If you're a rabbit pie eater, the Mossburn district might have been just the place for you.

Rabbits were introduced into the area from England to provide food for the gold miners and prospectors. New Zealand has no native mammals and so the rabbit was free to breed without any natural control.

The area was perfect

protection from man. High waving native tussock and the endemic Matagouri bush, with its vicious spikes, offered the animals wonderful cover and protection. The continuous freezing wind and bogs spread across the plain made this land unattractive to humans. So this little animal found a paradise that allowed him to burrow and breed with impunity. Rabbits became such a problem that the government put a bounty of sixpence on every carcass presented.

There were so many rabbits, that one man is able to claim he bought his farm with the government bounty earned from a single year’s hunting. And he wasn’t the only one.

The five rivers that flow across this part of the North Southland plain kept the water table so high that it was considered too boggy for proper farming. It was an austere part of the parish. But the first farmers, after only sixty years, have almost rid the land of rabbits, drained the bogs, cleared the tussock and Matagouri. And with the development of Chewings fescue, a grass specially bred for these conditions, the land has become very profitable.

One of our farmers remembers watching a burn-off of tussock. He was standing on a mountain with his father and before them 400 square miles was ablaze. ‘It was like the whole world was on fire,’ he said.

Despite the burnings, native tussock will not become extinct. The plant is grown in special reserves that are open to visitors. The reserves give a good idea of how the area looked before. The difference is extraordinary.

Even though the countryside has undergone extraordinary change and the country society generally has moved to the big cities, Mossburn township has sedately stood against the trend, changing little. It sits in the gap between two ranges of mountains that funnel the prevailing wind into an almost continuous gale through the township - a small town, of fifty to sixty folk, stretching alongside the main road to Te Anau and Milford. It is the popular stopping point of coach-loads of tourists, mostly from Asia, who break the journey for refreshments on the journey between Queenstown and Milford.

Looking at tourist promotional maps, the journey doesn’t seem very far. It actually takes twelve hours, half of it within the parish boundaries, which gives an idea of the size of our part of New Zealand.

The distance proves to be so great that many tourists, even though they have paid the return coach fee, prefer to return from Milford by air. Our recommendation to people contemplating this trip is to stay, at least, an overnight in the beautiful township of Te Anau nestled on the Lake side. Here there are caves of glow worms to visit, nature parks, and native birds close at hand.

Milford is rightly world acclaimed but in the opinion of the locals it is overshadowed by the Doubtful Sound trip. This is vastly superior. Yes, it is a little more expensive, but it’s worth every penny. It involves a day trip across spectacular Lake Manapouri, a visit to the underground power station thousands of feet inside a mountain, then a bus trip over the pass through native bush and down into the spectacular Shangri-La of Deep cove. There you travel out on the sounds to the sea passing penguins, dolphins, seals, and very large sea fish.
For more on Mossburn, click here.