All the Way to Someplace Else (and back again).

They Just Gotta Work

Peter Kidd National Champion Dog Trialer

Dogs can be amazing animals. When we visited Peter and Maree Kidd on Saturday on our way to Akaroa, we saw such dogs.

When we got off the bus, Peter was waiting for us. He took us over to his dog boxes and spoke to us briefly, explaining the difference between a heading or eye dog and a huntaway. Then Peter let his dogs out of their boxes and showed us all 5 of his dogs, one of which is a national herding champion. All of his dogs were lean and sleek, no fat dogs here!

After showing us the dogs and explaining a little about their training, Peter took one of the heading dogs to herd sheep down the driveway and into the open. It was amazing how one dog, without barking or physical contact could keep the sheep moving.

Moving the sheep down the driveway

The differences between a heading dog and a huntaway are that huntaways are known for their large, muscular builds and loud barks, whereas heading dogs, also known as eye dogs, are known for their smaller, streamlined build, quietness, and stoic stare which allows them to herd the sheep into a tight mob. Huntaways and eye dogs are bred based on their function or job, not their appearance so they can look different but eye dogs look somewhat like Border Collies and Huntaways look a bit like shepherd mixes.

Then Peter let 4 sheep out and had the same dog herd them up the hill.

Letting a small group out to send them up the hill

Pip eyeing the sheep

He rotated the dogs, sending a fresh one up the hill to move the sheep away showing us how each dog responds to a different whistle. During this he moved the sheep all around on the hill. Eventually Peter sent a huntaway up the hill and he rounded them up by moving them with his loud bark. Tuff brought the sheep back down and put them back in the pen while Peter explained what the different whistle commands meant.

Working the hill.

Chief then came for a visit with the group. Chief was the national herding dog champion two years ago and won first place out of 287 runs. He is now 11 years old and has some arthritis in one of his front legs but he still likes to get out and work. We got our picture taken with Chief.

Getting to meet Chief was pretty cool

You can read more about their big national win here:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/sheep/10125699/Better-late-than-never-for-new-national-champion

Mom and Aunt Lesa hadn't visited the Kidd's since 2008 so they were glad to be back and hear about Peter and Chief's success. Maree handed out some dog whistles for student to try to make work, people took pictures and said their goodbyes and then it was back on the bus for Akaroa.

Tuff the Huntaway moving the sheep at the top of the hill with his loud bark

Tuff close up

Hunch and Chief waiting

Peter's dogs- 2 eye or heading dogs and two huntaways

First Farm Visits

Aotearoa grows and exports lots of agricultural products to the rest of the world.

On our first farm visit this week, we went to visit Gumshade Farm, a sheep and crop farm owned by a man named Hamish Reed. My mom and Aunt Lesa have been visiting Hamish since they came to New Zealand for the first time in 1999. That was before my mom was married and before I was even born!

Farmer Hamish Reid who owns Gumshade Farm

When we got off the bus, Hamish was waiting for us. He told us about the history of the farm which I thought was pretty interesting. The farm is 1300 acres total and Hamish has a flock of 2,000 ewes(female sheep) and 600 replacements (young ewes). He was one of the first farmers around his area to use center pivot irrigation, like what we have in Delaware, which has allowed him to raise crops other than just sheep and a few fat cattle.

Miranda checking out some of the 1000 sheep that were in this field

After that, he took us out to see....carrots! NZ grows about half of the carrot seeds for the world. If you plant carrots in your garden, you just might be planting carrot seed from South Pacific Seeds.

Carrots growing for seed out in the field

Hamish spends about $15,000 annually to rent (or hire as they say here) bees to pollinate the carrots that he raises for seed. They never harvest the carrots to eat because they have to grow long enough to produce seeds. This means that the carrots are way too old, big, and knarly to eat. As Hamish was going "Blah, blah, blah, yattah, yattah yattah, womp, womp, womp", Errol(a friend, more about him later) took me to meet Hamish's son.

