMOKE A new way of treating a former byproduct catch is tickling taste buds WOR DS EMMA R AWSON

KAHAWAI IS A FEISTY fish, known

“celebration of a good, honest Kiwi fish. Beautifully moist and moreish.” for putting up a good fight and testing the skill of Kahawai is important to Ngati Porou, the iwi of anglers. It is often overlooked by chefs and foodies the East Cape and Te Tairawhiti/Gisborne. The fish favouring traditional white fish such as tarakihi is abundant in the area, and for centuries iwi has or snapper/tamure. Ken Houkamau, operations eaten kahawai. While traditionally it was dried over manager at iwi-owned Ngati Porou Seafoods Group in Gisborne, is determined to change hearts a campfire, these days it’s smoked in a high-tech and minds with the company’s smoked fish brand, facility in Gisborne. Kahawai is listed on Forest & Bird’s Best Ahia. “The seafood industry is very competitive, Fish Guide 2017 as one of New Zealand’s most but stubbornness and unrelenting determination are Ng ti Porou characteristics. We never give up, a abundant fish. It is indicative of Ngati Porou Seafoods’ environmental focus on creating diverse bit like the kahawai.” products from sustainable species. Ken says the company’s Ahia Freshly Smoked Nothing goes to waste: the fillets are smoked, Kahawai Manuka Honey shows what’s possible the fish offcuts become Ahia-brand fish spreads, when the oily muscular fish is shown aroha/love and fish heads and entrails are sold as crayfish bait and respect. Ahia Freshly Smoked Kahawai in the company’s Gisborne seafood retail store Manuka Honey is nothing like the bony and Real Fresh. The honey for the smoked kahawai is tough-as-boots fish that New Zealanders might have grown up eating. “Kahawai is so underrated; sourced from iwi-owned manuka honey producers it can be beautiful with the right preparation and at Awatere Station in Te Araroa. “First and foremost, we must maintain the ability smoking technique. We fillet, brine and smoke our fish when it’s fresh and glaze each piece with for the whanau to come to get a feed from the sea,” says Ken. “If we didn’t look after our ocean, manuka honey by hand; you can taste the love.” we would get a kick up the a*** from our aunties The judges described Ahia’s winning Freshly up the coast.” For stockists, see ahia.co.nz Smoked Kahawai Manuka Honey as a

NZ Life

CHURN OF HEART A Wānaka freezery lives up to its name with handcrafted ice cream with pure, homegrown flavour WORDS CARI JOHNSON

IT’S NOT UNCOMMON for Anna

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Howard to pair her morning coffee with a spoonful of freshly churned ice cream. Sometimes, an entire scoop will even tumble its way into her long black. “You have to taste the product,” says Anna, co-owner of PURE New Zealand Ice Cream. “It’s quality control.” Anna and her business partner bought the Wanaka freezery in 2018. It was a natural fit for the foodie-turned-entrepreneur, who milked goats and watched her mum make ricotta cheese while growing up in Akaroa. PURE NZ Ice Cream has a similarly pared-back philosophy. “We keep things simple when it comes to our ingredient choices. We do as little as possible to these beautiful, natural ingredients to produce a premium ice cream.” Boysenberry ice cream? The berries are grown in Nelson. Salted caramel ice cream? Marlborough flaky sea salt. The newly launched elderflower sorbet? Locals forage for the flowers

just down the road from the freezery. Judges praised the winning boysenberry ice cream for its naturally fruity flavour and creamy texture. This is no boysenberry ripple – a dark magenta ice cream bursting with rich, berry flavour. “It’s striking to look at and difficult to resist,” said one of the judges. Anna credits its vibrant colour to the freezery’s gelato-style approach to ice cream making. The boysenberry is made without eggs or milk, which preserves the colours and natural ingredients. “I love the simplicity. It takes me back to being a child with a bowl of boysenberries and some cream,” she says. “There’s a bit of a catchphrase in the industry that we’re doing something that makes people happy. There’s a happy connection to ice cream.” For stockists, see purenzicecream.com

