The former Aucklander, who now owns and runs Castle Hill Station in Canterbury, has seen the rent for her 2900ha pastoral lease rise from $6000 a year to potentially $84,000, mostly due to a new charge for amenity values.
‘‘How affordable is that. My Merinos aren't carrying a 5kg fleece just because they see the Torlesse Pass.''
‘‘The soils haven't changed,'' Mrs Fernyhough said.
Although only a farmer since July 2004, she despairs about the future of the high country given what she calls new unaffordable pastoral rents and the trend where the Government and Department of Conservation own land of conservation value rather than working with farmers to ensure its protection.
Her concern was heightened following a recent visit to the Birchwood Station, which was bought by the Government several years ago.
Mrs Fernyhough said land the Williamsons continued to graze showed healthy tussocks and controlled pasture.
But on land now administered by Doc and where stock was excluded, grass was rank and growing rampantly, shading out tussocks and creating a potential fire hazard.
She said it was vital that parts of the country were protected, but that could be achieved by covenants and easements.
Doc was struggling to manage the land it had, evident by rampant broom, gorse and ragwort growth on land in the Porters Pass area, near Castle Hill.
Last year Mrs Fernyhough spent $40,000 on weed control.
She agreed with the concept of Doc but, like many living in the high country, said the reality was vastly different given the amount land it had to manage and the demands on its resources.
‘‘It will be like health and education - there will never be enough money to look after Doc's estate,'' she said.
Not enough credit was given to the fact that people who owned an asset generally looked after it. They appreciated they were custodians, she said.
Mrs Fernyhough has written a book - The road to Castle Hill: a high country love story - about her transformation from a Parnell philanthropist to a high country farmer.
Launched last October, the book has sold 20,000 copies.
But her new career came to grinding halt in late October, when a first calving heifer took exception to being separated from her calf while shifting paddocks.
The calf turned back from the herd, prompting the heifer to come charging at Mrs Fernyhough, jumping on and breaking her left leg.
A long way from help and her leg badly broken, she climbed in to the farm truck and used her good leg for the brake and clutch and her hand for the accelerator to get back home.
‘‘I was on my own, I knew I had to get out.''