James and I got to hang out and talk

James was 8 years old, but had his own dirt bike that he used to get around the farm. He I talked for a bit, then I challenged him to a race. James told me that he played cricket, tennis, and rugby. I told him how I am terrible at cricket and tennis and am ok at rugby. Afterwards, James showed me his working dog, Sway. He let her out but had to hold her to keep her from jumping on me. We then hung out and talked until it was time to leave.

James waving goodbye to me

After Hamish's we went to the Lincoln University Dairy Farm which is used to demonstrate to farmers the best way to manage dairy cattle. It is one of the top producing grass based dairy farms in New Zealand. It is 160 hectares, has been operating for 14 years and hosted over 40,000 visitors. Peter Hancox the farm manager hosted us. He showed us a bunch of charts and so I layed down and concentrated on not getting sunburned. Next we went to the milking parlor which is the only building on the farm and watched the milking process. The use a 50 cow carousel which is a large wheel that rotates slowly and the cows get on and off on their own. One man can milk 560 cows in 2 hours!

After the dairy farm we visited one of Lincoln University's Sheep research units but I stayed on the bus because the southerlies (cold winds out of the south) were getting pretty strong and it was chilly. It was a long day and I was tired so it felt really good to get in my bed that night.

Return to Aotearoa

Sometimes going all the way to someplace else and back again can take a lot of travel time. 40 hours in my case.

I got up at 3:00 a.m. on January 2, and took about a half an hour getting ready to leave for Philadelphia airport. Then we were off! And then we forgot my sister's medicine. We spent about twenty minutes going back to retrieve it. Now, by this time, I was really starting to get bored of sitting in the car. We finally got to the airport, where we said farewell to my dad who could not come on this trip.

We got on our first flight, a 4 hour United flight to Houston, Texas. There we had a 2 hour layover during which the group started to get to know each other I actually remembered some of the names that I learned! Then we got on our second flight, another 4 hour United flight, this time to Los Angeles, California. There we had another layover, this time it lasted 7 hours. I played some of the games that I had brought with me such as Tenzi, with the students. After what felt like the shortest 7 hours of my life, we caught a glimpse of our Air New Zealand plane, a massive Boeing 777-300.

This is the type of aircraft we flew over the Pacific on

On that aircraft, we would have a flight that would seem forever but really last 12 hours (still a long time). After dinner on the plane, I watched a movie and fell sound asleep.

When my mom woke me up, it was almost time for breakfast. Then I played a few games, and watched another movie that was pretty cool. By that time we were almost to Auckland so I eyeballed the digital map in front of me, being pretty excited about getting back to New Zealand. When we got to Auckland, we had a 4 hour layover during which we switched terminals after going through customs. The customs agent said, "Welcome back!" as she stamped my passport.

Finally, we got on my favorite flight, a 1.5 hour flight from the North Island to the South Island (or the Mainland as South Islanders like to say) over the Cook Strait and following the Southern Alps to the city of Christchurch. I love this flight because of how blue the water is. When we landed in Christchurch, some old friends were there to meet us along with our bus driver Robbie. Robbie has been driving University of Delaware students around New Zealand for many years.

Robbie took us on a tour of Lincoln, the little town where we are staying, after which we stopped and had lunch. Then we got back on the bus and Robbie gave us another tour, this time of the lookout over Christchurch and the Canterbury Plains and of Lyttleton, a port town that is on the other side of the Port Hills from Christchurch. Afterwards, we all went shopping, unpacked bags, and turned in for the night.

Welcome to my someplace else, Aotearoa!

Me at the Sign of the Takahe overlooking the city of Christchurch

Our first group picture at the Sign of the Takahe overlooking the Canterbury Plains, our home for the next month.

Hi everyone. The blog is up and running again. We leave home in about 6 hours. I will write my first post from New Zealand as soon as I get a chance. Happy New Year!

