Invercargill Archives

Overview Forty years ago the Te Anau Basin underwent dramatic change as a result of some large government projects. The country's biggest farm development scheme had begun in the Te Anau Basin the previous decade, but its real effects on the landscape and community was not apparent until the 1960s and 1970s. As a farm manager and field officer for the Department of Lands & Survey during that time, Tom recalls what was involved in the development of the area he was appointed to oversee - the...

Overview More than fifty years ago Ray first set eyes on the Fiordland Mountains while doing a tour of his adopted homeland. As a child growing up in war-time London, he immigrated to New Zealand in 1953 on the cusp of his seventeenth birthday to work on a dairy farm in Northland. Captivated by that first visit to Te Anau and Milford Sound, Ray and his wife, Helen, have lived in the Te Anau area since 1961, with only a five-year separation from the Fiordland Mountains when they worked as managers of a...