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Hard Country: A Golden Bay Life
Robby and Garry Robilliard arrived in Golden Bay in 1957 as a young married couple with a baby. They longed to own their own sheep farm, but a lack of money stood in their way.
Then they found Rocklands, a rundown marginal property in the hills above Takaka. Its three previous owners had gone bust; no wonder Robby came to call it ‘nightmare land’.
Sixty years on, Robby and Garry still call Rocklands home. Hard Country is Robby’s entertaining story of their decades eking out a living at Rocklands, and their encounters along the way with the many and varied Golden Bay characters.
Then they found Rocklands, a rundown marginal property in the hills above Takaka. Its three previous owners had gone bust; no wonder Robby came to call it ‘nightmare land’.
Sixty years on, Robby and Garry still call Rocklands home. Hard Country is Robby’s entertaining story of their decades eking out a living at Rocklands, and their encounters along the way with the many and varied Golden Bay characters.
272 pages, Paperback
First published September 5, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 3, 2025
EXCERPT: The Takaka Hill is my Rubicon. It's the mountainous barrier that isolates Golden Bay, in the north-west corner of New Zealand's South Island, from the rest of the country.
What was I doing there?
Well, I'd married someone as independent as myself. We were not going to work for other people any longer than we had to. And so it was that in 1957, within a year of our marriage, and with a six-week0old baby, Garry and I had taken on what was undoubtedly some of the worst land in the country. Some 1500 mountainous acres of gorse, scrub and bracken, aptly named Rocklands, now belonged to us.
It was all we could afford.
ABOUT 'HARD COUNTRY: A GOLDEN BAY LIFE': Robby and Garry Robilliard arrived in Golden Bay in 1957 as a young married couple with a baby. They longed to own their own sheep farm, but a lack of money stood in their way.
Then they found Rocklands, a rundown marginal property in the hills above Takaka. Its three previous owners had gone bust; no wonder Robby came to call it ‘nightmare land’.
Sixty years on, Robby and Garry still call Rocklands home. Hard Country is Robby’s entertaining story of their decades ekeing out a living at Rocklands, and their encounters along the way with the many and varied Golden Bay characters.
MY THOUGHTS: I loved meandering through Robin and Garry's lives as they lived in isolation, initially with no power, no phone and a long and tortuous road their only link to so-called 'civilisation'. Robin is certainly made of far sterner stuff than I, yet I found much to relate to.
The story of Robin and Garry's lives, breaking in farming land to eke out a perilous living intrigued me. Especially when, in their later years, they discovered ecology and rewilded a lot of it. Robin would endure so much hardship and then, in true 'the straw that broke the camel's back fashion', some small thing would go wrong, and Robin would be wanting to leave.
While there was much to be awed by in this book, there was also much to be laughed at; Incidents which can be laughed at now but probably weren't funny at the time. The three children, Tim, Sally and Michael are a constant source of entertainment. Like Sally as a three-year old thinking that the deciduous trees were dead. When Robin explained that they were just sleeping, Sally wanted to know why they weren't lying down. And young Michael thinking that the stars were holes in the sky and that was where the rain came through.
The text is accompanied by black and white photos of life on the farm as the children grow up. Realistic, down to earth, real life photos, not posed.
And in the end, Robin sums up thus - 'There is nothing like writing a book about one's life to force you to look back at the tough times, and the many, many times when life didn't seem fair. But in almost every single situation, I learnt something I needed to know. Bit by bit I gained the strength and ability to tackle what came next, to make the very best of my life. It's given me a drive and focus.
I wouldn't change a thing.
I'm glad I read Hard Country. I was a mere child when Robin and Garry moved to Rocklands, but a lot of their farming practices were still used when I was a child - the temperamental cream separator and carting the cream cans out to the road on a jigger on old railway lines repurposed to run between the milking shed (a four stand walk through) and the road. The pigs kept to fatten on the skimmed milk. Walking to bring the cows in and warm cream straight from the shed on our porridge in the mornings.
Thank you Robin for this walk down memory lane, for the lessons in fortitude and for the list of other books written in and about the area.
⭐⭐⭐⭐.2
MEET THE AUTHOR - ROBIN ROBILLIARD is former journalist, travel writer and keen walker. She is the author of 33 books, mostly school readers and social studies books.
I own my copy of Hard Country: A Golden Bay Life by Robin Robilliard.
https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...
What was I doing there?
Well, I'd married someone as independent as myself. We were not going to work for other people any longer than we had to. And so it was that in 1957, within a year of our marriage, and with a six-week0old baby, Garry and I had taken on what was undoubtedly some of the worst land in the country. Some 1500 mountainous acres of gorse, scrub and bracken, aptly named Rocklands, now belonged to us.
It was all we could afford.
ABOUT 'HARD COUNTRY: A GOLDEN BAY LIFE': Robby and Garry Robilliard arrived in Golden Bay in 1957 as a young married couple with a baby. They longed to own their own sheep farm, but a lack of money stood in their way.
Then they found Rocklands, a rundown marginal property in the hills above Takaka. Its three previous owners had gone bust; no wonder Robby came to call it ‘nightmare land’.
Sixty years on, Robby and Garry still call Rocklands home. Hard Country is Robby’s entertaining story of their decades ekeing out a living at Rocklands, and their encounters along the way with the many and varied Golden Bay characters.
