“But we wanted to pay off the Kōwhitirangi block before we did anything with it – we had young children and we both worked. I was teaching for years and Colin did fencing and worked for a mill . we were very frugal.” Nearly 50 years on, and their freehold block in Cropp Rd, with its tussock and patches of regenerating kahikatea, is basically a lone undeveloped island in the lush green pasture of surrounding dairy and deer farms. The block was first cleared for timber in the 1920s by a World War I veteran, who sold it to the Henrys.
Lois William/RNZ