Follow Country Life on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts. Dome glamping, farm tours and jetting up the Hurunui River supplements income and highlights cultural heritage at a traditional sheep farm in North Canterbury's Blythe Valley. "I'm Ngāi Tahu on my mum's side.
So we try and incorporate a little bit of that into the farm tours and jet boating, mainly through storytelling," Tim Loughnan said. Tim and his young family live on the 320-hectare dryland farm, Tawanui, with his parents Mike and Elspeth. Tawanui means "a big tree".
he told Country Life. "I'm not sure who came up with it, it was before my time, but we've based our branding on it!" The farming and tourism operations sit under the umbrella of one company managed by the father and son team. "This is my wife's family farm and we've been farming it for the last 30 years," Mike said.
He was born and bred on a sheep and beef farm at nearby Scargill. Elspeth's great great grandfather was one of the early settlers in the district. When the Cheviot Hills Estate was broken up in the 1890s he got a ballot farm on the south side of the Hurunui River.
"It's only a one-person farm really, so we need to generate some income from somewhere else and, as we know, farm income is a bit up and down." Lambs and cattle are fattened on the farm but Mike said they've destocked because there's not enough feed. "2500 stock units are here normally but we're 900 stock units down now.
" The dry season and dep.