The day I pulled into the driveway of Routeburn Station, it was pouring with rain and Anne Percy was heaving a laden wheelbarrow filled with gravel. She was drenched. As it turned out, it was just another day on the Ngāi Tahu high country stations at the head of Lake Whakatipu and for Anne and her husband Stu, managing the land in this dramatic part of Te Waipounamu goes hand in hand with climatic extremes. With an annual rainfall between 1500-2500mm, there is no time to sit around waiting for the sun to shine. Life goes on, farming goes on. “We had 416mm rain from May-June – that’s around the average annual rainfall for Canterbury,” says Stu. “It’s just part of life here, especially in winter. It’s a challenging lifestyle and nothing is easy but there’s no part of farming here that I don’t love.” As managers of the Ngāi … Continue reading No ordinary life