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 Drummond 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 on December 11 aged 66, 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 is 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."
The high country farmer was the personification of old school, full of anachronisms and often eschewing modern technology for the old ways.
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, and had been 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.
"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.
"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."
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.
Somehow this was fit in between the night and day workload to keep Erewhon and many sidelines moving in the right direction.
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.
Born in the late 1950s, Colin Drummond 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 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.
Ms Cassie said the Clydesdales earned their keep and according to their accountant were "fiscally neutral".
"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." — Tim Cronshaw.
