Scholars & Gentlemen Both

The Thomsons evidently spent some time in Invercargill sorting out what they were to do, for it was not until August that they moved to a leased 300 acre farm, “Fern Dale”, at Mabel Bush, 15 miles out of town. Getting there was a struggle; for a little way the road was good but then it turned to mud—an “impassable, unfathomable, and endless sea of mud”.¹⁵ When they got there, “Fern Dale” was no grand country estate. It had the usual weatherboard homestead, some rough cleared fields, and much bush and swamp. What kind of enterprise the Thomsons had in mind on emigrating to New Zealand is not clear, but it can hardly have been this.