Kaituna
(Runs 30, Block 1; 324 and 429)

Kaituna, another of the Rhodes brothers' stations, was the largest and most valuable on the Peninsula. The boundary ran from the north-eastern corner of page 336Lake Ellesmere straight to the top of Mount Herbert (where it joined Purau) and down from Mount Herbert almost in a straight line to meet Lake Forsyth a mile above the outlet; then (in theory) across the lake, where it took in several thousand acres on the coast opposite, including Ikoraki and Oashore. Altogether the run contained about twenty-five thousand acres.

Oashore, the country on the east side of the lake, had, Andersen says, more variants of its name than any other place in New Zealand. A stock return for 1885, quoted by Andersen, says that it contained ten thousand acres; but there must be a mistake in this. There is not room there for more than about six thousand acres at most. The Rhodes's got their first license for Run 30 in 1851, and the final license in January, 1852; but I think they had had stock on the country before this.

In November, 1859, Thomas Hodson Parkinson, the Rhodes's manager, took up five thousand acres (Run 329) adjoining Run 30 on the west side of Lake Forsyth, running up towards Little River; and in February, 1862, the Rhodes's took up Run 429—five thousand acres on the foreshore of Lake Ellesmere. This was a very late selection, of course, because the land in it was mostly undrainable swamp, or subject to flooding, and not considered worth paying for in the early days. In the Rhodes's time Kaituna carried 25,000 sheep, which were always taken to Purau to be shorn, and a very large herd of cattle. The Rhodes's made the better part of the land freehold.

In 1875, when Rhodes Brothers dissolved partnership, they sold Kaituna in blocks. A large block near Lake Forsyth was bought by Birdling; but Parkinson bought the homestead, with twelve thousand acres, and some of the leasehold, on which he carried about 9000 sheep. He died in 1883, and between 1883 and 1900 the station was subdivided amongst his sons. The old homestead went to his son Walter, who died in 1940; but the place belongs to his executors, and his widow and his daughter, Mrs L. Coop, still live there.

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I do not know who bought the Oashore block; but in the late 'seventies Hugh Buchanan's executors bought it from someone and joined it to Kinloch.