On our way to our final accommodations for Tour d’NZ, our farm stay in Fairley, we happened to pass through the Central Otago Valley and then around Mt. Cook. Two things the Kiwis in this area are quite proud of are their fruit and a sheep named Shrek. The fruit speaks for itself, although it does get some marketing help…
I’m sure that a couple of Kiwi orchard owners were in a bar and were discussing the success of the carrot farmers up on the North Island….
Now Shrek needs a bit of explaining. Alex tells us that a little over 10 years ago a Merino Sheep went missing. Details of the absence and search for said sheep are a little foggy, but when he was located after 6 years…yep 6 years…it became a national and international story. The sheep was named Shrek, he had not been sheared for all that time so when he was shorn it produced a record setting wool load for one sheep. Yes Shrek may be second only to Lordes in the celebrity standings in NZ…I give you a photo of the wool from Shrek….
When we were on the West Coast of the South Island we were booked on a helicopter flight to Fox Glacier. It was canceled due to the wet weather. Now on this side of the Southern Alps it is dry as a bone. Mt. Cook, the tallest mountain in NZ is on our way to our next stop and is surrounded by glaciers. Instead of being surrounded by rainforests, these are the more typical looking glaciers. Ice, snow topped peaks, rocks, lakes and beautiful mountain surroundings. Just so happened that the same helicopter company flys up to these glaciers as well. So we rebooked. Didn’t think we were going to get to go again due to insufficient number of customers, but when we stopped by we learned we could go. Just like the Glow Worm Caves, Bonnie overcame her fear of the situation and was a warrior. We were up for about 30 minutes, including a landing on a snowfield atop a glacier. Pretty cool to be in the snow in 90 degree weather! What a sweet ride!
After we came down, literally and figuratively, from that experience it was time to head out to the farm. We are staying at ShearVue Farmstay. Home of Tony and Julie Dobbs. Also home to over 4,000 sheep about 500 head of beef cattle, chickens and various pets such as alpacas. Tony is a National Champion sheep shearer, has competed Internationally…..no we did not know that there was a world championship of sheep shearing either…and has taught sheep shearing around the world. He did a very personalized demo for us before a lovely dinner with the Dobbs family in their farmhouse. It was amazing. I have posted a video of the first sheep which he did with the electric trimmers, it took a little over 2 minutes from start to finish. His second demo was with manual shears, in competition he has done that in a little as 63 seconds, he took his time tonight as we did stop him for questions.
