Dave spent about eighteen years working as a shepherd and farm manager in the remote back country ranges between Mossburn and Te Anau before and after the government's 30-year farm development scheme in the same region. This interview looks at the changes Dave experienced working for an individual runholder whose attachment to, and investment in, the Burwood/Mavora/Centre Hill area could not compete with the government agency that by 1966 had bought the rights to the leasehold properties and eventually created smaller, productive farm units for citizen settlement around the more accessible land. However, much of the back country continues to be administered by government agencies such as Landcorp or the Department of Conservation (DOC).