40 Million Sheep

Southland Translations

gillthompson — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 09:15:00 GMT

The Southland accent can be hard to understand. Every word that contains an R sounds Scottish, while every other word sounds like the normal Kiwi accent. My level of comprehension varied from person to person. The real trick with Southlanders is to decipher the meaning behind the words. Darrin and Jo are not effusive with praise, but with the benefit of hindsight I’ve come to realize that they actually complimented me quite a lot. Here are some actual things they said to me, and my subsequent translation:

“You have a better attitude than this cow named Gilly”

Translation: “Wow Gill! You have such an amazing work ethic! Thanks for being up at 5:30 to milk these cows without complaint”

“Most city people are a lot less fit than you”

Translation: “You’re the strongest person we’ve ever met! Are you secretly a less angry version of the Hulk?”

“It sure takes you a long time to wash those milking cups”

Translation: “Thanks for being so thorough and hygienic!”

“You’re just starting to get useful, and now you’re buggering off”

Translation: “We’re sorry to see you go. It will probably be impossible to find another worker as good as you.”

“Driving a motorbike isn’t that hard - you can do it”

Translation: “You pick up new skills quickly”

Sheep Wrestling and Cattle Wrangling

gillthompson — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 09:04:00 GMT

My HelpX experiences did not end in Wanaka. After leaving the kennels, I hitched a ride down to Invercargill - a booming metropolis in the deep south of New Zealand. The Southland region is home to two types of people - sheep farmers and dairy farmers. I wouldn’t classify it as a cultural melting pot.

I was picked up from our designated meeting place by Keith; an older man who works for Darrin and Jo (my new hosts).

“You’ll be Gill then” he says, more as a statement than a question. “I don’t know where you’re going to put all that rubbish (referring to my pack)”

I didn’t quite know how to respond to this comment. Did he not expect me to show up with any belongings? I’m not a hobo. Yet.

The obvious place for luggage storage would have been the trunk, but Keith had showed up in a tiny Hot Wheels sized truck, with a flatbed back. Feeling that this choice of vehicle showed some lack of common sense on his part, I crammed myself into the tiny cab, rubbish and all.

“So you’re the new help then” said Keith, eyeing me appraisingly. “Hopefully you’ll turn out better than the last one. Bloody useless she was. You’re not a vegetarian are you?”

“Oh…um, nope.” I said. “No, I eat meat.”

“Good” said Keith. “Vegetarians never seem to be able to do much.”

Once again I was left unsure how to respond.

The rest of the car ride passed without incident, and we soon arrived at the house. Mark and Mary, my hosts from Wanaka, have the ability to make you feel at home and welcomed as soon as you arrive. Darrin and Jo do not have this ability. My first night there, they alternated between ignoring me completely, and throwing out random questions about my life and travels.

“Have you worked on a farm before?” asked Jo.

“No, I haven’t” I admitted. I started to launch into an amusing anecdote about family reunions at my grandparents farm, but Jo had already lost interest, and had moved on to a new topic involving cows and penicillin.

I got the impression that Darrin and Jo were waiting to see if I was useful before making an effort to talk to me. Although it seemed like a pretty low standard, I quickly resolved to be more helpful than their last worker - the “anorexic vegetarian.”

Ten minutes later, Jo turned to me again. “What’s your opinion of sheep?” she asked.

Opinion? Sheep…are sheep. My opinion is that they are sheep.

Worried that this might be some sort of test, I offered a diplomatic response about my neutrality on the sheep issue.

“Well, I bet you’ll have an opinion after tomorrow!” said Jo, somewhat ominously.

How right she was. My impression of sheep as the animal equivalent of a fluffy cloud was smashed after I spent the next two days wrestling them into submission. This adventure began early the next morning, as we started the crutching process. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, crutching is a pre-shearing process that involves scraping off the poop-incrusted wool near the butt area. Lovely.

My role in this operation was to manage the gate leading to the sheep holding device. In theory, the sheep pass through this gate one at a time, where they are then held in place by the device as the shearer shaves their butts. At first, I thought that I was being shafted with this assignment. Really? Door holder? A child could do that. As it turns out, the job of gate operator was one of endless excitement and occasional danger.

