Skills, luck and innovative product use required for notorious Takaka Hill

When Nelson contractor David Jacobsen tackled a job on the notorious Takaka Hill, fencing off goats, pigs, lambs and horses, he needed something more than traditional fencing gear.

The on-going, large-scale job fencing in young goats, pigs, lambs and ponies covers 25 hectares, and when they arrived two years ago, they got straight to work clearing the lines with a digger, rolling up old fences, and smashing a line through the infamous rock-hard Takaka Hill marble.

“This was the main challenge involved in this job,” Dave said.

“In places the line had to be shifted to find a spot to make it through the rock. It’s a bloody hard place to build a fence.”

He reckons you need “good skills and a lot of good luck” to meet the challenge. A good auger was also essential.

“The auger was pretty worn down by the end of it.”

Despite the challenge it was a “cool job”.

The team at Waratah provided the team with a long-life blue netting, used on the internal side of the fenceline enclosure, which was perfect for the job, keeping in or out baby lambs, goats and pigs and other animals that had been taken in by the owner.

“It was good wire. Easy to tie off.”

Waratah regional sales manager Brendon Crequer was pleased to provide the right gear for the job.

“A special line of 15/150/50 LongLife Blue netting was brought in for job and provided a good value solution for the customer.”

Dave is used to doing all types of fencing having spent the majority of his life in the industry. “Yards, sports grounds and electric fencing, driving house piles you name it.”

Dave has been in business for 15 years as Golden Bay Fencing, having started fencing when he was 14, while also farming in the area.

He reckons his most memorable job was voluntary fencing down the Clarence Valley after the 7.8 Magnitude Kaikoura earthquake. He was part of a crew of volunteers that dropped what they were doing and headed to the devastated region to urgently check and repair kilometres of damaged fences to get them stock proof and back to functionality.

“To see the damage from the quake was horrifying. The tears in people’s eyes – they were just left to it as everyone else was on Christmas holidays. They had no yards etc. Sheep needed shearing, stags needed velveting... Some places uplifted 8 to 10 metres.

Constructing the fence around the marble proved challenging

The LongLife Blue netting drew plenty of attention

Dealing with the infamous Takaka Hill marble required some innovative fencing

“We did 1.6 kilometres of new netting fence on one farm, heaps of repairs on another, plus new cattle yards and a woolshed on another. They were so grateful for our help.

“There were lots of other volunteers – it was helping those people that made it memorable.”

Dave has also spent a memorable time fencing on Durville Island, and more recently in the Marlborough Sounds.

A special line of 15/150/50 LongLife Blue netting was brought in for the job

A special line of 15/150/50 LongLife Blue netting was brought in for job

Clearing the fence line, marble and all