Explored and documented by Lynley Eade, this book provides a vast history of the family farms in the Hakataramea area, featuring stories, photographs and details spanning 170 years.
These are the stories of families who have gathered land in the Hakataramea as and when it became available for sale after the subdivision of two large sheep stations:
The New Zealand & Australian Land Company's Hakataramea Station and Robert Campbell & Sons' Station Peak Estate. Each story begins from the first lessees in the mid 1850s and continues to the present day owners some 165 years later.
The family farms are all located within a distance of 15 kilometres from the railway terminus in the township of Hakataramea, thus giving an easy outwards transport of produce, mainly grain and wool. Twelve farms are in the lower Hakataramea Valley and eight are on the north side of the Waitaki River, as far distant as the Penticotico Creek.
It was small beginnings for most and this collection describes the hardships and the successes that these pioneering families experienced as their landholdings consolidated and in the main thrived. In some cases so much so that their descendants still farm those original blocks to this day.
LE3
