I got my daughters out of bed, a 4, a 6, and an 8-year-old, I took them down to the observatory.
I started taking them more often, and eventually joined the committee. In 1998, I was elected as president.
What do you do for a day job?
I'm a pig farmer. Pig and beef. We have two farms. We have a big interest in conservation.
We have 125 hectares of reserve as well as 180ha of grass and 200 odd ha of grass here in Tayforth where we graze beef heifers and 5000 pigs.
I've been married for 38 years, we've been here for 34 years or so. I have one brother, Grant, who works on the Whanganui Rural Community Board. He is sort of the business brains of the partnership.
We have been in partnership since 1988.
How do you see the future of New Zealand farming?
We've got to strive to farm in harmony with the environment, but it also has to be sustainable and profitable.
We have a problem in New Zealand, particularly pig farming, we are expected to keep welfare and environmental standards which are not demanded of the farmers internationally that we are competing with.
What is Whanganui's best kept secret?
I would almost say the observatory. It's amazing how many 70-year-olds say they've lived in Whanganui all their life and they've never been up there.
It's amazing how many Whanganui people have never been there. It's just one of those things that they say we will get around it.
What event in history would you have most liked to attend?
I would like to attend a large rocket launch. Apollo 11 would have been fantastic. It was in 1969, so I was 9, and I remember biking home and seeing them land. Saturn V was unbelievable, like all things American, it was very big.
How has Whanganui changed over the years?
I was going to say it hasn't changed much. I love cycling around here. The cleaning up of the river and the overall respect for the environment has changed a bit. The increasing awareness of the environment would be up there.
Before my time, Whanganui was a major part of New Zealand. We sort of lost our way but we have turned a bit of a corner.
What is your favourite Whanganui activity?
Walking on the beach I think. I take the dog for a walk along Ototoka Beach.
It's just such a neat part of Whanganui. I love going down there and taking photos. I went down there with Babak Tafreshi, the Iranian astrophotographer, and we went out to the speedway and watched one of the planets setting with the moon and we went to Westmere Lake and Ototoka Beach and stayed out there until 2.30 in the morning taking photos of the Milky Way.
As an avid cyclist, what country would you like to travel through that you haven't been to already?
Chile. We were suppose to be going there for a total solar eclipse in December.
In many ways, it is similar to New Zealand. Quite similar environment, but even more dramatic.
It goes from desert, which is where the big telescopes are in the Andes, right through to Patagonia which is almost Antarctic.
So I would quite like to cycle and sea kayak through there. If things settle down, we will look to go there.
The only problem is I don't speak Spanish.
What advice would you give your 15-year-old self?
Get out and try more things, be a bit more adventurous. My wife has been pushing that since our 20s. I was always very conservative, so I would try take more calculated risks.
You are hosting a dinner party and you can invite any three people from history, who are you inviting and why?
One would be Aristarchus, he was the Greek philosopher and astronomer who in 230BC worked out the Earth and the planets go around the sun.
Bertrand Russell, another philosopher. He was one of the first guys that I read and thought there was another way of thinking about this.
Christopher Hitchens would be the last. He was one of those guys who was quite cutting. The food would be secondary with that mix of people.
Do you think intelligent life exists on other planets?
It's more than likely there is life out there, but it is likely to be carbon-based life.
Intelligent life on Earth has only been around for say five million years out of four and a half billion. We certainly haven't picked up evidence of intelligent life on other planets.