The sheep were not happy. They did not appreciate being herded into the holding pens, and they certainly did not want to be forced up the line towards the shearers. Consequently, each sheep had to be dragged up to the gate, where it would then charge ahead, trying to leap over the restraining device. The other sheep would attempt escape through the unguarded gate, or over the sides, or back down the ramp. Thankful for my background in martial arts, I managed to restrain the surprisingly heavy animals with a combination of threats and headlocks. Two thousand sheep later, we were done for the day.

The crutching process lasted for the next several days, and then we went back to normal farm operations. My jobs included:

-Driving around on an ATV, looking for dead sheep

-Picking up dead sheep and putting them in a pit

-Looking for cast sheep. This is the sheep equivalent of “Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”

-Drenching lambs. This does not translate to hosing down lambs or giving them a bath, as I initially thought, but instead refers to squirting a de-worming liquid down their throats.

-Tackling sheep. Darrin identified some sheep that were infected with something and it was my job to corner and catch them, and then drag them into the trailer.

Welcome to the farm.

While most of my time in Southland was spent doing sheep related things, I also helped out on the small dairy farm managed by Jo. For about five days around the New Year, the two regular milking staff were on holiday, so Jo and I took over. I will never be a dairy farmer. I’m even a little surprised that I still drink milk.

The farm had about 350 cows that needed to be milked twice a day. The first milking started at 5:30 am. I’m not exactly my best self in the mornings, and the prospect of spending the next four hours avoiding, stepping in, and sometimes touching cow poop did nothing to improve my mood.

Let me describe the milking process to you. About twenty cows are herded into and lined up on either side of a pit containing the equipment. Jo called this area the milking pit. I called it the pit of despair. Hanging from the ceiling and connected to pipes were the suction cups. We would attach these cups to all of the cows on one side of the pit, wait for them to finish, and then transfer the cups to the other side. It is not a hard job. It might actually be an enjoyable job, if you weren’t in constant danger of being pooped on. Cows poop a lot. I cannot emphasize this enough. So. Much. Poop. The poop gets everywhere. Splattered on your clothing, on your gloved hands, on the milking cups, on the railings, and on the floor. It is impossible to avoid. Jo’s advice to me was “Keep your mouth closed.” I followed this advice so completely, it probably looked like I had lockjaw.

We continued like this for the next five days. While not exactly an enjoyable experience, it was certainly a memorable one.

Will Work For Food

gillthompson — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 16:18:00 GMT

There is nothing that backpackers love more than an “authentic” experience. If you can say that you “immersed yourself in traditional culture”, or that you “made great friends with the locals’ you will be the envy of all other hostel dwellers. This is why the HelpX website, and other work exchange companies are such brilliant ideas. Masses of backpackers from around the world will be overjoyed to live with and help out a real Kiwi family, and farm owners across the country will finally have someone to paint their garage. It’s a win-win!

My first HelpX hosts owned a boarding kennel and cattery near Wanaka. They are great people, and I spent my days playing with exercising the dogs, weeding the greenhouse, building a shed, and of course re-painting the office. I slept in a little camper van by the chickens, so one of my jobs was to catch the rooster before going to bed and put it in a cage. This cage would theoretically prevent the rooster from crowing at 4am. The first night, this task was demonstrated by Mary, a vet nurse and confident handler of animals. “Easy peasy!” I thought. The rooster was just sitting on the perch, and all you have to do is reach in and grab him! What could be simpler? The next night, brimming with confidence, I made my way to the chicken coop and encountered my first problem. The rooster was facing the other way! This changed everything! Should I still use the same reach-and-grab technique? Will the rooster peck me in the face? Should I wait outside the coop until he turns around? I stood there thinking about my plan for a while, with my headlamp illuminating all the sleepy chickens. They became aware of my presence, and all started to cluck in what I interpreted as an aggressive manner. This prompted a whole new set of considerations. Would the chickens attack me if I grabbed the rooster? Should I go and get some protective goggles? Clearly, the chickens were planning something, because by this point they had formed a protective barrier around the rooster. Gathering my courage, I took the only action I could think of; grabbing a long stick and poking the angry chickens until they moved out of the way. My path to the rooster was now clear, so I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and made a grab for it. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best idea to close my eyes. I managed to snag the rooster off of its perch, but I didn’t have the best grip on its wings so it started flapping wildly, calling the other chickens into action. Thinking that I would need my hands to defend myself from the impending hen attack, I dropped the rooster and got into a defensive position. At this point, the rooster was making a weird gasping sound, so I took the opportunity to shove it into the cave, reflecting that I may have squeezed it too hard. Mission accomplished, I scrambled out of the coop and spent the next ten minutes washing my hands of imaginary chicken poop. Of course, even after all that effort, the rooster still crowed at 4am.

