After the First World War, thousands of servicemen came home looking for land, but only rugged forested areas such as the King Country were available. They were entitled to an advance of £5000 to buy land and a further £1000-£2000 to develop it, but this proved inadequate for many attempting to settle in the King Country. The geographer Kenneth Cumberland best summed up their plight when he wrote:
Many of the buyers and lessees in this frantic rush for land found themselves on rough hill country, in virgin bush, remote, isolated and without roads. Many of the soldier-settlers were underequipped, undercapitalised and lacking in experience, on land overvalued and heavily mortgaged. And all were relying, without question, on a continuation of boom prices for what they hoped to be able to produce.
The collapse of prices for primary produce in 1921, combined with the high cost of loan repayments, and those of keeping the cleared land free of regenerating bush and fertilised, were in the end the downfall of many would-be farmers. Large areas of land were abandoned and although there was a resurgence of interest after the Second World War, when the advent of aerial topdressing greatly reduced development costs, farming in much of the King Country has never been economically viable.
Hone Tuwhare best captures the essence of the backcountry in this poem:
Deep scarred
not by wind ravaged nor rain
nor the brawling stream
stripped of all save the brief finery
of gorse and broom; and standing
sentinel to your bleak loneliness
the tussock grass.
Driving south, Otorohanga is the first main town you will see, 29 kilometres from Te Awamutu on State Highway 3. It boasts the Kiwi House and Native Bird Centre (on Kakamutu Road) where you can be sure of seeing a kiwi in the excellent nocturnal house. This centre has made a name for itself by successfully breeding kiwi and it has exported these to several countries. To date, this is the only place that the great spotted kiwi or roa has ever been bred. The park also has one of the best collections of native fauna in the country. Besides the nocturnal house there is a large walk-through aviary where tui, kereru and other birds can be seen flying around. There is also a good collection of native reptiles, and a breeding complex for the blue duck.
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he King Country is named after the movement King Tawhiao led last century to resist alienation of Maori land. After the movement's failure, he and his followers sought refuge in the remoter parts of this region and for a time thereafter Pakeha ventured into the King Country at their peril. Although the King Country now has several substantial towns, beyond them a sense of isolation persists in what is some of the North Island's wildest terrain. 