Complex sentence: The rural population, especially on the Pacific coast, dwindled, leaving abandoned steadings and roads decaying slowly behind macrocarpa and hawthorn plantings, the landscape taking on an air of mellow decay, unusual in a recently colonised territory like New Zealand.
Split into simpler sentences: The rural population, especially on the Pacific coast, dwindled, leaving abandoned steadings and roads decaying slowly behind macrocarpa and hawthorn plantings. The landscape took on an air of mellow decay, unusual in a recently colonised territory like New Zealand.