Colin Drummond's final resting place is on a small knoll overlooking Erewhon Station.
The hillock, thrust upwards by a forceful earthquake, juts out over the Clyde River as it weaves its way downstream before meeting Rangitata Gorge.
Across this remote vista, over-arching ranges descend to scree slopes and steep hill country before settling on the river flats of the station's homestead.
Nearby is the mythical capital of Rohan — a scene where the Lord of the Rings movie The Two Towers was filmed.
It takes a special breed to run a tough high country station like Erewhon and the late 66-year-old was up for the job.
The burial ground is the same site at which he and wife Erin Cassie made their marriage vows in 2017.
Paying their respects, hundreds of friends and family still shaken by his sudden death watched as his prized Clydesdale horse team carried him up to the top.
An aggressive cancer cut short his life abruptly, but he had time to pass on his wishes.
Among his parting words to his wife were for her to continue running his beloved Erewhon.
And his final farewell must be a party. Partial to a beer after a hard working day, the refreshments had to include "big bots'' of DB.
The mid-December service was a celebration of a life lived in fifth gear, of joyous moments and thoughtful reflections of everything he stood for.
Ms Cassie said the time for mourning would come later as there was too much work to do to carry on his legacy.
As daunting as the prospect of running Erewhon is, she's determined to make it a success.
She said it gave her a lot of strength knowing he was still with them on the hill.
Combining her own dogs with his — a 10-odd team excluding pups — provides some comfort.
"He's left a pretty big legacy, but I'm going to take it forward. There will be a few things to make life easier, but the core of it will be the same. These sorts of places are a pretty important piece of history and I think the more the world has gone mad the more you need this stuff to ground you.''
He relished mustering on horseback, the mateship of leading a good team and cultivating paddocks with a team of Clydesdales. For him the old ways were the best ways.
Ms Cassie said he was close to being the end of an era.
He was lucky to have learned under good people — including the "absolute guru'' of Molesworth manager Bill Chisholm — when he was a young shepherd learning the ropes she said.
"That fell under that school of hard life lessons, but those are the things that came through. You can build a team around that whether it’s dogs, horses or people. He was complete old school, but in a pretty amazing way. He just repelled against (drones or helicopters). When we were on the hill mustering and there were some pretty big beats, yes you have your radios and things, but we tried not to use that and do a lot more of the yahoos and bark-ups to get the sheep moving.
"That was the way 150 years ago and it's actually really cool, because it makes people more accountable for their actions and thinking things through instead of this relying on technology to get you out of it.
"More than anything, we just loved covering that country and there's nothing better than climbing up a hill.''
For her, running at full pace has been therapy of sorts.
On the few occasions when she has a quiet moment, that is when reality hits that he is gone.
"He only had 10 days when he was actually in hospital. It was the cancer equivalent of being run over by a bus is what the doctor said. I was flat out up here because we were mustering for tailing and dipping, so I was doing 4am starts and then getting into the hospital in the afternoons and evenings.
"We didn't know how bad things were, to be honest, but ignorance is bliss and he would have been a terrible patient. This is the way it was meant to be.''
She is confident lessons passed on by the natural leader will keep the management of Erewhon in good stead.
Only afterwards did she realise she had accrued her own font of knowledge and high country values imparted by him.
Ms Cassie said her husband was a jack of all trades and master of none and she has learned to be the same.
"We do it all and I'm having to do mega stepping up as well. I guess it's tricky when you had someone as strong as he was. You just assume that's it, but we are on the same page.''
Mr Drummond was a farmer, stockman, dog and horse trainer, teamster, ploughman, fencer, musterer and many other roles all rolled into one.
Among many irons in the fire, he was the vice-president of the New Zealand Clydesdale Society, former president of the Canterbury branch, local high country president of Federated Farmers and heavily involved in dog trials.
Sitting easily with him was an abhorrence of computer work and Zoom calls.
Otherwise, the independent thinker was a fine one-pot cook and a man of many talents born from a self sufficient era.
