About the South: New Zealand’s southernmost farms

New Zealand’s southernmost agriculture is on The Neck on Stewart Island. Formerly, sheep were raised at Kilbride and on the Rakeahua Run on Stewart Island, both further south than The Neck. Sheep had been raised even further south, on Campbell Island, from 1884 into the 1930s.

The Kilbride Run of about 7,000 acres had been surveyed as a township reserve in the 1870s but only a homestead and a few farm buildings were ever built. It was farmed from about 1902 to 1995. The two-bedroom Kilbride homestead was built in 1927 by George and Stanford Leask, and is still maintained. Fences and farming relics remain as reminders of sheep farming at remote Mason Bay.

A very southerly newspaper?

The Bluff Press and Stewart Island Gazette was first published 7 July 1908, weekly until 1916 then twice weekly until 1931.

It called itself the Most Southerly Newspaper in the Universe, forgetting, or ignoring the fact, that there are several cities in South America well to the south of Bluff – Ushuaia being one of them – from which, no doubt, many a fine newspaper originated.

Much further south still, the South Polar Times was a newspaper produced by the members of Robert Scott’s two polar expeditions which were the Discovery Expedition of 1901 – 1904 and the Terra Nova Expedition of 1910 – 1913. Twelve issues were produced, with the first editor being Ernest Shackleton. They are gems of both literature and history, meticulously illustrated with watercolours, sketches and photographs. Only a single copy of each issue was produced at the time but they were printed following the return of the expeditions to civilisation.

Remembering Burt Munro

Many Southlanders will have personal recollections of Burt Munro. Daryl Waldron recalls, “When I was a youngster attending Waikiwi primary school in the early 60s we could hear him coming up the gravel Bainfield Road as it was then (he lived in Bainfield Road) and spraying stones everywhere as he did a broadside at the North Road before gunning the old Indian back to his house.

“It was quite a spectacle and the teacher would let us all rush over to the windows to look. I remember my teacher saying it was a wonder he didn’t kill himself.

“Burt’s best friend was my uncle Duncan Meikle, a machinist mechanic who turned many of the engine parts for Burt. Duncan was sitting in his green Morris Minor van at Teretonga one day when Burt came screaming down the straight past him on a high speed run. Burt came off and Duncan yelled, ‘My God he’s killed himself!’

“He found Burt on his hands and knees and yelled out to him, ‘Are you all right Burt?’

“’No I’m not bloody alright, I’ve lost my watch.’ He wasn’t concerned about himself.

“Burt was actually badly injured and spent the next few days in hospital. My brother Fred was a Traffic Officer in the early 70s. Burt knocked on his car window and asked Fred if he had seen a couple of motorbikes on a trailer. He had left home towing them and when he arrived at his destination there was no trailer.

“Fred put him in the patrol car and retraced his route. The trailer had came adrift on a corner and trailer and bikes had come to rest up someone’s driveway, perfectly parked.”