Andrew's Farming Again!

Shawn Sheep!

Hitch-hiking to Gore was one of the more stressful experiences of my life. I was waiting for a lift from Te Anau for literally 5 and a half hours before some farmers eventually took pity on me, apparently I looked desperate. I was. If I'm honest I was begging every passing car, I know it's low, but I was cold and I didn't really care. Fortunately I did make it to Gore by about 5:30pm in the end, staring at 10am thats a long time for a 2 hour journey!! Anyway, enough of my whining. I spent the next few days living on James and Gill Watt's farm again, helping out with moving flocks of sheep and moving the electric fences to allow the cows at their next row of feed. I also was lucky enough to see the shearing contractors in action, each one of them could shear 300 sheep in an 8 hour day (That is insanely good, seriously). They make a LOT of money doing that.

Sheep Shearing

In the afternoon on one day I went into Gore to Resthaven old peoples home to go and visit Ina Clark, the lady my dad stayed with when he came out here and worked on a farm for a year. (Yep a whole year, at least I'm only stay 8 months guys!!) That was lovely as I got to see all the photos, it was a good day for her so she could remember who I was etc. And eventually on asking me whether I was musical like my father got pressganged by old people into playing piano. Every time I stopped I was met with "Is that it!?"... I ended up staying a lot longer than I intended! I then met up with Ellyas who I met in Roxburgh and got my arse kicked at some pool (he just a week before won two B Grade tournaments in snooker... he's pretty damn good!). Overall, a very good few days!!