Pretending to be a Farmer

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Today I drove up through the wooded valleys of the North Island, past Lake Taupo, up to Whakatane in the Bay of Islands. Wood is a massive export of New Zealand so as I was driving up through the forests I noticed how there were large swathes of area with trees at different stages of growth. Some area was totally barren, having recently been harvested, but the rest ranged from a sampling up to fully grown pine trees.

I arrived at Kathy, my grandad's 3rd cousin, and Terry Jones' house in the early afternoon and met Kathy's grandchildren; Lucy, who is 3, and Madie, who is 2. At first they didnt really wanna talk with me as they were shy but after we took them to the park and gave them a push on the swings we were best of friends! They are my 5th cousins with their father Mark being Dad's 4th cousin.

We then went out and met with Kathy's parents at their kiwi farm. Kathy's mum is the grandaughter of the John Heayns who emigrated in 1860s but as she had 13 brothers and sisters is very young for her generation, which is why this line of the family is around 15 years younger than mine. Kathy and Craig Hartwig's mother are 1st cousins making them the closest two lines we have met in NZ. After having a lovely chat with Kathy's parents we headed to Mark's farm. Mark is one of Kathy's children from her first marriage and runs a dairy farm which his father owns. Here I met Kate, Marks wife, and their other child Wilson, who is 1.

They showed me around the very rustic cow milking shed, a world away from the modern ones I have seen in the UK, and then Terry arrived up from the fields and took me out on the quad bike to round up the cattle and pretend to be a farmer! It was my first time on a quad bike, and quite scary at first, but it was great fun!

Kate and Mark then had us around for dinner. The two girls were playing up the whole time, apparently trying to impress me! They kept wanting me to take photos of them on my phone and, as all kids now do, were immediately asking to see the resulting picture. Lucy then had me help her with spelling words. She can write all the letters but doesnt know how they go together yet so I had to give her each letter for a word.

After a while the kids got tired so we headed home. When we got back to the house the stars were amazing to match the awesome views I had seen earlier that afternoon. We watched some TV on Terry's big screen projector before going to sleep.

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