Farmer Focus: A rewarding trip home down memory lane
David Clark © Emmily Harmer This month I have had an adventure, a trip back home of sorts and down memory lane.
I grew up on a dairy farm in South Auckland, and when I left school I worked on a large hill country property.
My father’s cousin was married to one of the brothers. The Cashmore family were incredibly good to me when I was starting my farming career.
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One of the things they did was teach me to operate crawlers, on a Caterpillar D2.
Sadly, John passed away nearly two years ago, and my family have decided that I should look after John’s D2. An honour indeed.
So, last month I set out in our Volvo Truck and Trailer and took a load of wheat straw to the North Island to one of our dairy farm customers near Cambridge.
We have been selling straw direct to dairy farmers all over the North Island since 2009 and this is the first load I have delivered personally.
I then went on to Auckland and out to the farm at Orere to spend time with my cousin.
I had some other machines to sort out and deliver to new owners and was going to piggyback a 30ft four axle trailer home for my neighbour.
This had to be collected from south of Thames in the village that I was born, from the yard of a cartage contractor who had worked for both my father and grandfather. We had a great chat.
I drove back to Orere past the original Matatoki & Puriri land our family farmed from the 1870s to 1970s. Back at the farm I loaded the D2, with John’s younger brother.
From there I travelled back out through the Clevedon valley where I grew up and had started a contracting business in my early 20s.
Along the way it was incredible the number of people I bumped into by chance.
I left the valley and headed south for the 1,250km journey, the D2 and my neighbour’s trailer making my load.
It had been a trip “home” and down memory lane that I am so pleased I had the opportunity to do.