MY THOUGHTS: I loved meandering through Robin and Garry's lives as they lived in isolation, initially with no power, no phone and a long and tortuous road their only link to so-called 'civilisation'. Robin is certainly made of far sterner stuff than I, yet I found much to relate to.
The story of Robin and Garry's lives, breaking in farming land to eke out a perilous living intrigued me. Especially when, in their later years, they discovered ecology and rewilded a lot of it. Robin would endure so much hardship and then, in true 'the straw that broke the camel's back fashion', some small thing would go wrong, and Robin would be wanting to leave.
While there was much to be awed by in this book, there was also much to be laughed at; Incidents which can be laughed at now but probably weren't funny at the time. The three children, Tim, Sally and Michael are a constant source of entertainment. Like Sally as a three-year old thinking that the deciduous trees were dead. When Robin explained that they were just sleeping, Sally wanted to know why they weren't lying down. And young Michael thinking that the stars were holes in the sky and that was where the rain came through.
The text is accompanied by black and white photos of life on the farm as the children grow up. Realistic, down to earth, real life photos, not posed.
And in the end, Robin sums up thus - 'There is nothing like writing a book about one's life to force you to look back at the tough times, and the many, many times when life didn't seem fair. But in almost every single situation, I learnt something I needed to know. Bit by bit I gained the strength and ability to tackle what came next, to make the very best of my life. It's given me a drive and focus.
I wouldn't change a thing.
I'm glad I read Hard Country. I was a mere child when Robin and Garry moved to Rocklands, but a lot of their farming practices were still used when I was a child - the temperamental cream separator and carting the cream cans out to the road on a jigger on old railway lines repurposed to run between the milking shed (a four stand walk through) and the road. The pigs kept to fatten on the skimmed milk. Walking to bring the cows in and warm cream straight from the shed on our porridge in the mornings.
Thank you Robin for this walk down memory lane, for the lessons in fortitude and for the list of other books written in and about the area.
⭐⭐⭐⭐.2
MEET THE AUTHOR - ROBIN ROBILLIARD is former journalist, travel writer and keen walker. She is the author of 33 books, mostly school readers and social studies books.
I own my copy of Hard Country: A Golden Bay Life by Robin Robilliard.
https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...
March 29, 2015
As a young married couple, wanting to buy cheap land, Garry and Robin Robilliard chanced upon Rocklands in Takaka, Golden Bay and bought it. It required almost impossible grit and stamina to turn this land into a functioning sheep and beef farm, which Garry did, with occasional help from neighbours.
Meanwhile Robin was busy having children, 3 in the space of 5 years. Living in primitive, cramped conditions, she nevertheless contrived to make the best of the situation and played an active role both on the farm and in rural community life. Although she loved memories of her sophisticated life on a Hawkes bay farm while growing up and occasionally wondered what she and Garry were doing, she supported Garry in his endeavours. Only after a stint at Collingwood Hospital, where she witnessed a regime of terrible cruelty and authoritarianism in the treatment of elderly people, did she further her journalistic career which had begun years before with a column in the Auckland Weekly.
Suddenly, with the support of Frank Haden, the dynamic editor of the Dominion, the Wellington paper, she travelled overseas to various exotic locations to report on the lives of people there. She even went to North Korea in the 1980s, though it was hard for her to see the "real life" there.
An amazing story of a truly indomitable couple who still live on the same property in their 80s. i especially liked the black and white photos of their children between each chapter of this book and the compact and easy to read style of this book.
I expect this book would resonate with people in the southern states of the United States whose properties would often be as forbidding as this one.
Meanwhile Robin was busy having children, 3 in the space of 5 years. Living in primitive, cramped conditions, she nevertheless contrived to make the best of the situation and played an active role both on the farm and in rural community life. Although she loved memories of her sophisticated life on a Hawkes bay farm while growing up and occasionally wondered what she and Garry were doing, she supported Garry in his endeavours. Only after a stint at Collingwood Hospital, where she witnessed a regime of terrible cruelty and authoritarianism in the treatment of elderly people, did she further her journalistic career which had begun years before with a column in the Auckland Weekly.
Suddenly, with the support of Frank Haden, the dynamic editor of the Dominion, the Wellington paper, she travelled overseas to various exotic locations to report on the lives of people there. She even went to North Korea in the 1980s, though it was hard for her to see the "real life" there.
An amazing story of a truly indomitable couple who still live on the same property in their 80s. i especially liked the black and white photos of their children between each chapter of this book and the compact and easy to read style of this book.
I expect this book would resonate with people in the southern states of the United States whose properties would often be as forbidding as this one.
October 24, 2014
Would be a 4 but a little repetitive, a little more editing might have helped. Having said that, what a great-sounding lady who made a life for herself and with her family in really tough conditions, farming on marginal land in Golden Bay, NZ. Could never have done what she did. Inspiring stuff.
February 2, 2020
Great book to learn about a family’s way of life starting in the 50’s in an isolated place. I always wondered how people lived in small, beautiful but isolated places in NZ and I enjoyed reading this book .. unfortunately last 100 pages or so .. it gets a bit repetitive .. otherwise would have given 4*
January 10, 2019
The book starts with a strong narrative, but later becomes a series of anecdotes that are somewhat disjointed. It would have benefited from tighter editing to lead the reader into and through the stories.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews