History of Cattle Flat Station

The following is a document found in the Upper Clutha Archives. It is thought that it was written by Jerry Aspinall for a presentation to other farmers in the late 1970s.

The early history before the arrival of white people is very obscure. However, there is no doubt there were small Māori camps at Wānaka, Colquhouns and mouth of Matukituki, and these Māori’s would have visited the valley hunting birds and eels. There is a vague legend of a Māori battle near Hospital Flat where a Māori chief was slain. This could have been the origin of the name Mota-tapu river, “Mota” meaning an island or patch of bush, “tapu” meaning sacred. One version of the Māori interpretation of Matukituki is the leaping dashing stream, so to see the full extent of this they must have explored further up the valley.

The few written records we have of early “white” exploration of the valley, Jollie & Young in 1859, Goldie & McKerrow 1861 – 62 & 3, Sir James Hector in 1862 & 3 indicate that this country was very heavily vegetated and bird populations were numerous. Goldie & McKerrow describe having to crawl on hands and knees under matagouri on the flats and over bracken and lawyer on the hills and it was not until they reached the tussocks they could stand and walk upright like men. W. Sullivan, the Otago Witness 1883 correspondent who travelled with Sir James Hector 1863 describes the impenetrable swamps, toi toi, flax, speargrass, cabbage trees and so on that grew from the river banks to the foot of the hills. He also describes the abundance of ducks on the river flats and the many birds, wekas, kakas, native crows, bellbirds, tomtits, bush robins and so on around their camp at Round Hill.

By 1865 most of this vegetation and no doubt a lot of the bird life as well had been burnt off. The few photographs available taken by Dr. Hocken show nearly all the hills on Cattle Flat and West Wānaka apart from the few remnants of bush that still remain, to be bare and burnt over in preparation for sheep and cattle grazing.

The first runholders to come this way were Roy who took over Wānaka Roys Bay area in 1859, then James Stuart and John Kinross who obtained a lease signed by W.N. Cutton of Lands Department, 16 May 1861. They took over Glen Dhu [now refered to as Glendhu], Cattle Flat and West Wānaka.  H.S. Thomson managed West Wānaka and J.C.P. Thomson managed Cattle Flat. In 1879, H.S. Thomson acquired the lease over West Wānaka but in 1882 he had to abandon his run as the rabbits had eaten his sheep out and he couldn’t pay the rent. From early records it is hard to follow the owners and managers of runs as there was not the security of tenure we have today. Leases were put up for auction by the Lands Department for a period of 7 or 14 years and sold to the highest bidder. If a runholder couldn’t pay his rent through losses caused by bad winters, and there were some bad ones last century, his lease was put up for auction again and even absentee owners as far away as Wellington were in the business. As a result owners became managers and managers owners and some just disappeared off the records.

Stuart and Kinross must have had good managers on Cattle Flat as it was 1884 before they sold to James Kegg, Chas. McAndrew Howison and Lancelot Douglas Nicol. They in turn transferred to J.A.P. Mahen and J.&C. Mitchell in June 1895 right in the middle of the severe winter snows that caused heavy sheep losses which put Ewen Cameron off Glen Finnan after having been there since 1879.

In 1901 Glen Dhu came into being as part of Roys and Cattle Flat and was taken over by Henry Barker thence in 1908 by the Scaife family.

The Russell family who had been very prominent in early Wānaka history, hotels, boats, etc. took over Cattle Flat in 1904 until passing it on to the Ruddenklau’s and Frier’s in 1915. It was also this year that Jack Aspinall, who had worked at Cattle Flat for the 5 previous years went to the first World War. On his return to New Zealand in 1920 with his new wife, instead of returning to his promised job at Cattle Flat he went into partnership with Theo Russell and bought Mt. Aspiring Station from the McPherson family. McPhersons had gone to Mt. Aspiring in 1899 but on the way home from voting in the first election that women were permitted to vote in 1919, Mrs. McPherson was drowned crossing the flooded river near Phoebes Creek.

Later in the day we will be discussing rabbit control. In the early days, in fact right up till well after the last World War, they were a real problem. On one occasion McPherson was taking his family of four daughters and one son to Wanaka in the dray. On the way through Cattle Flat they met an acquaintance who exclaimed “My, McPherson, that is a bonny looking family of daughters you have. What do you feed them on?” With that one daughter piped up “Rabbits hot, rabbits cold, rabbits young, rabbits old, rabbits thin, rabbits tough, my goodness we’ve had enough.” During the 75 years that rabbits were rampant in Otago, how many farmers and runholders expressed the same feelings in more lurid terms?

