Gibbs Farm north of Kaukapakapa is strictly off-limits to the public, but groups can visit the farm by booking ahead and only on one Thursday each month from spring to autumn. The ABTC was lucky to get 12 places for this day, and they all got snapped up by the end of the Christmas holidays. We arrived in time for the farm’s gates to open 10am, and we drove in to the large carpark. There was a large crowd of people there, including a school group and other groups arriving in buses. Gibbs Farm is an unusual setting for a sculpture collection. Owner Alan Gibbs acknowledges that "the challenge for the artists is the scale of the landscape; it scares them initially" and demands something more from them. Walking the land visitors can appreciate how each artist has come to terms in their own way with the gravitational pull that is exerted on everything as the mountains roll into hills and slide into gullies and slope down towards the wide flat expanse of the Kaipara harbour. After nearly twenty years Gibbs Farm includes major works by Graham Bennett, Chris Booth, Daniel Buren, Bill Culbert, Neil Dawson, Marijke de Goey, Andy Goldsworthy, Ralph Hotere, Anish Kapoor, Sol LeWitt, Len Lye, Russell Moses, Peter Nicholls, Eric Orr, Tony Oursler, George Rickey, Peter Roche, Richard Serra, Kenneth Snelson, Richard Thompson, Leon van den Eijkel and Zhan Wang. Most works in the collection are commissioned; and commissioning new works rather than buying from an exhibition involves the satisfaction of dealing with the artists, as Alan Gibbs comments "they’re interesting because they’re winners, tough, ambitious". The farm does not run guided tours; visitors can walk the farm at their leisure looking at whatever sculptures they wish to see. Our group chose to take a clockwise loop around the farm. There was plenty to see  - a large curving wall, a "drawing in the sky" of a piece of curved roofing iron, a group of 25 coloured blocks, a giant red horn,  gigantic straight and curved sticks, a row of five green ruinces, and much more - all set in lush green mown pasture, a great backdrop for St Patrick’s Day.

Further on we passed  paddocks with zebras and alpacas, and saw in the distance some live giraffes alongside a couple of giraffe statues. We had our lunch break at 12:15pm before having a walk around the pond near the lower carpark. In the pond a row of fountains were playing, and there were more sculptures to see including a wind vane, a set of large red squares, and a pyramid.

We finished at 1:30pm and were home before 3pm, grateful that the showers that had been forecast held off until we were on our way home.