‘I’m pretty certain he’s trying to force us out’

Lionel Barnes sits in his house at Kumara Junction, a stone’s throw from the Tasman Sea in Westland, but part of his heart resides in Canterbury’s mountainous high country.
He and wife Jeanette are trustees of 101 hectares of tussocked, freehold land near the boundary of Arthur’s Pass National Park. “It’s lovely out there,” Jeanette says, wistfully. “Wake up and hear the birds instead of the cars. Love it out there.”