Sheep, Shotguns, and Chainsaws: Dec. 12-23, 2011

I got off the train in Wellington, crossed the street to the ferry terminal, and booked my 13:30 crossing to Picton on the south island. I had a few hours to kill, so after checking my backpack had one last wander around Wellington and took in some much needed internet time. My kiwi friend Anna, who I had met sand boarding in Huacachina, Peru, had gotten back to me through e-mail about a south island wwoofing gig... my next destination... Geraldine. Once on the ferry I found a comfy seat and slept for most of the 3 or 4 hour journey across Cook Strait to Picton.

Once in Picton I made my way to the tourist office and picked up some free maps for the area as well as the south island in general. It was getting late in the day and I figured I wouldn't make it far hitch hiking, so I decided to hike out of Picton through the forest and find a nice tent site for the night. The Picton map I picked up showed a brief hike up the hills to a viewpoint with a nice stream-filled valley on the other side. So... I hiked.

A couple hours later I made my way up Esson's Valley to a spot not easily sighted or frequently traveled. I managed to get my tent up and a small fire started by the time dusk turned to dark. After a quick dip in the nearby stream, I stared at the flames of my fire till sleep overtook me.

After a nice sleep in I broke camp and made my way back down Esson's Valley and to the edge of Picton on the highway. With my thumb out for 10 minutes a couple of teachers picked me up and drove me as far as Blenheim. They dropped me off at the south end of town where there were 4 other hitch hikers working the highway. The crowded pickup spot was giving me a bad hitch hiking vibe, so I walked into town for a coffee and to soak in some of the sweltering December heat.

By the time I returned to the pickup spot, only one hitch hiker remained. In my way of thinking it's just inappropriate to try and get a ride while someone who has been there longer remains... so I sat on my pack and read my book while the unlucky fellow worked his poor hitch hiking magic for almost an hour before getting picked up. Once he was gone and the road was mine, I began my longest hitch hike wait in New Zealand thus far... over 2 hours.

It's funny the things one does while waiting for a ride and trying to keep one's positive vibe up. I hummed and whistled until old summer camp songs started coming out of my mouth. I struck different dynamic hitch hiking poses and returned smiles and waves to many passing carloads of people. Finally, I got picked up by a nice Kiwi-British couple... my luck had returned, they were going all the way to Christchurch.

The couple were eager to share their knowledge of the countryside and its history as we sped south. We stopped at a lovely stretch of beach around Kekerengu for coffee at an isolated highway-side restaurant and then for a picnic at Seal Point in Kaikoura. Once we reached Christchurch they decided to drive me to the south end of the city so I could get an easier pickup for my next ride. We used the city by-pass to avoid the traffic caused by the damaged infrastructure from the devastating earthquakes that had rocked the region earlier this year.

Three rides later my last ride of the day, a Maori fellow, drove out of his way to drop me off in downtown Geraldine. I called my friend Anna from a gas station and her and her boyfriend came to pick me up and drive me out to the farm... Kakahu, 3,000 acres of working farm. After 11 hours on the road, I was relieved to have made my destination in one day.

The farm I had landed on was named Kakahu after the river that runs through it. The farm belongs to Sue and Gerald Hargreaves and has been passed through the family for generations. It is a multipurpose farm: an Angus beef stud with around 700 bulls and a couple thousand cows, a sheep farm with 3,000-4,000 sheep mostly used for meat and wool, and a lime works, recently sold off. At 3,000 acres, from any high point all you could see belonged to the farm... In addition to their three on-going industries, the land was dotted with stands of trees periodically sold off as lumber.

My first two days on the farm were spent working in Sue's 16 acre garden... but it was definitely not an organic garden. Most of my work involved a bladed weed whacker, clippers, poison, and a chainsaw. Snip, snip, cut, cut, poison, poison, was the rhythm of my work. At the end of my second day of work, Sue and Gerald were throwing a dinner party, so Anna, her boyfriend Jonathan, (another Canadian), and myself went into Gerladine to mix it up with some of the other farm workers from the area.

My third day of work at Kakahu involved mending the workshop doors and unloading a few loads of drywall up the road at Sue and Gerald's new house under construction. Thank goodness for the indoor work as it was raining something fierce on this Friday. That evening Sue and Gerald went out of town for the night and left Anna, Jonathan, and myself in their son Tom's capable hands. After a hardy dinner and some guitar songs, Tom suggested we go out and do some spot lighting.

