The West Coast

This year for James' birthday we camped at Lake Mahinapua a really nice DOC campiste on the lakefront near Hokitika. We did a few walks around the lake and then went to the beach. James was very excited to be at the beach on his birthday because back home who goes to the beach in November? We went to the pub for a few jugs of Monteiths original and had a yummy pizza for tea. A very different birthday than normal and great fun.

Since being back at the farm we have been taught how to run the milking shed on our own and we now milk every other afternoon. We are still feeding the calfs, although they are getting a bit old to still be fed milk and this will stop soon. Tomorrow we will be de-horning the calfs, which will require all 4 of us to hold them still while one person de-horns them. Sounds interesting, but should be fun.

We have been into Hokitika a couple of times now and its a very nice town on the beach. It's full of galleries, jade shops and cafes and also has a cinema where we saw the new Harry Potter film much to James' delight! This afternoon we are going to Lake Kaniere to have lunch and relax seen as its a lovely sunny day....again!

The Farm

We are currently living and working on dairy farm near Hokitika on the West Coast of the South Island. The farm has 370 Jersey X cows which get milked twice a day (although so far we haven’t had to do a morning milking)! The farm is also home to plenty of calves, 2 pigs, 5 sheep, chickens, 2 dogs, a cat and 4 kittens - one of which we have adopted!

Every morning we get up and fill up the calf feeder with the calf milk, then attach it to a quad bike and drive this through to the calf paddock. Then we feed the pigs and the chickens and pick up any eggs before going in for breakfast. After breakfast we drive the calf feeder to another paddock and then clean it out when they are finished. We are going to be milking every other afternoon and in between doing odd jobs like putting up fences or measuring grass growth in the paddocks.

So far the weather has been lovely so its been great to be outside all day in the sun, even if we are a little red from it. The town Hokitika is on the beach so plenty to do with our spare time. Although we were supposed to be at the farm for week and at Lake Paringa for the summer, there has been a slight change of plan and we are now spending all summer on the farm!

Ferry Trip

On Monday 25th October we left Ohakune to head for the South Island. After a shopping stop in Palmeston North we spent the night in Wellington before catching the ferry the next morning to Picton.
For me this was the first big ferry trip I had done so I was very excited! We queued up to drive on at 7am Tuesday morning with our car packed full. After parking underneath we headed upstairs to look around. There were 2 cinema screens, a cafe and a bar (which wasn’t open)! It was pretty windy outside but we managed to get prime seats which were sheltered and still had a good view.
The trip itself is only 90km but it took 3 hours to complete! We spent most of it sat outside looking at the gorgeous scenery, but did go inside for a drink and some breakfast.
We drove off at Picton at 11am and started our journey down the West Coast, with an overnight stay in Westport. The next day we had a coffee stop at the Punakaiki Rocks (Pancake rocks) which are layers of limestone and no one really knows why they have formed that way. Then we continued driving to Hokitika where we arrived at the farm.....