"He was always going on that nobody was indispensable, but by jeez he gave a very good impression of being someone that probably was. I now know he's passed on a lot of his pockets of knowledge on to different people, maybe not the top-notch skills he had, but certainly the attitude.
"The No 1 thing I'm doing now that he taught me is being really big on JFTI, which is Just Flippin Do It. You are going to make mistakes, but you learn by doing and get amongst it. There's plenty of time for sadness, but that's what I'm doing because I could be gone tomorrow, and why burn daylight?''
Ms Cassie and Mr Drummond met through a shared passion of Clydesdale horses when both of them had come out of long term relationships.
During a wagon trek the positive, free-sharing, energetic and knowledgeable conversationalist caught her eye and ear. Many of his interests aligned with hers.
She counts herself lucky to have met someone who just made things happen.
"On paper he was 20 years older than I am and you wouldn't think much of it, but we just shared the same core values and passions and it just worked. He was already doing stuff with the horses and we were able to do so much more.''
Later, she pushed for day trips and wagon rides with the Clydesdales on Erewhon.
This was initially met with only grudging agreement.
However, he was born for the role and visitors would inch closer to listen to the yarns of a bona fide high country farmer.
Many years later, during Covid 19 shutdowns, he came to realise the paying customers were a great incentive to put collars on horse teams.
Sharing the property with townspeople also opened their eyes to the realities of farming and gave them an insight that much of its negative and unfair coverage was just untrue.
Ms Cassie grew up in Fairlie, with her family running scattered leaseblocks.
As the youngest of seven children, buying a horse was out of the question, but the youngster was fortunate to be taught the art of riding and putting on a harness by Stoneleigh’s Allan Tiffen, a semi-retired farmer.
Returning from university, she got back into Clydesdales and this was fast forwarded when she met the man who was to become her husband.
They jam-packed so much into their lives since the day they first met, she said.
"There's a lot of ways to take shortcuts and make your life easier, but for him it was a way of life and the satisfaction at the end of the week of getting a good job done. We worked damn hard, but everyday you're achieving something and that gives enjoyment.
"Certainly he put a lot of effort into the dogs and horses, but gee whizz if someone wasn't doing it a lot of that stuff would die out.''
Born in the late 1950s, he was raised on a dairy farm in Tasman's Moutere. Cooped up milking cows in a shed was never going to sit easily with him. An uncle who would tell him stories of shepherding in the high country turned a lightbulb on.
By 16, he was off on his own high country journey. Mustering experience was built up firstly at Clayton, near Fairlie, and then at the likes of Marlborough's Molesworth, various Wanaka runs and Nokomai in northern Southland, with other stints including the other Erewhon in the North Island.
His first marriage was to Christine Hill, and they had a son, Jamie, and daughter, Kelly.
The couple started up a dog food business, Mighty Mix, born from concern that working dogs were not getting the energy they needed while working to uncover sheep buried by the big snow of 1992.
When the marriage ended, the business helped to provide outside income for Erewhon.
In Blenheim he bred his first Clydesdale, which developed into a lifelong passion. By the end of a full life he had raised more than 140 purebreds and the same again for crossbreds.
In part, he wanted to breed good horses to carry out farm work and ride up rivers inaccessible to farm machinery.
A close bond developed between them and he admired the breed, which helped to break in early farmland long before tractors arrived. The regular A&P show exhibitor was determined to keep this heritage alive and taking 15-plus horses to the Canterbury show was a must do each spring.
In 1998, he took on the Crown pastoral lease of Erewhon Station.
The sheep and beef property is at the end of the road, spreading out over 14,160ha at the top of Rangitata Gorge. Exposed to the elements, the weather rolling in plays a strong hand between a good and bad farming year.
During a late November snow storm in the late 1960s, two thirds of the capital stock was lost. More lately, lambing got nailed by the Labour Weekend storm.
Outsiders might perceive high country farmers as "fat cats'' fortunate to be living in such scenic country. This is far removed from the truth when they are only one weather event away from ruin.
