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!!

Ol' Farmer Andy!

Sunday morning, recovering from a night out in bed, John knocks on my door. "you're invited to tea at the Watt's farm in Gore, and you can stay there for a few days if you want. We leave in an hour."

View from the farmhouse

And so began my first farming experience, a random dash to have a shower and pack what I thought would be neccessary to work on a farm. Went there for tea, had a tour of the farm, got to know my host's James, Gill and Diana, was forced by Pat to provide entertainment when to her delight she discovered they had a Piano, I am now her dancing monkey... Good start. The following morning I had a nice lie in before wandering down to the yards to see if I could be of any help. My first job was to help with drafting, organising the lambs by weight to see which were ready for the works (slaughter) and which needed another few weeks fattening up (a smart sheep would have a hunger strike) I just drove them into a narrow passage and kept them moving. Over my two days on the farm we sorted around 2000 lambs. It's good fun and you have to stay on your toes, those lambs jump like nutters and get damn close to kicking you in the jaw.

The Yards

Bringing sheep in from the outer paddocks has to be my favourite part, at first I did it on foot with dogs and James in the jeep but on day two I was on a quad bike and James on a dirt bike... whizzing over hills mustering hundreds of sheep towards gates just doesn't seem to get boring! In the evenings I would head off on either the dirt bike or the quad to explore the farm.. of the two I preferred the quad... the bike had a tendency to batter my legs... Stupid kick start.. Getting used to changing gears with your foot and doing the clutch with your hand is a toughie... but I got the hang of it, after a few cuts and bruises (stalling at speed not reccommended!)

Wonderfully whenever we returned from working hard on the farm Jame's wife and/or daughter had always cooked up something unbelievably tasty, safe to say... I ate well, and slept better. Oh and I had my first bath in about 3 months, was a jacuzzi bath too! Tooooo nice! (Before anyone says "that's disgusting!"... I showered fools!) It was a great experience and I hope to try my hand at it again sometime, working outdoors really does have it's maaajor positives!

<3