Spot lighting is when you drive around the bush with a spotlight and some guns. When the light catches your prey's eyes, they usually freeze making easy targets. Rabbits and ducks are considered pests on the farm, and plentiful pests at that. So Tom armed us with a semi-automatic 12 gauge shotgun, a .22 caliber rifle, spotlight, the farm Gator (essentially a two-seater quad with a roof and a box on the back), and Ellie the house dog/retriever. Anna took the wheel and the dog while Jonathan and I stood in the box, firearms on the roof and spotlight at the ready.

We headed off up the hills behind the homestead, Jonathan on the spotlight and me on the 12 gauge. We decided that first shots went to the shotgun as it had better spread, while the .22 would be used to finish off winged critters. Whenever we would spot some prey we would pound on the roof so Anna would stop, then, after the all clear, blast away. We tooled around for awhile spotting a few rabbits, but they scampered into tall grass before we could stop and safely line up shots. Then... after a turn around I spotted a rabbit that made a dash and froze in the middle of the track. I pounded the roof of the Gator which came to a stop, got the all clear, and... BANG! Got the sucker on the first shot. Ellie, our retriever, was used to this game, so with little more than a, "Go git 'er!", she was off and had the rabbit in her maw in seconds.

Next was Jonathan's turn so I swapped the shotgun for the .22 and the spotlight and off we went. A little ways up the road we spotted another rabbit. Jonathan winged it with the shotgun, so grabbed the .22 to finish it off. We each had our rabbit and Anna was content to refrain from using the firearms so we started our way back to the homestead. We approached Kakahu River and spotted half a dozen ducks just floating on by. I quickly called a stop and lined up my sights. First shot got me one... and Ellie was eager to retrieve, only she seemed to like the moving ducks better than the dead one floating on down the river. I made a dash for the river's edge and waded in to get my kill. Back at the homestead we cleaned and skinned the rabbits and duck and then chucked them into a marinade in preparation for our camping trip the next day. Tired and bloody we all turned in for the night. Tom had some cattle work for us to attend to in the morning.

It you're not a farmer there are just some things you don't automatically associate with livestock farming. One such thing, which I was about to help out with this morning, was the artificial insemination of cows. In retrospect it makes perfect sense, part of the farm was an Angus beef stud after all. Prize bull stock doesn't come cheap, at $60 per semen specimen farmers want the highest possibility of successful fertilization. Throughout the season they keep an eye on their herds and when cows come into heat gelding male cows start "riding" the females. Farmers mark these cows with paint and then collect them to the artificial insemination paddocks.

Lucky for me I was simply in charge of moving the cattle along the race, painting them to identify that they had been AI'd, and recording their tag numbers to keep track of which bull stock was being used on them. The other Jonathan prepared the samples while Tom was up to his elbow in cow. In order to ensure the semen is delivered into the cow's cervix, Tom had to stick his arm up the cow's butt to feel around through the tissue for the cervix and the delivery syringe.

Fifty or so cows later we were done for the day and got to packing for our road trip to Mt. Cook. Along the way I had a nap only to awaken at one end of Lake Tekapo... quite a beautiful spot. Jonathan and Anna decided to go to an expensive hot spring while I explored some of the lake's shoreline. A couple hours later we continued towards our destination... Mt. Cook via picturesque Lake Pukaki. Mt. Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand at 3,754 metres located in the southern Alps on the south island. While the mountain was known to Māori centuries before, the first European known to see Aoraki / Mount Cook was Abel Tasman, on December 13, 1642 during his first Pacific voyage. The English name of Mount Cook was given to the mountain in 1851 by Captain John Lort Stokes to honour Captain James Cook who first surveyed and circumnavigated the islands of New Zealand in 1770. Captain Cook did not sight the mountain during his exploration. Famous New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Mt. Cook in January of 1948 before he was the first European to have summited Mt. Everest in 1953. In 1958 he made it to the South Pole over land; his fame is celebrated on the New Zealander $5 note.