Our Free Weekend on the Wild West Coast

On the way to the West Coast
getting into the Alps

On the way to the West Coast

This weekend we had a free weekend so we went to Hokitika (Ho-key-tea-kah)which is on the wild west coast of the South Island of New Zealand. We saw glow worms, the beach, the Tasman Sea, driftwood, Castle Rocks (Google it) and a kea on a sign. There are only three passes (places where you can drive through the mountains) on the South Island to get through the Southern Alps to the Tasman Sea. We drove through a place called Arthur’s Pass to get to the west coast.

Walking to Castle Rocks

Climbing around the Castle Rocks. We sure are small!

On our way to Hokitika we visited Castle Rocks. If you’ve seen the movie the Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe then you have seen Castle Rocks too. Castle Rocks is where the battle between Pater and Aslan’s army and the White Witch’s army was filmed. The Castle Rocks are made of limestone. We climbed around and up some of the Castle Rocks. It was cool to climb up high on some of them. I felt like I was in Narnia and you could see far to the Alps when you were up there.

The viaduct through Arthurs Pass. We drove on that!

Trying to sneak up on the cheeky kea

One go drive through Arthur’s Pass you are in a temperate rain forest. The west coast of New Zealand gets lots of rain. When storms come across the Tasman Sea from Australia, they hit the mountains of the Southern Alps of New Zealand and drop all of their rain on the west coast of the South Island. That part of New Zealand gets lots of rain each year compared to where we are living in Lincoln on the Canterbury plains where it is dry and hotter. The plants on the West Coast are very different then the plants on the plains.

Sign carved at the main entrance to the beach

The wild driftwood beach in Hokitika

When we got to Hokitika, we had dinner at one of my Mommy’s favorite restaurants called Stumpers. Then we went on the beach to watch the sunset and have a fire on the beach. The beach was black sand with big waves, lots of driftwood and bridges and sculptures that people had made out of driftwood. There was even a driftwood cow. Hokitika is known for having beautiful sunsets. The fire was made out of driftwood we collected and it was really, really hot. We had s’mores and watched the sunset and talked. After that I got a shower and went to bed.

Pretty pebbles where the surf comes in on Hokitika beach

Sunset on the beach in Hoki

Driftwood fire on the beach

Playing on the beach

Lake Kaniere

The next day we went to Lake Kaniere (Kai- near-eee) on a walk and saw a water fall that was 63 meters high. Do you know how tall that is? On the walk we heard a really pretty bird over and over and over again in the rainforest. We also heard noisy insects and saw mushroom in strange colors like orange blue and red. Later we were told that those mushrooms are really poisonous so it is good that my mommy told us not to touch them. I had fun skipping stones across the super clear lake.

Walking into the rainforest

Lake Kaniere

Interesting mushrooms we saw on our walk

The bright colors say "do not touch!"

A fern uncurling- you can see why the fern is a national symbol here

Exploring 60 meter falls

A fan tail that was teasing us in the rainforest

Once it was dark, we went to see the glowworms. They glow like a greenish blue light and kind of look like stars in the sky except they are attached to the side of the dell (cliff that you can walk up to from the base). You have to be quiet and cannot use a torch (that is the word they use for flashlight here). Glowworms are larvae (young) of a special kind of fungus gnat. Their tails glow so that they can attract prey (other bugs) to their webs. Did you know that glowworms are sometimes cannibals? They will eat their neighboring glow worm if they get to close! How’s that for being a nice neighbor?

This is what the online New Zealand government sponsored encyclopedia says about glow worms. We couldn't take an pictures of them but you should google images for glow worms because they are very neat!

What is a glow-worm?

None of the world’s glow-worms are true worms. In the northern hemisphere the name is used for beetles that fly around at night with their tail-lights flashing.

In New Zealand and Australia, glow-worms are the larvae (maggots) of a special kind of fly known as a fungus gnat. Fungus gnats look rather like mosquitoes, and most feed on mushrooms and other fungi. However, a small group of fungus gnats are carnivores, and the worm-like larvae of these species use their glowing lights to attract small flying insects into a snare of sticky threads. One species, Arachnocampa luminosa, is found throughout New Zealand, and others occur in Australia.

