Michael Schick, March 2010

While the Environment Court will decide soon whether or not Tawharanui Peninsula retains its rural character or is devoured by spreading development from Omaha, Michael Schick remembers a time when the area was a remote farming outpost. Now 80 and living at Snells Beach, he was just a teenager when his father purchased 1500 acres at Takatu, at the end of the peninsula. NZ was picking up the pieces after World War II and there was plenty of hard work to be done, but Mr Schick recalls that there was still time to enjoy this coastal treasure. He talks to Jannette Thompson

One of the most incredible sights I ever saw happened one morning just as dawn was breaking. I’d risen early and was puzzled to hear this loud “woosh, woosh” noise coming from the bay. I headed to the beach and looked towards Kawau Island. Takatu Passage, which runs between the island and mainland, was full of porpoises, or maybe they were dolphins. There must have been thousands of them. I used to tell people about this and wondered if they believed me, but one day I meet a man from Leigh who corroborated my story. Apparently he’d been fishing at the time.

On another occasion, I was fishing off Bluebell Point in a dinghy with the Rathe boys and some friends when we encountered a pod of 30 to 40 pilot whales. A couple of the blokes got a bit agitated when the whales kept moving towards us, but they’re not aggressive animals so I wasn’t worried even though I can’t swim and we weren’t wearing lifejackets. There was never any trouble getting a feed – snapper and crayfish were plentiful. The snapper off the beach averaged around six or seven pound and we’d use a bamboo pole with a cord or fine steel wire to catch the crays in a gutter along Flat Rock.

My parents, Peter and Eileen Schick, spent their early married life on a large beef and sheep property, just north of Te Kauwhata, which Dad was farming with his brother. From when I was quite young, I used to ride a Shetland pony or walk about half-an-hour to the Waikato River to catch a neighbour’s cream launch, which would take us the three to four miles to school in Orton.

I’m not exactly sure why Mum and Dad pulled us out of school during the war, but our German name made us a target for some pretty nasty remarks. Dad was born in NZ but that didn’t make any difference to some people. It was just one of those things that happen, but maybe it’s one of the reasons I hate to see people discriminated against because of their nationality – I just try to get along with everyone.

Dad bought the original Tawharanui property of 607ha (1500 acres) from William Ingram for about £24,000, in 1946. Later, he added the neighbouring Young property of 121ha (300 acres), becoming the first landholder to own what would eventually become the Tawharanui Regional Park.

Mr Ingram had been in poor health when he sold the farm and it was pretty rundown. The sheep had been terribly neglected and were full of lice and ticks. There were about 1000 of them and our first job was shearing and dipping. It was bloody horrible – after just one or two sheep, the ticks were about two inches deep on top of the water and we had to keep skimming them off.

Access to the property was down a winding metal road, just wide enough for our old Chev, and of course, there was no power so we relied on petrol generators and a wood stove.

Our next job was to plough some flat ground to make hay. We used to do about 30 acres at a time and Dad got the idea to grow pumpkins. It wasn’t easy to make a living so you had to do what you could. We grew a variety called triamble, a good “keeper” and very sweet, but they had very tough blue-grey skin which sometimes needed an axe to split. When the local carriers couldn’t get our pumpkins to Turners and Growers in Auckland in time, we bought a £2500 Leyland Comet truck (nicknamed by the locals the Tawharanui Express).

If we weren’t carrying pumpkins to Auckland, then it’d be firewood. A lot of the gullies on the farm were thick with white ti-tree, and some of the trees were 60ft-70ft high and a man couldn’t get his arms around the trunk. One year we took 146 truckloads to Auckland, each load was about 10-tonne, all cut by hand with an axe. It was the first year’s firewood sales that paid for the truck. On the return trip we’d carry fertiliser – we were applying about 50 to 100 tonnes of fertiliser a year – superphosphate and lime, but mostly basic slag, a by-product of the steel industry. For several years, we supplied Thompson Hills Jams, in Auckland, with citra melons, which they used as the base for a whole range of jams. The pumpkins, firewood and melons more than covered the cost of the fertiliser.

Even though we were off the beaten track, we’d get lots of visitors and the only time this caused a problem for dad was when they left the gates open. As well as picnickers and fishermen, there were drovers, shearers and farm workers.

Herb Smith, the local council worker, was a real character– talk about a joker who could tell yarns! He told us once how he’d caught a white wallaby in the bush behind Mansion House “dragged it out by the leg” apparently. When Dad decided to sell Takatu, Margaret (nee Cruickshank) and I bought a farm at Waiteitei/Wayby, which straddled the Hoteo. We were there for 21 years and that’s where our three children were raised. When Mum passed away, Dad moved with us to a farm up north at Houhoroa where we stayed for 13 years before moving to Mangere. I took up driving the airport buses, which was a great job because of all the interesting people I met, but Auckland’s chaotic traffic and rude drivers eventually convinced us that it was time to move back to north Rodney.

One of the most rewarding things I’ve ever been involved in is the Great NZ Trail Ride, which raises money for research into a cure for Multiple Sclerosis. Every year, hundreds of people are walking, trekking or cycling a little bit more of the route between Cape Reinga and Bluff, and raising money at the same time. My daughter and grand-daughter took part the trek and that’s how I got involved.

I’ve worked with horses all my life so was happy to join the support crew. I did about 10 treks but then had to give it away because my legs just weren’t up to it anymore.
Life’s about giving when you can and not expecting anything in return. I’ve been a farmer all my life, but I like what’s happening at the regional park these days; its good to see the native trees being planted on the steep country and the animals taken off. It’s also far better that the land is a park that everyone can use and enjoy.
Published March 2010