As we rounded Lake Pukaki we caught our first glimpse of mighty Mt. Cook and the glacial waters which came off it, staining the lake with silt. The silt reflected the colour of the sky making for interesting patches of colour where direct sun and sky were obscured. The Hooker Valley runs from the end of the road towards Mt. Cook. We pulled into the government campsite around dusk and all the good tent spots were taken. So, we explored around the area and found a private strip of moss off the parking lot. We were the only campsite with a view of both Mt. Cook and Mt. Stefton looming above with crackling glaciers. With camp set up, we put our rabbit and duck stew on the fire and enjoyed sunset in the mountains with the sound of crumbling glacier falls echoing through the valley as we fell asleep.

We slept in the next morning awaiting the heat of the sun. After breaking camp, eating some breakfast, and packing a picnic lunch, we headed off up the Hooker Valley. This valley was the first route taken when Mt. Cook was first summited in 1894. It is a picturesque valley with some of Mt. Stefton's massive cracking glaciers above and a glacier fed lake nestled at the foot of Mt. Cook. After a few hours of wandering up and down the valley, we piled in to the car and headed back to the farm. Once there it was an early night after we cleaned up our camp gear. The next morning we had to be up at 5:30 am to begin our work with the sheep. I originally came to Kakahu as a wwoofer, but they were so short on farm workers that they offered to pay me cash for any time over the 4 wwoofer hours per day.

 Up at dawn we gathered near the vehicle sheds and sheep dog kennels. We packed all the gear we would need including portable fences and corrals as well as dogs onto a tractor, the gator, and a couple of quads. Once out in the correct paddock we began the process we would repeat a half dozen times over the next couple of days. While Chris went to round up a mob of sheep with the dogs, we set up the portable fences and corrals. After a lot of yelling and waving our arms around, we had a couple hundred sheep contained and ready for their dipping and drenching.

The first step was to get 20 or 30 ewes and lambs into the drenching race. With the animals packed in we systematically went through the mob and drenched all of the lambs. Drenching is the practice of administering anti-worm and parasite medication to lambs. The mixture was put into a backpack style container with a tube coming out ending in a gun-like syringe. We would grab a lamb by the head, force its mouth open, and squirt the liquid down their throat.

Once drenched, all the sheep were sent through the dipping machine. This machine allowed one animal through at a time and was activated by a motion sensor. As the sheep passed through, a jet of water/dip mixture would spray their butts... this was to prevent fly infestations occurring on all the poop stuck to the wool around the sheeps' bums.

 For those who have ever doubted the dumbness of sheep, I assure you they are feeble minded, instinct driven creatures. Throughout the dipping and drenching and corralling I witnessed many sheep failing to jump out of the pens and whacking their heads only to get up and do the exact same thing at the same part of fence... multiple times. Near the end of the second day I saw a lamb knock itself senseless doing such antics. The lamb in question later died from its self-inflicted injury. Near the end of the first day we were just about through the last mob when I witnessed a true farm hand at work. We kept the sheep packed tightly together so they couldn't squirm so much while we were administering the drench. As we got through this one bunch we noticed a pile up of sheep with one trapped on the bottom getting smothered. We literally threw the rest of the sheep out of the way, then Chris heaved the lifeless lamb body over the fence, laid it on the ground, and proceeded to administer lamb CPR. After a minute the lamb was coughing and staggering back to its feet... wow!!

After two long days of this kind of work (a total of 24 hours of working time) I was happy to go back into the garden for a day. Although weeds and bushes can be heavy and difficult to get around and maneuver, they were much easier than dealing with squirming sheep who often stomped on your toes. Anyhow, my break from sheep was soon over as we had to move on to the next stage. Many of the ewes had their lambs loaded up onto a truck and taken away for slaughter. Those ewes were now in need of crutching. Crutching is when you gather the sheep up, send them single-file through a race into a machine which uses hydraulics to power a sheep holder. While the sheep are thus held, someone sheers all the poop encrusted wool from around their back sides. This, I was told, helps keep bugs down and provides a more likely successful match with a ram.

Once again I lucked out, not having to shear sheep bums. My job involved getting the sheep to proceed up the race and get them into the machine. Sounds easy... but 100 or so pounds of reluctant sheep can be quite a challenge to move 3 metres... especially when you have to repeat the process a few hundred times. Needless to say, I was exhausted after a couple days of crutching and very happy that Anna, Jonathan, and I were leaving the farm to celebrate the holidays with Anna'a family in nearby Ashburton. During the afternoon of the 23rd, we packed all our stuff into Anna'a car, said our farewells to all the people at the farm, and headed out of the country and back into civilization.