Gary Herrick – Technical Adviser – Keinzley AgVet

When I joined Keinzley Agvet 15 years ago I didn’t realise what was going to happen.

I was a well respected person in the ag industry but things were about to change.

The team I joined are an incredible bunch that has got a lot of experience, knowledge and respect in the rural industry.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, well this old dog certainly learnt some new tricks.

We all feed off each other’s expertise and there’s such an atmosphere of enthusiasm in the whole team and everyone has each other’s back.

A few years after I started it was decided we needed to set up a large animal vet business.  This was partly to give us more integrity to sell some of the product range we had access to.  In addition though, a large majority of our clients felt like there was a real need for it in the Wairarapa.

Shortly after this a hi-tech small animal clinic was established as well.

Keinzley AgVet has become the only rural business in Australasia offering a full vet business and a team of highly skilled agronomists supported by a full farm merchandise business.

We’re proud of everything we achieve and get very good support from the Wairarapa farming community.

It’s a very good place to work!

Jacques Van Zyl – Senior Companion Animal Veterinarian

Wairarapa – located on the south east coast of New Zealand’s North Island

(/ˌwaɪrəˈræpə/; Māori pronunciation: [ˈwaiɾaɾapa]), is a geographical region of New Zealand, which lies in the south-eastern corner of the North Island, east of metropolitan Wellington and south-west of the Hawke’s Bay Region.

By world standards, it’s lightly populated, having several rural service towns, with Masterton being the largest.

The region is named after its largest lake, Lake Wairarapa.

The Wairarapa has a population of just under 50,000.

Wairarapa is shaped like a rectangle, about 130 kilometres (81 miles) long (from Palliser Bay north to Woodville) and 65 kilometres (40 miles) wide (from the Tararua Range east to the coast).

The Ngāti Kahungunu tribe’s boundary for the region is similar. Their tribal area begins at Pōrangahau and ends at Turakirae.

It’s the southernmost of their three rohe (homelands) running down the eastern North Island from Wairoa.

For the Rangitāne tribe, Wairarapa is part of a wider homeland that includes Manawatu and Horowhenua.

The north–south divide was reinforced in 1989, when local authority boundaries changed.

The new Tararua District Council covers northern Wairarapa and southern Hawke’s Bay.

Central and southern Wairarapa was divided into three district councils: Masterton, Carterton and South Wairarapa.

South Wairarapa District Council, based in Martinborough, is the local government authority for areas south of Carterton, encompassing the towns of Greytown, Featherston and Martinborough and the rural areas down to the Hutt.

It is separated from Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt cities by the Rimutaka Ranges.

Carterton District Council based in Carterton is the fastest growing area in New Zealand and the Masterton District Council covers areas up to the Tararua District.

In terms of national politics, after the proportional representation electoral system was introduced in 1996, the Wairarapa electorate expanded to include southern Hawke’s Bay.

The area from Mount Bruce north, extending through Eketahuna, Pahiatua, Woodville, Dannevirke, to just north of Norsewood is part of the Tararua District and is in the Manawatū-Whanganui region, because it is in the catchment of the headwaters of the Manawatu River.

The river runs westward between the two mountain ranges (Tararua Range to the south and Ruahine Range to the north) via the Manawatu Gorge, to pass through Palmerston North and reach the west coast of the North Island.

The east coast contains settlements such as Tinui, Castlepoint, and Riversdale Beach, while the main southern rivers drain through or past Lake Wairarapa to discharge into Palliser Bay east of Cook Strait.