HelpX adventures on the sheep farm coming soon

Aussie annoyances

gillthompson — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 07:53:00 GMT

Steve, the middle-aged Australian backpacker is the most irritating person I have encountered on my travels so far. We happened to meet at the bus stop in Auckland, both on the way to Whangarei - a small town in the north. After exchanging the usual backpacker pleasantries, Steve inexplicably launched into an endless stream of boring stories about his previous travels. I nodded politely, and pretended to be listening, while I was actually trying to calculate how many meals I would have to forgo in order to afford an Icebreaker shirt. As the bus pulled up, I quickly hopped on board, happy to end our association, and begin two hours of uninterrupted reading. How wrong I was. Though Steve had to walk past plenty of other empty seats, he decided to park himself next to me so “We can have a bit of a chat, roight?” Great. More Steve stories followed, all liberally sprinkled with his catchphrase “if you know what I mean.”

So, we were there in Yosemite, if you know what I mean, talking to a ranger about a trail, if you know what I mean…”

No Steve, I’m having trouble following your subtly nuanced conversational style. What could you possibly mean with these cryptic sentences? What deeper meaning is hidden beneath the mundane?

In another stroke of luck, Steve and I were staying at the same hostel in Whangarei. Once there, I quickly retreated into the sanctuary of my room, but not before I had foolishly communicated my plans to walk to some nearby caves the next day. Steve thought this sounded great. Cursing my mistake, I hastily recruited someone else to come with us, hoping she would help offset Steve’s trying personality. This worked pretty well until Steve permanently entered my black books while we were all sitting down for some food after I had explored the caves. Noticing a small cut on my heel, Steve exclaimed “Crikey! We’ve got some blood over here. Someone pull out the first aid kit! Only problem is (he pauses for comedic effect)… we haven’t got one!” Immediately, I whipped out my well-equipped kit hoping to shut Steve up with this display of competence and preparedness. Unfortunately, Steve felt that he was now compelled to supervise the wound cleaning process and give me advice.

“Yeeah, just pull off that bit of skin, I reckon.”

“Rub some alcohol on there, then pop on a bandaid I reckon.”

“You should still be able to walk, I reckon!”

Well, you know what I reckon Steve? I reckon you should stop giving me advice before we have a real reason to use the first aid kit.

“They teach you some of this first aid stuff at raft school do they?” asked Steve, speaking as he might to a small child.

“I have my Wilderness First Responder” I replied frostily. “It’s an 80 hour course. We managed to go over bandaid application in that time.”

Steve was oblivious to this cutting sarcasm, and continued to annoy me for the rest of the day. I’m starting to think Australia might not be worth it.

Kiwi cults

gillthompson — Sun, 7 Oct 2012 10:08:00 GMT

I think I was almost recruited by a cult today. As I was wandering around downtown Auckland I came across a group of people at a street corner. Thinking they were just an enthusiastic group of buskers, I stopped to listen to their original song and dance routine. After a few seconds of observation, however, it became clear that they either belonged to a cult or some sort of hippie commune. A woman then tried to present me with a booklet entitled The King of Knowledge, which confirmed it as the former. I declined, then walked across the street, wondering why the chanting wasn’t fading away. Chancing a glance back, I realized the whole group had crossed the street as well and were now dancing up the sidewalk towards me. I escaped them by ducking into a nearby gear store.

Hours later, I saw the cult again, still chanting, and occupying a different street corner. I had just settled in to observe them from a distance, when I suddenly heard bagpipes play only feet away from where I was sitting. A group of five or six kilted people had just marched out of a pub, and struck up a tune, apparently at the request of some pub patrons. They stopped after a few bars though, and starting marching towards the cult people. Naturally, I followed them, hoping for a cult vs. bagpipe standoff of some kind. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen, and the bagpipers just marched to another pub where they played a brief song and then left out the back exit. I tried to follow them, but failed which was a little disheartening. How hard can it be to find a group of brightly coloured people playing bagpipes? I won’t mention this incident should I ever become a detective.