The Hybrid Worker
Cruisin’ the Kaipara, the rag trade and doing business abroad…all from a Paparoa farm
Luke MacDonald didn’t wait to move out of Auckland to create a rural work-from-home model in Kaipara – he had it well honed while still living in Tāmaki Makaurau.
The owner of Texas Garments is living off-grid in a new build with his wife Jenny, continuing to run his successful business of 15 years while enjoying watching his 14 Belted Galloway breeding cows wandering around their rolling 30-hectare native bush and pasture block at Paparoa.
A 30-degree roof pitch is perfect for the 52kW solar system that powers the entire house as well as an EV car, ensuring Luke and Jenny have the juice they need to be in constant communication with clients by avoiding power cuts and using satellite communication.
“Our living costs are very low as we look to our future. We are not paying for meat. We grow our own vegetables. We have our own water and power. Our fuel cost is minimal with a solar powered long-range EV. Our living costs are much lower. It’s a great feeling of freedom”
While Luke contends with a bit of international travel to the likes of Mongolia, Bangladesh and Central China, he mostly runs Texas Garments from home, allowing him to enjoy the property he and Jenny have made home since purchasing the land in 2021.
A qualified nurse, Jenny currently works as a nurse consultant helping client’s post-surgery while Luke pursues his passion in the ‘rag trade’, a profession he has mastered over the past 40+ years in the industry.
Like so many Aucklanders who make the move to country living, there was nothing glamourous at the start when the couple lived in an eleven-metre-long house bus Luke had purchased and converted 12 years before.
“We had looked at over 50 properties before we decided on this one. Then Covid came along and messed everything up. We had three months to build a driveway and a barn, sort out a water tank and wastewater and solar power the bus. I wanted the bus under cover for a better (and more comfortable) living environment,” says Luke.
That achieved, they hunkered down to weather the Covid storm. Life was good.
For the petrolheads out there, the temporary home Luke speaks of is a 1980 Mercedes 0305 with an 11.4-litre Slant Six diesel powered engine, complete with a double bedroom, granite kitchen, full ensuite and lounge.
It was actually the first methanol powered bus in the world but when that ARA (Auckland Regional Authority) experiment failed, it was converted back to diesel. Purchased initially as a functioning city bus, Luke converted it into a motorhome over a six-month period.
Luke and Jenny also have a couple of classic cars which they love cruising the Kaipara in. With a 1932 Ford roadster for the sunny summer days and a 1939 ex US Army pickup truck for occasional work duties, they have it well catered for. There were quite a few others, but the ‘stable’ has been reduced of late.
“Covid changed the whole business landscape for me because relationships are important as an importer, and I was unable to travel. I could not get to my suppliers so I did a deal with my people in Mongolia and met them in Sydney, so we could continue to trade. It gave us quite an edge during challenging times.”
However, 12 months later, Luke’s Mongolian colleagues told him they were having to close the factory within a few days. It was not news he was expecting or wanted to hear, so he quickly made a plan.
“It was at the tail-end of Covid when restrictions were easing, so I flew to see them as I had been dealing with that factory for over 35 years and we all knew each other very well. Their issue was the cost of the winter heating bill in temperatures of minus 40 degrees, so the size of the factory was reduced to a third,” says Luke.
“We travelled to another region and found a factory that could do the bigger orders, and they then reinstated their original factory for me and re-hired 60 to 70 of the staff they had just let go. I felt extremely honoured.”
Then it was home to rural Kaipara for Luke and back to life as normal.
Luke and Jenny say they have found the country lifestyle infinitely better than living in Auckland - socially, environmentally and financially - and they encourage others to discover what they have with a move to Kaipara.
“We had an incident on the farm here. Fire and Emergency NZ were here in six minutes. Two minutes later there was an Ambulance and three minutes later a Northern Rescue Helicopter was here. That simply would not happen in Auckland. I was supremely impressed with the speed of the service we received. It’s bloody good and the level of care was great”
“Our living costs are very low as we look to our future. We are not paying for meat. We grow our own vegetables. We have our own water and power. Our fuel cost is minimal with a solar powered long-range EV. Our living costs are much lower. It’s a great feeling of freedom,” says Luke.
While the reliability of couriers for his business concerned Luke when they moved to rural Kaipara, he says Covid really helped in some aspects of life.
“Retailers ramped up their online services in response to everyone being at home during Covid and that has continued. We used to go to Whangārei for our groceries. Woolworths (formerly Countdown) will deliver to us tomorrow morning for $9 and the truck parks right outside our house. I find the Rural Courier service is superior to Auckland as well.”
Luke also rates the medical care available in the Kaipara exceptionally highly.
“We had an incident on the farm here. Fire and Emergency NZ were here in six minutes. Two minutes later there was an Ambulance and three minutes later a Northern Rescue Helicopter was here. That simply would not happen in Auckland. I was supremely impressed with the speed of the service we received. It’s bloody good and the level of care was great.”
It is much the same with Luke’s approach to business.
“I still have the same philosophy I started my business with. I have very few clients and I look after them very well. I deliver orders on time, with realistic prices and I perform by working smart and efficient hours for the benefit of the client. When a client emails me or phones me, I attended to it straight away. Over the years, the clothing industry has been very kind to me.”
Luke laughs when he recounts the time he stepped out of the rag trade and go out on his own because it was such a brief period.
He was driving home to Northcote, unemployed for the first time in his life, and during that hour driving he fielded two phone calls with very senior job offers.
Instead, he headed to Western Samoa and started up a car dealership complete with workshop, parts, car rentals, new cars and second-hand vehicles. It was to be another short-lived change of scene.
He had only been out of the clothing sector for two months when he received an SOS from an Auckland man (and former client), working in the school uniform industry who desperately need help to urgently source uniforms for one particular school.
Thanks to Luke having longstanding, genuine relationships with the factories he had dealt with for years, he was able to turn a months-long lead time for uniform delivery into gold. The order was made in four days, and it landed in New Zealand in ten days instead of four months, something Luke did out of the goodness of his heart to help a guy out.
He was promptly handed a pile of orders for the following season and told to make it happen.
“I went home and wrote a very unique business plan which was different to other clothing import businesses. I am still in the trade following the plan and loving it.”
When not going the extra mile for clients, Luke is constantly upping his skills on the land.
He has fenced off waterways around which he and Jenny, the local community and Kaipara Moana Remediation have planted 6500 native grasses and trees on the property in recent years. He points out six kilometres of fencing, 1.8kms of access roads and lots of blisters. Thanks to all that hard work, Luke and Jenny have transformed the property.
That care for the land will continue as he says he does not actually own it but instead is simply the guardian. Similarly, Luke’s care for doing business well and treating people well remains an intrinsic part of his ethics.
And he will happily encourage others to make the move to doing life and business in Kaipara.