Yellow Eyed Penguin near Curio Bay Our first stop in the Catlins was the historic Waipapa Point lighthouse that had many a sleepy fur seals sunbathing on the beach. It is amazing how big (and smelly) these creatures really are. We journeyed on to Slope Point, the southernmost point of the South Island, then …
The next week of our great adventure started out at a lake at the southern end of Fiordland National Park. On Wednesday March 13th we made our way off the beaten path to a little campground. There we met a nice barefoot dread locked hippie fellow who joined us in conversation about the hydro dam …
Three weeks of driving, fishing, hiking, site seeing, rain, sun, smelly clothes, wet shoes, and sleeping in a van have finally ended and back to the shearing sheds we go. Our trip started out leaving Alexandra on March 4th and headed straight for Queenstown for a few supplies. My hiking pants were ripped, my headlamp …
I guess I should spare everyone from one my most recent New Zealand discoveries, but I can’t help it. In these past few weeks of working with sheep I learned (and witnessed) that a live sheep can have maggots living on them. This can be caused from a special fly that has come here from …
A day in the life of the sheep shearing business, this is how it works. Peter Lyons and his wife Elsie have a sheep shearing contract business, one of the largest in New Zealand in fact, shearing 1.5 million sheep per year. They live near the small town of Alexandra where they have several horses, …
Last weekend was our first real weekend off of work in New Zealand. What to do? Go fishing of course. After negotiating different hikes and fishing spots (some of the water is too high, too low, or too fished out) we took up an invitation to go fishing in Twizel for the weekend. Twizel is …
There are really very few skills required to pick cherries. The first is having a work visa and tax number, which I would not consider skills, the other is being able to stand on a three legged ladder with a gallon bucket in a harness around your neck, that is all the skills you need. …
Next stop Christchurch! Well that was the plan until we woke up in the rain in Geraldine, most construction companies were still on holiday for another week, and lets face it we weren’t ready to stop just yet. After hours of debating of where to go and what to do, we got in the car …
The journey finally continued beyond the upper 1/8thof the south island on New Year’s Day. We stopped off Pelorus Bridge campground, about an hour east of Nelson, on our way to Blenhiem to look for vineyard work. Tony was hoping to do some fishing, of course, but the rivers were too high due to rain, …
New Zealanders knows how to tent camp As summer heads into full swing in New Zealand, the tourists and the kiwis are coming out to play. Our quiet and sleepy campgrounds are brimming to the edge filled with travels of all walks of life. Our Christmas was spent in Collingwood in Golden Bay. The …