Nature & Co New Zealand - People

in LIVING WITH NATURE:

The High Country Stations

The High Country Stations

The Land
The People
The Work
History
Tourism
Stations

High country stations seem to include most of the elements that shape New Zealand's distinctive characters, and which make New Zealand particularly attractive to nature-lovers: powerful landscapes (see The Land), omnipresent natural forces, and vast expanses of land with a limited but successful human presence. They must provide some of the world's best examples of lifestyles (see The People) embedded in nature, rich of history and traditions but also modern and economically viable.

There are high country stations in both North and South Islands, although the best-known and probably the most representative of them are located in the South Island. Sheep are an icon of high country stations, and indeed they make up the large majority of stock. But most stations have also significant numbers of cattle, and some have no other stock.

The form of pastoralism represented by high country stations was first developed in Australia. Indeed some of the first "runholders" came to New Zealand, Canterbury in particular, in the early 1850s (see History). Originally the word "station" was applied to the buildings, and the land that went with it was a "run".

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References

Philip Holden, 1991: Fall Muster - The Annual Muster on Mount Nicholas Station. Hodder & Staughton.

Philip Holden, 1993: Station country I - Back-country Life in New Zealand. Hodder Moa Beckett.

Philip Holden, 1995: Station Country II - Returning to the New Zealand Backcountry. Hodder Moa Beckett.

Philip Holden, 1997: Station Country III - The Last Muster. Hodder Moa Beckett.

Yva Momatiuk and John Eastcott, 1980: High Country. Reed.

Peter Newton, 1973: Big Country of the South Island. Reed.

Peter Newton, 1975: Sixty Thousand on the Hoof - Big country South of the Rangitata. Reed.

Peter Newton, 1980: High Country Journey From Glen Lyon to Molesworth - one man's remarkable saga. Reed.

Peter Newton, 1983: The World of Peter Newton - The Best of his High Country Writing. Reed.

Colin Wheeler, 1982: Historic Sheep Stations of New Zealand. Reed.

Historical references

Peter Chandler, 1996: Land of the Mountain and the Flood - A Contribution to the History of Runs and Runholders of the Wakatipu District. Queenstown and District Historical Society.

Herries Beattie, 1994 (facsimile edition): Mackenzie of the Mackenzie country and Mackenzie the Sheep Stealer (combined edition). Cadsonbury Publications, Christchurch.

Herries Beattie, 1947: Early Runholding in Otago. Otago Daily Times and Witness Newspapers Co.

David McLeod, 1974: Kingdom in the Hills. Whitcombe and Tombs.

Robert Pinney, 1971: Early South Canterbury Runs. Reed.

Peter Newton, 1960: Mesopotamia Station - A Survey of the First Hundred Years. The Timaru Herald Co.

Lady Barker, 1950: Station Life in New Zealand. Whitcombe and Tombs.