Le i s u re

SPECIAL AWARD NZ LIFE & LEISURE SPIRIT OF NEW ZEALAND

LEAFY AMBITIONS An Auckland family is producing a vegetable box that looks and tastes better than homegrown WORDS NADENE HALL

THE LOCAL FARMERS’ market saved the Tregidga family business back in the mid-2000s. Today, Clevedon Herbs & Produce is thriving under sisters Liz and Amy Tregidga, who have greened up the herb and vegetable-growing operation based 35-minutes south-east of Auckland. They grow, harvest and deliver what the judges called “super-fresh, restaurant-quality herbs and seasonal vegetables, better than homegrown”. When supermarkets changed their buying practices 15 years ago, it was almost the end of the company started by Amy and Liz’s grandfather in the 1950s. “Helen Dorresteyn (who owns Clevedon Buffalo Company) started the Clevedon Village Farmers’ Market just as the bank was telling our parents they needed to sell up,” says Amy. “On their first day at the market, they had some lettuces and seedlings and decided if they were going to have to stand there for four hours, they needed to grow more. That’s what we still do now.”

Liz is in charge of growing; Amy does the marketing. Parents Phil and Jenny still work on the farm and get up at 4.30am every weekend to prepare for the local markets. The goal of their vegetable-box business is to work smarter, not harder. The family used to have to attend five weekly markets around Auckland. Now they’re selling boxes, it’s just two. “We normally deliver 60 to 70 boxes a week,” says Amy. During the lockdown period the company has been selling 250 boxes a week. Customers select fresh salad greens, herbs, edible flowers, and a range of other vegetables, or receive a mixed box. It’s chilled, boxed, and delivered 24 to 48 hours after harvesting. The result is a product that “feels like you’ve walked outside and picked it yourself,” said the judges. “The basil took us to Italy. The presentation was fantastic,” they said. The judges were also impressed with the company’s strong commitment to sustainability. Leafy greens are packed in New Zealand-made Econic EcoClear bags, which break down in compost in 14 days. See clevedonherbsproduce.co.nz

“We deliver 60-70 boxes a week,” says Amy. “B called “super-fresh, restaurant-quality herbs and we’re aiming to get to 100, seasonal vegetables, better than homegrown.” NZ and Lifeif &weLecan i s udo re that, can employ staff to work at the weekends.” But 15 years ago, when supermarkets changed Customers can pick their own selection of fres their buying practices, it was almost the end of the seasonal salad greens, herbs, edible flowers, and a company started by Amy and Liz’s grandad back in SPECIAL AWARD WINNERS 2020 range of other vegetables, or receive a mixed box. the 1950s. It’s chilled, boxed up, and delivered 24-48 hours “Helen Dorresteyn (who owns Clevedon Buffalo In addition to the NZ Life & Leisure Spirit of New Zealand Award, after harvesting. Company) started Clevedon Market judges havethe assessed theseFarmers’ producers and products as Special Award winners in the Outstanding NZ Food Producer Awards 2020.

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& Leisure EDITOR Kate Coughlan COMMERCIAL MANAGER Lynley Belton ART DIRECTOR Yolanta Woldendorp yolanta@nzlifeandleisure.co.nz SENIOR EDITOR GROUP CONTENT Emma Rawson emma@lifestylemagazinegroup.co.nz SUB-EDITOR Tracey Strange Watts tracey.strange@xtra.co.nz ADVERTISING MANAGER Kelly Gillbanks kellyg@lifestylemagazinegroup.co.nz ESSENTIALS DIRECTORY ADVERTISING MANAGER Annette Daly annette@nzlifeandleisure.co.nz EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Cari Johnson editorial@nzlifeandleisure.co.nz DESIGNER Carly Hitchcock design@nzlifeandleisure.co.nz SUBSCRIPTIONS COORDINATOR Niki Joyce niki@lifestylemagazinegroup.co.nz ISSUE 91

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