- [Eleanore] This place is really special.

- [Ross] We're about 18 kilometres north of Helensville.

We're overlooking the Kaipara Harbour.

We're running 150 head of Angus cattle, our cows.

They provide us with a calf every year.

We've farmed sheep, beef, deer, and goats on the property.

Initially, we started with the internal fencing.

Fertiliser had become very expensive, so I didn't want my stock walking into the bush and defecating.

I wanted that fertiliser back on where it grows grass.

And believe you me, it does grow grass.

More recently, we've moved into any little remnant wetlands.

We are protecting those.

That's really where we're at there, just putting a fence up around them.

Then you'll get your weed and pest control.

Typical trap, we got about 30 of these around the farm.

Doc 200s, fantastic traps.

You'll get hedgehogs, rats, perhaps get a weasel or two.

By-kill is next to negligible.

Bait station I have trialled, it's not set now, with Feratox, little pill.

For possums, they are fantastic.

I guess our theory here is the more dense I can keep this canopy, it starts shading the stuff out, but this one's a hard one to shade out 'cause he's got such a big leaf.

Gorse, any of the small leaf things, they're gone.

Once they get in the shade, they just won't tolerate it.

- Funding for deer fencing bush blocks is not cheap, and through a Rodney Council initiative, we were able to take off some one hectare blocks as lifestyle blocks that we were able to sell, that gave us funding to do the extra work we did on the farm.

- In South Head here, we don't have a lot of natives left, and we've enhanced this with mānuka down and through here, karamū, cabbage trees we planted, and that's it for us 'cause they're extremely wet in the middle there and have no value to us from a farming perspective.

Just those initial enhancement plants, and then go in two years later, cut a little clearing out,

put your puriri, put your kahikatea, and they just grow so much better.

Ideal place for a puriri, under the shade, under the canopy.

Birds are not great carriers of seed unless you have wood pigeons, which will carry them a long way.

Generally your tuis and that are good for a 50-meter drop.

You've got to give the birds the seed.

They're not going to carry it from the middle of Auckland all the way out here.

This is all bird-spread.

These are birds, these guys, karamū, just coming in quite naturally, and that's keeping the deer out, keeping all the predators out, and the birds are doing their job, and that's where it's really at.

I think they'll do it far better than I can ever do it.

This bush was absolutely, you could've fired a shot through here and not hit a tree five years ago.

- [Eleanore] The deer.

- The deer, the degradation in here was horrendous.

And then all we've really done is put the fence around.

- Put the deer fence up.

- Little bit of weed and pest control, which is always ongoing.

- And it's totally enhanced the undergrowth, once you put your fence up.

- And you're getting this canopy coming through now.

QEII have helped us a lot here.

They have a representative who'll come 'round whenever you want.

They're there for advice.

They're there for traps.

They're there for funding.

And you know in perpetuity, Eleanore and I won't be here forever, and you know you've got someone that will be there.

The guardianship belongs with them, and that's a great thing.

They are a wonderful support to us.

I can't speak volumes enough for QEII.

They are absolutely fantastic.

They really are.

Go on, old flea bag. - Go on.

- Ah, leave her there. We've...

You're only here for about that long (snaps fingers) in this world, and you don't get a lot of opportunity to leave your mark, so I guess Eleanore and I have, hopefully, in enhancing it and looking after the environment.

- And I feel, I think, overwhelmed sometimes of actually what we have got on the farm.

I think we don't really appreciate it until maybe in the mornings you wake up and look out the window.

- I've never ever said that I'm a sandal-wearing tree hugger, but I know when you plant a little tree, and it's only yea high, and then you watch it grow over the course of 20 years, and it's suddenly got a trunk on it like this, and you look up at it, then you think, "Wow, that's pretty special."

Yeah, there is something in seeing something grow.

Yeah, that's fantastic.

So, yeah, there's a lot of that.

There's a lot of peace, a lot of serenity.

I think as New Zealanders, you know you're living in a pretty special country.

And if you can leave it a bit better, that's all well and good for the future, and I think that's great.