Stats from the 1st Week (2006.01.01 – 2006.01.07):

Auckland to Taumarunui
6 days cycling, 1 day resting
327.9km (54.56km/cycling day)
NZ$436.89 (NZ$62.41/day)
20 hours, 33 minutes, 20 seconds in the saddle

Today Sarah and I are taking a rest day at the Taumarunui Holiday Park along the Wanganui River. We arrived here yesterday after two of our best days so far. After talking with a man at the tourist information station, we decided to take the inland route down to Wellington and we found some quiet back roads that took us off the main route and into the heart of sheep country. The roads were narrow and beautiful and traffic was practically nonexistent. The first day we cycled to a small village called Bennydale where the local pub owner let us set up our tent behind his house. We were having a beer in his pub when a group of locals asked us if we would like to have a drink with them. It turns outs these locals were farmers raising sheep and cattle – our dream come true! The men were discussing the best way to treat a wooden fence post to make it last the longest and the different carbohydrate/protein makeups of the grass at different times of the year. The women were bragging about how their 14 year old daughters were at home making dinner while they were enjoying their beer. They were also very eager to discuss “Dr. 90210” and American celebrities like J-Lo and Paris Hilton with Sarah. The other thing we noticed is that these people really know how to drink. We were amazed at the number of 1 liter bottles of beer these people were able to put away. After seeing them, we decided it would be best not to ride our bikes on these farm roads at night! As they were leaving, two of the farmers, Roly and Maury, offered to give us a tour of a real Kiwi farm the next day because we were going to be passing their farms on the way out of town. Of course we accepted!

The next day we cycled a short way in some beautiful hills to Roly’s farm. He is a 3rd generation family farmer and raises sheep and cattle on his 1700 acre farm. We hopped on the back of Roly’s 4-wheeler and he gave us a tour of his entire farm. As we drove around, Roly filled us in on all the ins and outs of raising lambs and cattle. We learned how the animals are switched to new paddocks with regularity, based on the levels of grass, type of terrain, and needs of the animal. We heard the gory details of what you do with a “shitty sheep” which is an animal with diarrhea all over its back-end and tail. The diarrhea attracts flies, the flies lay eggs which hatch to maggots, and the maggots eat the sheep along with its shit. That is why they crop the tails on sheep when they are young. After the tour, we had some pork sandwiches with Roly for lunch and he introduced us to his herding dogs Buddy, Patch, and Bruin. A three year old herding dog is so valuable to a farmer that they can sell for up to $3000. Afterwards we headed down the road to Maury’s farm where he and his family were drafting lambs to be taken to the freezer works where they would be processed and sent off to England or the United States. The entire family was working together and it looked like they were having a lot of fun. They showed us their shearing shed and they all agreed that shearing sheep was one of the hardest jobs in the world. A shearer is bent over for 12 hours a day in the stifling heat of a shearing shed and a good one can shear up to 400 sheep a day. Maury’s family had a different type of dogs called Huntaways which were breed specifically for herding sheep and cattle in the terrain of New Zealand. After the drafting, the family was off to lunch so we said goodbye and headed down the road to Taumarunui.

Roly told us it was all downhill from his farm to Taumarunui, but he failed to mention all the rolling hills along the way. Three hours and 45kms later, we arrived at the Holiday Park. As soon as we pulled in, Sarah’s nose started bleeding. She has been getting nose bleeds at least once a day this week and every one we meet has a different theory from pollen, to heat, to the heavy breathing she does on the bicycle. As soon as the camp host saw Sarah bleeding she flew into mother hen mode and whipped out a cold compress, cold flannel, and set Sarah down in the shade to rest and recover from her horrible affliction. After Sarah recovered and we set up camp, we decided to rest here the next day. Tomorrow we will start climbing towards Tongariro National Park. This will be the start of some real climbing and we will get up to 800m near the park, so we will be traveling slowly. We will continue to head South until we reach Wanganui on the coast.

Climbing the hill to Roly’s farm:

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Chasing sheep on the 4-wheeler:

Roly’s lambs fattening up on the lush grass:

Roly moving his bulls to some fresh grass:

Docile steers:

A quiet road to Taumarunui:

Sarah’s bloody nose and cold compress!

This entry was posted on Monday, January 8th, 2007 at 2:13 am and is filed under New Zealand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.