Turning 80 in September, she certainly hasn’t let the grass grow under her feet — though, having farmed Royalburn, on the Crown Terrace, for 43 years, with husband Mick, that was handy, too.
It’s hard to believe, as she’s such a perfectionist, but Jane says as a youngster in Christchurch "I wasn’t exactly good".
Her parents packed her off to Timaru’s Craighead "because they felt I needed extra discipline".
"I think I was more interested in boys than learning, and having a good time."
She didn’t like school — "we were locked up as though we were sitting on a fortune".
Jane says she only took up golf to leave the grounds.
But she also loved art, as did her architect father who she worked for as a draughtsperson after leaving school.
"I enjoyed working for him and using the old method of architectural drawing with pen and ink."
Fate intervened when, at 18, she met Wanaka farming apprentice Mick Burdon, who was after a wife, at Queenstown’s then Arthurs Point pub after a day’s skiing at Coronet Peak.
While Jane then had a short stint as a draughtsperson at a Sydney hospital, Mick travelled to Christchurch most weekends to curry favour with her parents — and for "the most delicious meals".
Mick subsequently proposed and they married in Christchurch, 60 years ago last month.
They’d booked a ship to honeymoon in England, but on a Queenstown ski holiday Mick spied an ad for Royalburn Station, "so we went up that afternoon with a stock agent and then next morning we bought it".
They didn’t have any money, Jane says, but the Wrightson NMA Alexandra manager lent them the lot — £45,000.
Royalburn was famous for growing barley for Speight’s Brewery and swede seeds.
"I don’t think I started out very well but I got better and quite enjoyed being in charge of the tractors and being part of it. The only thing I hated was chasing sheep."
Jane pays kudos to Mick, who’d won a farming award at Canterbury’s Lincoln College — "he was a very clever farmer and very active on the farm".
"I think he straightened me out. I mean he’s black and white and that’s what I like about him."
She also raised three boys, Mark, Andrew and George, and later she and Mick took turns driving the school bus to Arrowtown School and sometimes Wakatipu High.
In the early days of Arrowtown’s Millbrook Resort, about 1992, they bought one of its first homes — "they actually weren’t selling, people were saying, ‘it sounds like America"’.
"I thought it was great, living on a golf course."
Jane had got back into the swing of golf in the 1980s, lowering her handicap to two and playing on and off for Otago for about eight years.
She featured on Mountain Scene’s cover in ’88 for a hole-in-one at Kelvin Heights during the Skyline Classic.
She’d been a keen skier, "but when snowboarders came I tossed up whether I wanted to end up with an injured shoulder and not be able to play golf again, so I decided I’d hang my skis up".
While farming, Jane bought Arrowtown’s historic Stone Cottage — now The Fork & Tap — and with partner Cynthia Balfour ran the cafe for two years, producing popular treats like cheese scones and soups.
"It was the first real fresh food in Arrowtown [hospitality]."
With proceeds from the sale, she and Mick bought a holiday home in Australia’s Noosa where they winter.
After selling Royalburn in 2008 the couple initially settled in Ohoka, North Canterbury, developing a block there.
They then moved to a new home in Arrowtown then into their current one, next door, which Team Green Architects designed with input from Jane.
Between times they also owned for eight years a 12-hectare peony farm at Tarras where they’d stay for six weeks a year during picking time.
Jane also reinvented herself as an artist after taking courses around the world, including at London’s Slade School of Fine Art.
She regularly exhibits and won the premier painting prize at the recent Bayleys Arrowtown Autumn Festival art exhibition.
Her passion is landscapes and still life.
"I like the abstract form in art; I mix the two together in my landscapes and it’s very satisfying."
Meanwhile, ask her about Queenstown and she says development should stop till our infrastructure catches up, as happened in Noosa — "now it’s a very pleasant place to go to".
