Last post from NZ

I'm in Auckland now, and will be catching a shuttle to the airport in 2 hours. I looked at the forecast back home and it looks like the weekend will be beautiful and the forecast for the Cub's home opener on Monday might be the best ever!

I've spent the last couple of days taking two trains and a ferry to go from Christchurch to Auckland. Really wasn't a bad way to travel. I think I want to plan a train trip in the US. Probably from Chicago to Montana to the Belton Chalet.

I only spent one night in Wellington. Seems like it would have been a good place to spend another day or so. I went to a great restaurant there (Pravda). When I get home, I'm going to post some thoughts on foods and restaurants.

I'm also going to add my pictures to the blog, so people can see the places. I know I was going to do this as I went, but it didn't quite work out. One thing I was really surprised about is that there were almost no free wifi sites. I compare this to the states where you can find free spots in a number of places.

I need to go buy a book (I went through the 10 used paperbacks that I bought from the library) for the 24 hours of traveling from the time I leave the hotel until I get home.

Sad Day on Farm

I'm back in Christchurch now and will be taking a train and ferry to Wellington tomorrow and then a train to Auckland and then a flight back home.

Before I left the farm, one of the goats (Hercules) who had been feeling poorly couldn't get up. He was a young male goat, but had been struggling with a variety of ailments. They called someone out to the farm to put him down. The goats on the farm are really pets and their job is to clear some of the rough growth (like gorse) from the pastures. The guy who came out to shoot the goat was a small man who was also one of the stunt doubles for Frodo.

The farm was a great experience and a nice change of pace from hotels and meals at restaurants. I think I'll look to see if we can host some workers at home. We got a lot accomplished on the farm. It always seems to work that way when you have somebody coming over to work.

Pictures - Milford Track

Here are a couple of pictures from the Milford Sound Track. Sorry about the one waterfall picture, I can't determine how to get it to rotate! The sunny picture was from the first day. The low part in the distance is McKinnon Pass that we climbed over on the second day. The first waterfall is from the second day, and the last waterfall was on Milford Sound on the third day.

Pounding posts

Spent the day pounding posts into the ground (using a post pounder on the tractor). The weather was beautiful, but the ground was very dry and hard. Broke a few wood posts and a number of others required a number of hits with the "monkey".

Going into Rangiora for dinner tonight!

Pigs

Another interesting factoid on the pigs. The three pigs are males and they have not been castrated. In the US, I believe that it is common practice to cut the pigs if they are being raised for meat. Here, they do not cut them and believe that helps them gain weight quicker. They say that if you harvest the pig before they get too big (about 100 kg), there will be no effect on the flavor of the meat.

So know you know!

Farm work

This morning I worked with the pigs on moving dirt. The pigs churned up a bunch of dirt along a line of gorse (gorse is an invasive from England that was originally brought in for hedges, but went crazy in this climate). The goats had already done a number on the gorse, and the pigs were busy rooting around. I would move some of the dirt to the garden and the pigs would do more rooting. They found some big worms (1/2 inch diameter and 12 to 18 inches long). I have some picture that I hope to post some day!

This afternoon, worked on removing some fences in the paddock, that we will be putting up tomorrow in some different spots. I'm really working for my room and board!

Time change

This weekend they change their clocks down here. The difference from home is that they move their clocks back one hour on Saturday night, and go off of daylight savings time, while we have just moved out clocks forward to go on to daylight savings time. I guess I never really thought about the difference between the Northern and Southern hemisphere. This means that there will be two hours more difference in time know (in addition to different days due to the international date line).