Local comediean and documentary maker Te Radar gives the world his hilarious behind the scenes expose of his top-rating TV One series, Off the Radar, in his new book of the same name. Rural Living caught up with Te Radar and asked a few questions about what it was like to give it all up and go back to the land.

TE RADAR: The fact that someone was prepared to pay me to do that – that’s always a good reason and I thought it would be an interesting challenge. I’ve always liked the country and the thought of going back to the land. I’ve always dreamed of having a lifestyle block of my own and I suppose I thought this was a good way to go and give it a trial run really. And I wasn’t really doing a lot else at the time. Well, actually I was, I was quite busy but they did quite a good sales pitch on it.

RL: So did they pitch it before or after the wine?

TR (laughing): After!

RL: What was the most difficult  time?

TR: The lowest time was probably, oddly enough at the end, around May when it started to get a bit cold in the caravan and there was that end of term feeling – you know when there is no point starting any big projects and you sort of look back and think ‘oh I wish I’d done this and I wish I’d done that’. There were kind of cold nights in the caravan and the mice had come in out of the field and infested the caravan. It was a bit of a  weird thing in a way – I was only forty minutes away from where my house was and the television and my bed. And the worst thing is that if I had snuck home nobody would really have known. Well, I would have and if I had done it I would have thought it was just another TV thing. Anyway, it was a bit like being at the end of a holiday where you say ‘oh I wish had gone to that thing or done that’ and you forget all the really cool things you did were good anyway.

RL: Did you ever ask yourself why you had said yes?

TR: No.

RL: What was the hardest thing?

TR: Probably the gardening. I just thought you put stuff in the ground and it grew. I didn’t think it was that difficult. I mean, people have survived for thousands of years just putting things in the ground. (He laughs) Clearly they had more knowledge than I did. That was probably the hardest thing and the biggest revelation really.  

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RL: Do you think that is typical of most people now that we are not using the land the way we used to?

TR: I think it could be. I think they probably have a bit of a go and then something goes wrong. And then it’s all too hard.  I say to people, if you’re gonna do it, don’t bite off more than you can chew. Do what’s manageable and do that well and enjoy it. You can watch any number of gardening shows but until you start doing it and making the mistakes you won’t know what it’s like. Some plants take four months to grow – I don’t plan my life four months in advance. Or you can get it to three months then the pigs get out and eat it. There’s lots of infuriating things like that.

RL: What do you miss?

TR: Hot summer mornings. You’d open the door and the chicken would be coming across the lawn in a big line, keeping the insects out of my garden. I like that country smell. The people and the communities around the place – and seeing how it is they live their lives. You’re kind of privileged when you’re in television, you can interrupt people and ask them how they live their lives and get this wonderful insight which you can’t do if you simply move into the district. Seeing what is possible and seeing what other people are doing.

RL: You talk a bit about the impact doing the show had on how you looked at the way we buy and eat food.  How did that come about?

TR: I grew up on a farm and I was always aware of where food came from. I knew that the animal we were bringing into the yard, in a week the butcher was going to be bringing back in boxes – so I knew that side of things. We live in a world where there is such a huge demand on producers of food to produce food as cheaply as they possibly can. There’s kind of a weird balance to attain because food has to be cheap enough for people to afford but it has to give enough of a return. If we are saying we have to lift our standards, then  that has to be paid for somewhere. I was in the States and I had a piece of corn and there was no flavour to it. Are we stripping so much out of the soil and the plant to grow it as fast as we can?  But I think we’re going through a food revolution – where food is really hip and cool. Look at the amount of men cooking now compared to 20 years ago. Go to any small town now and you’ll find a nice café with good food and these nice local wines. I think all of that is contributing to this discussion we’re having on how we grow food and how we buy food and how we cook food.

RL:  How easy was the hunting?

TR: Well I did some hunting as a kid. I had hunted goats but never shot one.  They always ran away. I had shot rabbits and cattle if they were sick. The hard part was when there was a flock of goats – how do you choose which one?  If there’s twenty of them and all running around – that’s the difficult one, deciding which one is going to be the tastiest. You have to make this kind of god like decision. The chickens were easier. There was a rooster I didn’t find that interesting, so the question did kind of answer itself.

RL: Would you do it again?