By 1919 D.C. Aubrey was the owner of Cattle Flat. Under his management, ably assisted by Charley Barker as head shepherd, Cattle Flat thrived and ran 10,000 sheep and over 1,000 good Hereford and Angus cattle. In the early 1930s the present house was built and Cattle Flat became well known throughout Otago for its horses, show horses, rodeo horses and hacks and its drives of fine cattle to the West Coast areas. Mr. Aubrey gave valuable service to the Lake County especially with local roading problems. He became sporting minded, and though birds liberated did not establish, pigs and Canada geese thrived until they became a menace to Cattle Flat and their neighbours as well, and strenuous efforts were necessary to control them.

The 1939-45 War brought further difficulties to Cattle Flat through staffing shortages. Both David and Rodney served overseas and David lost his life under heroic circumstances in the North Sea, when, after his bomber had crashed, he left the safety of their life raft to try and rescue another crew member.

On the death of his father in 1960, Rod managed Cattle Flat for some years but death duties and family estate decided him to sell to Lloyd Ewing and Sons in 1972.

Before leaving Cattle Flat Rod was involved in a handsome gesture in assisting the transfer of the Glen Finnan block back to Mt. Aspiring Station from whom it had been taken and added to Cattle Flat some 50 years earlier. Anyone who has been further up the valley can visualise what a great advantage it has made to Mt. Aspiring Station with its headquarters now established near where Ewan Cameron settled in 1979.

Following the 1939-45 War, deer were very numerous; numbering thousands in the mountain lands beyond here. Since their reduction to low numbers by helicopters and venison export, the recovery in alpine vegetation has been quite outstanding. Cattle Flat also had a Kea problem. Those of you who have hunted Kea’s on midwinter nights on this type of country will know, as I learnt further up the valley, that it is not a Teddy Bears’ Picnic.

I would hope that Jock Allison will make a little history this afternoon as our invited representative of N.Z. farming research organisations. Approximately a quarter of a century has gone by since this high country section asked for effective control of brier. Apart from better poisons like Tordon Prills and Velpar developed by chemical manufacturers, the only result was an argument on whether brier seedlings were 2 or 20 years old. We don’t want to see the Matukituki Valley looking like the Kawarau Gorge and many other places. Tutu control was another of our requests, but, after several years of study, the scientists couldn’t tell us as much as we knew ourselves. It is not a pleasing sight to see fine cattle lying with their legs sticking up in the air as a result of tutu poisoning, a danger accentuated by the recommended use of mob stocking to control bracken growth.

Bracken control is slowly being achieved by use of fire and suitable follow-up techniques. Catchment Board regulations and policies make the use of fire more difficult but it would appear that we can’t interfere too much with Catchment Board rules as fires under certain dry conditions and lacking follow-up techniques can do considerable damage to high altitude vegetation. Personally, I find we are developing a better understanding, but in some cases a greater fire risk.

I, and no doubt many others, are extremely grateful to that person or organisation that discovered the little bronze beetle for control of St. John’s Wort, thus reducing the number of cattle throwing fits at river crossings, from 60% to 75% of a herd to one or two every five or ten years.

We owe a debt of gratitude to John Hercus, T. Ludecke and others who showed us the tremendous advantages of super sulphur topdressing, and to Baker and his original rabbit killer policy. These are the type of people who make history in our minds and our country.

When passing those newly grassed paddocks on my visits to Mt. Aspiring Station last year, I began to wonder if the Ewing family had developed a new sideline – that of Canada goose farming. No doubt they will tell you more about this later this morning!

This is a good opportunity to comment on one aspect of the Otago Catchment Board’s history. Some 25 years ago they started across the river over there on West Wānaka, with mountain roading, fencing and land retirement and free grants of money involving tens of thousands of dollars. Then followed a period of subsidies available to farmers, on a basis of one, two and even three to one for various jobs. Now we have got to a situation where we have 8 or more of a staff in a large building with many responsibilities such as water surveys, 250 or so run plans and many engineering problems and so on. But as far as you and your individual jobs are concerned, the financial assistance you get is now 35% of the cost of the job which does not include the 30% of job cost added on for administration or office work. If this trend continues, there is a danger of you paying more for administration “expertise” than for getting an actual job done. This is something you should know about.

There is one final factor we should keep in mind. Land is the most precious asset we, as individuals, a community, or a nation have. We live on it, produce off it and relax on it and fight over it. Apart from climatical and geological factors, the condition of the land reflects the character and responsibility of those many people who work and supervise it. In this respect, I consider that runholders – Upper Clutha, Otago, and South Island have created, with others who have assisted them, a very good record for themselves over the last 25 years. With control of weeds, wild animals, erosion and stock performance to concentrate on, there is still a lot of work ahead of us.

I am reminded of a notice our son William tacked up in our toilet before he left for Australia, where apparently for a bloke who is willing to work the wages are higher and the taxes lower than in New Zealand. The notice read: “Don’t sit around here all day. There is work to be done.”

*The above has received minor grammatical edits from the original.