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Published: January 11th 2009
Hey All,
Sean and I are staying on a farm just south of Ahaura now. If you're looking at a map it is about an hours drive east of Gremouth along the West Coast on the South Island. We're loving our time here so far. We've had today off where we follow Erin & Pav and family to the Safety Creek swimming hole just off of their property. It was pretty refreshing jumping into fairly cold water 😊 Gorgeous as well!
We tried to hitch off of the Heaphy track and ended up spending an evening in Westport. We tried to get out of Westport but realized there was no hope when we were passed by two hippie vans. Haha. It worked out well anyway, because the followig day we got a ride with a guy from the UK, Neal, who was driving Orien's car (a guy from Portland that picked up on our way to Westport) to Nelson - exactly where we were going! Once back in Nelson we hung out with Neal, spent a night at another hostel, got up bright early to get the brakes fixed on the Saturn (only $100!) and then headed south to
the farm. We picked up our first hitcher on the way, an 18 yr old German student who will be in NZ for 8 months. Lucky.
Here on the farm Sean and I have spent the last handful of days processing the rams here on the farm. By this I mean we heard them into the yards, drench, tag, dag and shear them. Drenching is giving them a liquid to fight off parasites. Tagging them is putting ear tags on last year's lambs that don't have them. Dagging them involves me holding them down while Sean and Pav cut poop off of their wool. Ha. We've managed to get through unscathed. Sean got kicked in the groin and butted in the shin, and I survived a strong kick to the face.
Sean and I are enjoying the farm here. It is Pav and Erin with two young sons, Miro (20 months) and an unnamed 2 week old. They live in a small 20 square meter one room hut that used to be a bumper boat house! The land is gorgeous, about 100 acres between a mountain range and a river valley. There is a trail that Sean and
I will attempt sometime in the next week that goes up to the ridge lines and follows them through to a lake where we can camp for an evening! For the meantime we are in a huge tent with a comfortable mattress 😊 We'll have to wait and see what other jobs we end up tackling as Sean and I seem much more eager to work than Pav seem to give us work - he keeps trying to gives us a day off! We're planning on hanging out here until the 17th.
OK, hope you're all doing well. We'll be in touch again soon!
S&E
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Mom
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Shearing with scissors?
Are you using scissors to shear sheep? If so you could have used Edward Scissorhands! What beautiful country. PS check your email!