For her 40th birthday, Ngaire Evans' father-in-law gave her a ring – made with gold he found in the tailings of a once-working gold mine on his farm.
He'd fossicked around and extracted enough gold for a wedding ring for his wife and for rings for his two daughters, as well.
Mining's just one of an array of activities that have kept the Evans family on this land for 155 years.
Now the seventh generation is living on White Star Station at Colville on the northern Coromandel Peninsula.
The 1260-hectare farm has fertile flats, steep hills and is accessed by a narrow, winding coastal road.
Farming in this remote spot has not always been easy, though.
Originally, settlers sent kauri logs from the farm back to the UK for shipbuilding, but more recently dairy farming and pig rearing had to cease when the cream truck stopped negotiating the peninsula's roads.
Wild pigs were hunted to send to Germany and, at one time, cashmere goats were farmed and deer too, although they could never be tamed.
Pines trees were planted and are now ready for harvesting, Ngaire says.
"We were given a subsidy to plant them so we did it on the steep areas where the grass wouldn't grow easily and didn't sort of think about felling them later on and getting them out and trying to interest people in bringing their trucks up here and taking them out on the windy roads to get back to the markets."
For her part, Ngaire has worked on the farm, driven the school bus and sewed for a local weaver.
Her husband Zane has, as well as farming, been a shearer, a rural contractor and has had a timber mill on the farm.
Now two of Zane and Ngaire's adult children live on White Star Station where today 800 sheep and 320 Hereford cattle are farmed.
Honey is produced from 500 hives and for many years tourists have been able to stay and go horse trekking, Ngaire says.
"Everyone wants to get to the top of everywhere – you know, either Cape Reinga or the top of the peninsula – so it was a good market. There were all these people going past so we provided accommodation for them."
"You never get bored," she says with a laugh. "There's always something going on."
