Landing a Legacy

An unexpected inheritance changed the plans of an airline pilot and a city girl. Now they share their back-country farm and its handsome old homestead by way of horse-trekking adventures.

Words: Polly Greeks  Photographs: Becky Nunes

Dan Russell's story starts where his godfather’s ended: on a small marae caught between bush-clad hills and the empty, surf-swept beach of Waipiro Bay. He hitch-hiked to this remote East Cape settlement back in 1997, one of 22 godchildren on a pilgrimage to farewell 79-year-old bachelor Des Williams. At the tangi, Dan thought he might be inheriting a rocking chair. What he got was a jaw-dropping, life-changing shock. Des had left him Puketiti: a 3000-hectare, debt-free station complete with five cottages, farm staff, a protected forest, a lake, an impressive old homestead and stables.

At the time Dan was just 27 with a career mapped out as an airline pilot. He’d visited Puketiti half a dozen times in his life. When he left the funeral, his head was reeling. "I went back to Blenheim for a couple of years and let it all sink in."

Aware of the bombshell he was dropping, Des had arranged in his will for the station to be run by a trust for seven years before being vested into his godson’s name. This allowed Dan to ease into his inheritance. In 2000 he moved up to Gisborne, still working for Air New Zealand but able to visit Puketiti at the weekends. In 2003 he and his partner Anna Sibun finally shifted into the homestead. The kitchen alone was bigger than their former home.

It takes an hour to drive up the coast from Gisborne to the station. State Highway 35 winds between threadbare hills and rugged patches of bush, skirting Tolaga and Tokomaru’s sleepy bays, where corrugations of surf roll in between cliffs sliced as cleanly as cake.

The turn-off comes not long after Tokomaru Bay – a dirt road snaking inland above pretty valleys dotted with grazing sheep. The colossal homestead sits on an ocean of lawn at the end of the drive, as large as a ship and just as solid, thanks to a new roof, new plumbing and a coat of paint. Built of imported oregon, it was completed in 1908 by Des Williams’ father A.B. who also planted the 38 hectares of covenant-protected native and exotic forest that ring the home.

Once upon a time there were maids to take care of visitors on arrival, but these days Dan and Anna form the welcoming party along with their menagerie of dogs, cats, chooks and a vocal pet pig. Although Anna was a born-and-bred city girl when she met Dan, she enjoys her new rural life. "The shift to Gisborne from Auckland was the biggest move. I gave up my job, left my family and friends, and was also in a new relationship. It took a bit of adjusting to."

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