Page 88 - NZ Hereford Magazine 2023

ife on the Muzzle is not an easy one, but it’s one
Fiona Redfern, known simply as O, will never give
up. Its Herefords and merinos are as much part of
the landscape as its tussocks, steep rock faces and
Lsweeping river valleys.
The Clarence River runs between the Inland and Seaward
Kaikoura Ranges. Roughly halfway down the river valley, on
the northwestern side of the Clarence River, lies Muzzle Station
– the subject of a book published in 2017 called Life on Muzzle.
O has lived there for most of her life, first with her parents
and sister growing up in the 1980s and 90s and then taking
over the station with husband Guy in 2007 and introducing
the next generation to the land – Arthur and Matilda (Tildi). “I never get tired of seeing the art in a wild nor’west sky
O’s parents, Colin and Tina Nimmo, bought the Muzzle or the view down the valley … it can be tough, and it can be
lease in 1980. Following the tenure review process, the station frustrating living here, but the positives outweigh the negatives
has 6000 hectares of freehold land, and a Department of every time, and none of us would choose to be anywhere else.”
Conservation grazing lease of approximately 8000ha on the The Muzzle runs 2200 Merino ewes, 2500 wethers and
former Clarence Reserve Station on the other side of the river. 2200 hoggets (400 sold as lambs). It also winters 2300 cattle
The station’s nearest town is Kaikoura, but it’s not easy to get including 650 Hereford cows and 350 Angus-cross cows run
there. One way includes a 45-kilometre, three-hour drive on a in separate herds. The Angus have come from a Hereford base
very basic 4WD farm track that can’t be used in rain or snow – through cross breeding, but the eventual aim is to have a
if you can make it across the Clarence River in the first place. pure Angus herd as well as the Hereford herd. All steer calves
There are more than 25 other river crossings and a 1370m-high are finished from 20 to 24 months at 320 kilograms carcass
mountain range to get across. The other way out by vehicle is to weight. Surplus heifer calves are sold and the better half of
drive 80 kilometres across Muzzle land and then Bluff Station – two-year-old heifers from both herds are calved.
also impassable in the snow and rain, but with no river crossings. “One frustrating thing about our isolation is just how much
Then there’s flying. On a good day, it only takes 20 minutes to fly of a logistical nightmare that day-to-day jobs can be,” she wrote.
their Cessna to Kaikoura. But according to O, good days are not “When the majority of farmers want to sell or move some stock,
always easy to come by – especially when you need them. they call up the local trucking company and someone will come
The book is a story not only of the station but also the and do it. Here we have to plan a two- or three-day trip to walk
story of O’s family, and the story of what it’s like to grow up, them out. The only time we use a truck is to get a newly weaned
live and work in what is literally the “back of beyond”. cull lambs off the place in January, as trying to walk them out
“The Muzzle is many things – a business, a way of life, and would be stressful for all involved. The bulls also usually get a
most importantly, our home,” she wrote in the book. “Its ride in our big truck these days. Everything else walks in or out.”
beauty and its extremes never cease to impress us, and I think The majority of Hereford bulls are from the Murray family
if that ever stops then we don’t deserve to be here anymore. at Matariki at the Clarence River mouth.

86 HEREFORD MAGAZINE Year 2023