My name is Mavis Smeaton. My husband and I moved here in 1959, newly married couple,
and lived here until 1992.
We acquired the farm from a former returned soldier.
He'd lived here for seven years on his own
and decided to sell and we were given the opportunity
to purchase this wonderful piece of land.
Although in the early days we were a long way from Auckland, from other services…
but no, it was a new adventure for us…we were young!
But it was nothing like it is now…
the farm was originally in six paddocks so it was very spread out and it was in the intervening
years that we developed it all with the yards, the fencing and planting of trees,
and farming in general.
The stockyards were erected about 1962 because our cattle numbers
were building up and we were reliant on neighbours for using their facilities.
Early on top-dressing was an important part of our farming and so the airstrip and facilities
were developed here. The airstrip runs down there on that flat area
and the planes simply landed, turned around, filled up and then top-dressed down the farm.
Waianiwa was our name for the farm. Waianiwa has a historical
association for me because my ancestors lived in a little area in Southland
called Waianiwa. Waianiwa translated as I understand means “rainbow over the water”,
and Waianiwa just sort of seemed right here because we did have the water.
So the horses have been tying up to the yards using it to saddle up and things. Have they really!
Goodness me, to think that these were built in the early 1960s…they were built for cattle
because our numbers were increasing and we needed
somewhere to manage and handle them…a labour of love that Ian built personally,
not easy beacuse as you can see they will never fall down. You can still see the original
hinges even which is wonderful!
We had a small herd originally of Angus, black cattle,
and of course the sheep complemented the cattle. And then in latter years we actually
did farm deer, fallow deer. The facilities were down further and all the fencing
attributable to deer farming.
We had a race-way system where it was easy to bring them in,
because they’re quite flighty little animals the fallow deer, but lovely and graceful.
So that was our deer farming operation possibly for about ten years or so until it became unviable.
We made time to come down here because we had all this on our doorstep
and if you were down here and saw the fish, the mullet leaping around,
I mean it was just so tantalising! So the net was invariably on our tractor when Ian and I
were going around the farm feeding out,
and if the tide was right, everything else – we would whip out here, hopefully get a few mullet
probably, snapper if they were lucky… and then we’d be on our merry way again.
As time and life progressed we did have our own runabout and we used to launch it
along there, but of course with mudflats you had to be very careful and cautious
where you took the tractor, and then out on the harbour fishing.
But we did have picnics down here, Christmas with family and other friends…
We had a lot of fun just further along the beach here where we had a very special spot.
It’s all grown up with re-growth ti tree there, but Ian used to keep
it all rotary slashed, it was a lovely large area for just relaxing in, and then easy access
out onto the beach. And I must mention we had the most enormous macrocarpa that
washed up onto the beach…it was enormous, where it came from…and Ian carved it out
so that it was our fish filetting [table] and when the tide was in, well what did we do...
fillet our fish and chilli-bin it home. Yes we had some fabulous times here, it was an asset.