I edge past gumbooted parents chatting on the roadside after rural school drop-offs and through bush-clad avenues, until I’m finally at the gate of a farm that backs onto the dark mist of the Ngaruawahia hills.

After a journey that has flowed like a calendar of iconic New Zealand scenes, it’s a pleasant irony to be greeted by a rosy-cheeked Englishwoman. Sarah Walker and her husband, Jono, bought a run-down sheep farm almost a decade ago with the intention to plant it in pine forest and build their dream house. As it happened, they ended up converting the woolshed into a quirky, open-plan farmhouse, slowly transforming the property into a rare breeds’ farm, Soggy Bottom Holdings.

The farm’s rough hill pasture is home to breeds whose names draw out cravings for a nice piece of Stilton and a pint of real ale: Belted Galloway cattle, Wiltshire shedding sheep, Wessex saddleback pigs.

I’ve come to the Waikato for one of the Walkers’ monthly sausage-making courses—I’m interested in their attitude to farming and food, curious about what goes into a food item that’s rumoured to be a repository of butcher’s junk, and nervous about what it feels like to be elbow-deep in pig meat.