Whare Creek Station has been farmed by four generations of the Speight family.
After winning the Ballance Farm Environment Awards in 2016, the property achieved century farm status two years later. Prominently placed on the farm alongside recognition of these achievements, current owner Bridget Speight has put up a plaque: ‘This land has provided for generation after generation. It has always done its duty, sustaining flock of sheep after flock of sheep.’
Now the Speight family has decided to sell Whare Creek. Andrew Patterson of PGG Wrightson Real Estate, Southland, is marketing the property.
For Bridget, accepting it was time to sell was difficult.
“Our family decision has been based on logic, not emotion. Although the logic makes sense, we struggle with the emotion. It’s an inter-generational property. These are the same mountains my great-grandfather looked at all those years ago.”
Bridget’s great-grandfather was Charles Speight, son and heir of James, founder of Speight’s brewery. To keep four sons and a daughter occupied, Charles decided to diversify beyond beer into farming. In 1918, on the flanks of the Takitimu Mountains, he purchased 13,540-hectare Redcliff Station, land he reckoned was the ‘Garden of Southland’.
Pictured: Early days, on top of Blackmount Hill
While Charles was no farmer, his son Allan, then aged 17, took to the land and brought Redcliff Station to profitability, gradually overcoming numerous hurdles over the next four decades.
Initially, isolation was the challenge. Wool left the farm by dray, with steep terrain limiting loads to six bales. When the dray became stuck, they had to remove the wool, then reload it to enable the journey to continue. Made from oats and used as fuel for horsepower, chaff was essential, though demanded an endless cycle of cultivation, harvesting and threshing. Rabbits were the greatest scourge, eroding profits and occasionally so numerous the hillsides appeared to move. Most control efforts proved costly and ineffective.
In 1939 a massive snowstorm hit Southland. Redcliff Station was isolated for six weeks. By the time the drifts melted, more than 1000 sheep were dead, leaving the paddocks strewn with bones for years.
However, increased wool prices during World War Two, then the Korean War, made life easier, and through the decades the family enjoyed countless hours on Lake Manapōuri and Lake Te Anau.
Allan’s son Bill took over in 1958. Government marginal land improvement brought subdivision, fertiliser, more families moving in and improved infrastructure. Redcliff Station was subdivided. As the 1960s progressed, another government initiative, the Manapōuri hydroelectric power scheme, had a huge impact, permanently altering the Waiau River that borders the property, which renewed the family’s commitment to conservation.
In 1993 Bill handed the management of Redcliff over to his daughter Bridget and her partner Shane Gibbons.
In 1997 the Speights sold Redcliff’s hill country, while Bridget and Shane purchased the rest of the property, which they renamed Whare Creek. In conjunction with the Waiau Trust they created 278-hectare Rakatu Wetlands, rectifying some of the environmental damage done when the Waiau River was beheaded. The wetlands were opened to the public in 2008.
When Shane and Bridget won the Southland Supreme Ballance Farm Environment Award, the judges praised their environmental stewardship, including protection of wetlands, their native shrub and tussock country, and other significant areas.
In 2019 Shane died after the jet boat he was a passenger in overturned on the Hollyford River. Supported by a farm manager and those around her, Bridget continued farming. Seven and a half years later she has decided to end the family’s long association with Whare Creek.
Andrew Patterson describes Whare Creek Station as substantial and highly regarded.
“Offering an outstanding balance of productive flats, rolling easy-contour country, and extensive hill terrain, four generations of the Speight family have created a diverse, resilient, and highly effective farm, currently operating as a large-scale sheep and beef enterprise, wintering approximately 18,900 stock units comprising 65 percent sheep and 35 percent cattle across a split of stock classes.”
Improvements include four dwellings, two woolsheds with covered yards, and a comprehensive range of farm infrastructure. With sales, acquisitions and the retirement of some high country, the scale of Whare Creek Station has fluctuated over the years. Currently it comprises 2359 hectares freehold and 121 hectares of leasehold land.
Bridget says the land asks a lot of the people who farm it.
“In return, this property has instilled in every generation of our family a sense of awe and wonderment. That’s a feeling that has no name in the language of balance sheets.”
Whare Creek Station is offered for sale by Deadline Private Treaty closing 12.00pm on 9 December.
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