Hi ABZ - welcome from another Wellingtonian - over the hills towards the South coast . Pauatahanui is a lovely area and I'm sure you'll have a great time putting your stamp on your own piece of land.
Cheers, Mich.
Good exercise for the heart is to bend down and help someone up. Anon.
Hi abz, welcome. Im just around the corner. This is a great site, plenty of knowledgeable and helpful people around here. How bis is your block and what are you planning on having on your land? I am always getting used iron to sell so when the time comes give me a yell.
Glenn
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23 acres, a cat(olive), Maddison the chocolate lab, 2 ewes, Mumma the cow, 4 steers, 10 chooks and lots of hares.
Hi Newbie in Pauatahanui - you must be almost a neighbour of mine. I just joined LSB after having my own lsb for about 15 years and started out with a bare block myself. The gorse is a hassle from the start and I have cleared acres of it using every means possible other than eating it. Having been down that path I would suggest that if you have a lot of it then you immediately invest in a quad towable motorised sprayer (not electric) that takes up to 220 litres and with that you get the high pressure spray gun. That has been the most effective way of spraying it quickly I have found and the price was in the $5k bracket then. I had old man gorse and not the sprayer back then and spent a lot of time fighting with it, Once the sprayer came on the scene I had time to do more interesting things.
Since then we built the house and added all the other bits like a barn and stables so I have a few scars and stories from that.
Glad to offer advice if you want it.
Best wishes on your new venture.
Goats are quite good at reducing gorse, but the fencing needs to be very good. Donkeys are also very good.
I have found that gorse grows well where the soil conditions are ok for gorse, but not right for pasture. So as well as spraying the Gorse (I use Grazon because it doesn't cause me as much allergic problems as Tordon does), it is also very important to change the fertility to be more correct for pasture. That way, the grazing animals tend to eat the gorse seedlings while they are eating the grass.
Gorse-a permanent mortgage. They say "one years seeding=40 years weeding". Just remember to follow-up spray each year and that any track or slip causing soil disturbance creates a germination burst from residual seeds. Very satisfying to get it under control-best of luck.
My girlfriend and i have just brought 20acres in pauatahanui, lots of gorse, no fences (except few boundary) no house, no water and not much else
looking forward to making it our own
lucky we are still in our twenties, should be finished by the time we retire
Great forum
I'm just over the hill, also 20 something... If you need goats to clear the land I've got a couple you could borrow; the damm things are too smart for their own good & they're getting close to going in the freezer if they keep it up! So a holiday would do them good
Good luck and welcome!! 
. Pauatahanui is a lovely area and I'm sure you'll have a great time putting your stamp on your own piece of land.