Mountain-lion raider watches Kiwis hew fresh life in Chile

Press, 6 October 1987, Page 31

Mountain-lion raider watches Kiwis hew fresh life in Chile

STAN DARLING

looks at the letters of Jan

Williams, a former Christchurch woman now living in southern Chile.

farm Workers

Big trout are biting in the lakes and rivers of remote southern Chile. Now all a New Zealand woman, her friends and relations have to do is make sure that tourists are lured to a region with some of the prettiest mountain countryside in the world. Jan Williams, whose parents live in Christchurch, has been sending a series of newsletters, fined with details of life in the volcanic uplands, while she and her group try to revive a dereHct farm and start a guiding venture and fishing lodge. With hard work, and aside fromthe intervention of a persistent mountain Hon, things have beep going their way. They are trying to finish several projects before the fishing W XSr? Chile in the early I9Bos *itff*er thenhusband, Max, and their teen-age children. Max Williams was an Air Zealand ground engineer there on a lend-lease arrangement After the marriage broke up, Max Williams left the country for a while, but he is now back as a .partner in the farming and tour-ism-ventures with Jan and her friend, David Cadwell, a former

mining engineer who had been living for years in Chile. Together, helped partly by the Williams' oldest child, Shayne — now in his early 20s — they are developing at Petrohue, at one end of Lake Todos, Los Santos. David Cadwell was an experienced fisherman before the new business started. In a letter a year ago, Jan Williams said the idea was to make the farm self-sufficient, also possibly supplying two nearby hotels with meat They started with five to 10 beef cattle, a milk cow, five ftiMep, Mrtives and*Wpitefe The plan Included setting up fftbihg* camps on the aria’s 1 rivers and lakes, using part of the old farmhouse — with extensions — for accommodation. They are now building riverboats for float trips. The old farmhouse needed extensive work, not to mention electricity. Work included building a cabin, two small A-frames, inside bathrooms, a kitchen extension and the floatboats.

“The saying is the minutes are long in the country,” wrote Jan Williams last year. “That may be so, but the days are too damn short.” Winter sports are also being developed in the region, with a new ski-lift on the Volcan Orsorno which they can see from the house. The fishing lodge could also provide housing for skiers. Cleaning the old 'farmhouse included sweeping up piles of rat droppings. The cats they took made a commotion cleaning out rats on the upper floor. They inherited two horses with ?kept showing up at the back of the house “an hour or so later after kicking through another rotten spot that we hadn’t seen.” In a letter earlier this year, after the southern summer, Jan Williams said the house now had electricity. She had her typewriter plugged into a house connection, “and I know that things are not going to come to a glorious halt

when the guys have finished using their tools and unplug the generator.” Now, she said, if she could just get the men to waterproof the roof of the outside 100. They had waterproofed the roof above the sheep, and it didn’t seem too much toask. It felt a bit foolish sitting out there holding up an umbrella. Not much rain had fallen during the summer, making for good working conditions except when it got so hot they had to “down tools and go fishing.” There were three sheep in the orchard paddock, three down on the original number. The mountain lion, in one raid, had eaten two and carried off one.

Then the' sheep .house was built, a place where they could be kept at night. The farmhouse extension was originally designed as a onestorey addition, then grew to two, “the result of discussions whilst sitting on top of the s completed ceiling joists, sipping beer and admiring the view, which they felt was far too spectacular to waste.” The men were also busy putting wooden shingles on the farmhouse roof when the rain and wind allowed work on the steep pitch. Jan Williams had a live-in maid by now. The men had two live-in workers who were building their own house at the far end of the yard. Two weeks later, Jah reported a calamity* They had lost all their sheep to another lion raid. She had gone up at 5 p.m. to put the sheep away to find them mauled and dying. They were butchered immediately, but three of the six hind legs had been lost to the marauder: “The wretched beast has a taste for the better cuts of meat!” She admitted that the locals had told them it was common for the lion to make daytime forays into the open. She reported that her son, Shayne, had become an avid fly fisherman, “this from the kid who when he arrived down here stated emphatically and colourfully that he wouldn’t be caught dead standing in a river waving

a stick with a bit of nylon line tied to the end of It with an artificial bug that some dork had tied in the hopes that it is good enough to fool some unsuspecting fish into leaping ...” Despite earlier reservations, he had even started to tie his own flies. The fishing, unfortunately, had been terrible, with the; drought damaging the local rivers. Jan and David had taken a trip south with a fisherman from Montana. One ferry that was scheduled to leave at 2 p.m. did not leave until 12. hours later iteowee -the ■ w** drunk, i found. “We slept on deck that night, vArv cold it was. too. but the

crammed, smoke-filled cabins with the glare and noise of videos held little appeal.” They acquired a lion dog, a puppy that had taken to stealing the odd shoe while people were in the outside shower. Jan Williams’ August letter described a local method of trading. The new farmers realised that 10 of their surviving 11 fowl were roosters, which were spending "so much time proving to one another what incredibly handsome and brave roosters they were that none of them /were even giving the little hen a mentioned that' many people in the neighbourhood keep poultry iust for eatinc. and often Dre-

ferred roosters to hens. “At the end of the day we had three new hens, one turkey and two goats.” The: bird story had a happy ending, with the remaining rooster unable to resist the new . . hens, which were averaging five eggs a day. Then the lion struck again, during the day, and killed the two goats. The new farmers have started a rabbit venture, looking into the possibility of breeding meat rab-: bits for local and overseas; females. Three br four rabbit . houses,;that could each take 40 to eO rabbits, are pliinned.w

David discovered in his reading that worms are great transformers of rabbit droppings, and a womfarmhasbeea started. , ' The worms; Jan/wrote,: happily munch and breed and convert all this smelly stuffinto a wonderfully clean apd addfree, non-smelling mulch to a matter of.days.” While the mulch to Mag rifted out, so are the: worms. Some up wmptytog them *«*>* >* Worms are also being bought to Chile . for export, and, there is araadvinartet fortbe-mulch.