For years, Linda Coubrough was determined to put as much distance as possible between herself and her family’s South Waikato farm. She travelled the world, studied geology and worked at a horse ranch in Canada before returning home to be a police officer.
But after spending her days off back on the farm during Covid, she unexpectedly realised she didn’t want to leave.
“I’d go back to Auckland more tired than when I left, but it was physically tired from the work rather than mental strain and I found that quite rejuvenating,” shares Linda, 35.
It was a surprising realisation for someone who had spent much of her life trying to get away from the land.
An early introduction to farm-life
Linda grew up in Whakatāne as a self-described “beach kid”, with her Dutch mother Johanna Streukens working as a physiotherapist and her Kiwi father Brett Coubrough, a control systems engineer. The family occasionally visited her grandparents’ farm in Tirau, where Brett lived as a child.
When her grandmother died in 2003, her dad took over the land and they moved to the farm. Linda and her brother Tim were teenagers then and weren’t impressed.
“I didn’t have any connection to the farm whatsoever,” recalls Linda. “It was a big change. We used to get paid, like 50 cents, to empty the dishwasher, those kinds of townie chores. Then we moved to the farm and we’d spend our summers digging up barberry bushes. It was hard work, but every bush would get you $1.”
After high school, Linda was determined to explore elsewhere, travelling through the US and Europe, before studying geology and anthropology in Dunedin.
Next she moved to Canada on a one-way ticket, eventually working as a horse guide and country lodge manager in the Rocky Mountains.
Then, while contemplating where else in the world she wanted to see, an unlikely idea took hold.
Pivoting into policing
“I was watching some police show and thought, ‘I could do that.’ So I ended up coming home in 2015.”
She was 25 when she joined the police, going on to work for the neighbourhood policing team in South Auckland and the maritime unit during the America’s Cup.
Linda loved the opportunities and the camaraderie, but shift work started to take its toll. Working six days on and four days off, she began making the drive back to the farm more regularly in 2021.
“Calf rearing was something new,” she says. “I found a real passion for them and found I didn’t want to leave.”
So in 2022, after more than five years in the police force, Linda took two years’ leave without pay to see whether farming full-time was for her. One year into that leave, she resigned and has never looked back.
The animals come first
Now, alongside her brother Tim, 36, and dad Brett, 65, Linda runs the farm – with a deliberately different approach. Using technological advances like a robot milking system, they prioritise keeping the operation relatively small – around 115 milking cows at the moment.
“We’re keeping it small, keeping it productive, but as efficient, environmentally friendly and animal-friendly as possible too,” says Linda, who features with her family on this week’s episode of Hyundai Country Calendar.
That philosophy matters especially to Linda.
“I don’t see myself as a farmer as such, I’m more of a caretaker. It’s not business first – it’s animals first.”
The farm’s new robotic milking system reflects that thinking. The cows can choose when to enter the milking shed and the technology monitors each cow to flag potential health problems early.
“We thought getting them to the shed would be the hardest thing, but it’s actually getting them out!” she laughs. “They keep coming back.” Linda adds the system won’t let them be milked more than once every six hours.
A special connection
While she knows just about every cow individually, each year a few special calves end up being reared more like pets.
Cloudy, her first calf, still regularly seeks out Linda for scratches, while other favourites include Maple, Thunder and Hyacinth.
“They choose you, the cows,” she says. “I get very attached, as you can tell.”
After decades of wanderlust, Linda reflects that the simple life really suits her. Living in her grandparents’ old farmhouse, she finds joy in tending her garden, making butter and jam, and sharing rural life with rescue dog Nova.
“It’s weird because I’m content for a change, and I’m still adjusting that there is nothing that I want to race off and do,” she smiles.
“I think farming has made me a bit more grounded… I’ve found roots.”
Hyundai Country Calendar, screens Sundays at 7pm on TVNZ 1 and TVNZ+.