Mr Drummond chose to be at Erewhon and knew the good had to be taken with the bad.
The high country station runs 6000 stock units comprising about 4500 Merinos and about 300 Hereford cattle, now that 300 deer parted ways last winter.
Another 70-odd horses are wintered, with the head count increasing when foals are on the ground.
"They don't earn money and they don't lose money, so that's a win in our book. They are important and are what keeps us out of bed in the morning, so we will stick with that.''
Teams of the sure-footed animals are used for cultivating work, wagon rides for paying visitors and to support the autumn muster.
Merinos are the sheep of choice, with other breeds unlikely to hack the tough country or the high rainfall of 1.5m landing at the house and 3.3m at the back of the farm. A robust fleece and hardiness is a must.
The fleece is at the top end of 19 microns, which is fine enough for most of it to service Icebreaker contracts.
Erewhon continues to run wethers — a passing feature of high country life today.
They remain worthwhile, despite the juggle of getting them back and forth over the Clyde River. A rising river can mean they get stuck on the home side of the property, but they perform a useful role in the "native country''.
Home for them is mainly up Clyde and Lawrence valleys.
During the autumn muster in April, 1500 wethers and wether hoggets are brought down to a lower altitude block. The first decent snow — usually in May — provides a natural fence to keep them from nudging upwards.
Ms Cassie said the mountains and river were Erewhon's fences.
"Because we are so extensive they do a good job, because we have pockets of feed and obviously this is a feast or famine place. When we are in a famine they fend for themselves, as tucker wise it's all silage and supplementary feed. Then when we have too much feed the mobs are actually keeping the higher altitude stuff in order and stop potential weeds from getting too much of a hold and keep that fertility up as well. So they have a place here.''
Mr Drummond knew the rhythm of the mountains and worked a farming system at Erewhon in symphony with its weather and changing seasons.
Ms Cassie said she was learning quickly to toughen up now that he was no longer around.
"This is no longer the second chance saloon. Anything that's remotely not needed is gone. I've just sent a heap of culls away on the truck yesterday and gelded some colts and I've got to call off some of the projects on the go up here.
"He was just so intelligent and a walking stud book on any animal. It was all in his head and now it's down to me. I know quite a bit, but there's also a lot I've got to look up.
"I know I can't burn out and I have to work this out for me. It's been a crazy old month since this happened and I just haven't stopped. But it's actually quite cool how much stuff he has passed on to us.
"When you have someone with such a big personality who was the oracle it's very easy to just double check on what he thinks, whereas now we have to make the decisions.''
The handover of the iron fist baton began before his passing.
Normally, he would jump into a situation like this, throw his fist down on the table and hatch out a plan.
Instead, she had to step in and uncharacteristically pull off a fair impression of him to voice their objections.
Afterwards he told her he was so proud of the way she had handled the out-of-towner from Wellington.
Being so time short he could come off as being abrupt.
The direction and leadership style of "The Major'' was invariably to the point.
Those close to him knew this gruff exterior masked a soft heart.
Ms Cassie would joke he had so many rough edges she had to smooth them off with a horse shoe rasp.
She said they could have their ding-dongs, as both of them had strong personalities.
"But annoyingly, every time there was a decision we might have clashed on he was usually right. It really drove me bananas. But that's my failing and it’s a human fault. He was just such a pair of safe hands.
"Any job that had to be done or decision to be made he just had it in his head and had a plan from years and years of apprenticeship and no doubt mistakes he had made along the way.''
She said she would miss everything about him.
Perhaps uppermost would be his drive, energy and the daily sharing of notes in the evenings of everyday farm life and the challenges of running horses.
A grandfather of five, he never expected to fully retire and planned on spending semi-retirement running the horses and dogs up the river and hunting stock out.
A few years back she told him she never wanted to be at the station if he was not there.
That is because Erewhon was him — a blurry line existed between him and the place, she said.
"We always said he was never going to retire and to replace him would take four or five people to wear the multiple hats he wore. This was such a shock, but anyway that's in the past and we owe it to Colin to look forward.''