Hundreds of Arachnocampa larvae may live side by side on a damp sheltered surface, such as the roof of a cave or an overhanging bank in the forest. Their lights resemble a star-filled night sky. Māori call them titiwai, which refers to lights reflected in water.

Beetle or fly?

It was first thought that the only insects that glowed were beetles, such as the northern hemisphere fireflies. So people believed that New Zealand’s glow-worms, too, were beetles. But in the 1880s, George Vernon Hudson took glow-worm larvae from the Wellington Botanic Garden and raised them in a tank. He showed that they had a pupa stage and then emerged as a special type of adult fly – known as a fungus gnat.

Habitat

Glow-worms need damp places, where the air is humid and still, to construct their snares. Caves and old mining tunnels are ideal. In the forest glow-worm snares are commonest on moist banks beside a stream or in a ravine.

Prey

Small midges are the usual prey of glow-worms, but all sorts of flying insects get trapped in the sticky snares, including mayflies, caddisflies and moths. Forest glow-worms may also trap spiders, plant hoppers and even millipedes. The glow-worm simply cuts free any prey that is too large, or unwanted.

Adult glow-worm flies are never caught in the snares – they are not attracted to the light, and even if they brush against the sticky threads they are strong enough to pull free.

Light display

The glow-worm’s tail-light shines from an organ which is the equivalent of a human kidney. All insects have this organ but the glow-worm has a unique ability to produce a blue-green light from it.

Farm Visits Day

Listening to Neil Gow and Peter Chamberlin

Last week we went to three farms in one day. One was a sheep farm, one was a dairy farm and one was a deer farm. The first farm we visited was a sheep and crop farm. The farm owner’s name was Peter Chamberlin. Peter talked about how he manages his farm which is mostly very dry and stony land. He also talked about earthquake damage on his farm and that the epicenter( the place where an earthquake starts) of the February 2011 earthquake which was a 6.2 on the Richter scale was at his next door neighbors. Besides sheep Peter also grew peas, barley(like my family does), wheat and grass seed. He had a really bad windstorm in the spring this year (our fall in Delaware) that knocked down a lot of big, old trees around the perimeter of the fields that the animals used for shelter.

The second person we visited was a retired farmer named Pat Morrison who talked about irrigation and how important water is to farmers. He and his wife Margaret had tea and coffee and juice for all of us and even had made savouries for our whole group. His son now runs their farm as a dairy which is a change since the last time we visited in 2011. Pat and Margaret's gardens and lawn were beautiful. We all loved laying on his lawn.

Having class on the lawn with Mr. Morrison

Our group

Colin Guild explaining velvet to us

The students really enjoyed their visit with Colin

The last farm we went to was named Quartz Hill. The owners name was Colin Guild. His farm was 7,000 acres. He had sheep and cattle but was especially proud of his deer. Colin grew the deer to be able to sell females deer(called hinds) to other farms, deer meat (venison) for people to eat and also harvested velvet. He raised a kind of deer called red deer which are much bigger than the deer we have in Delaware. Velvet is deer antler that grows from the deer’s head before it hardens and turns to bone. Some people in the world take deer velvet pills like you would take your vitamins every day. We drove our bus out onto Colin’s farm to see his pastures with the deer in it. Then we went into the deer shed where he harvests velvet. We were tired at the end of the day when we went back to Lincoln.

My sister and I checking out the velvet. It was heavy!

Deer out in the pasture on Colin's farm.
They were scared of our bus.

Some of Colin's working dogs

The Livestock Auction and Antarctic Centre

Allister the stock agent talking to us

Today we went to the Antarctic Centre and the Canterbury Livestock Auction. The Canterbury Livestock Auction is held every Tuesday morning. At the auction there were lots and lots and lots of sheep, lots and lots of cattle, 4 big sows and a few piglets for sale. We saw the cattle, sheep and piglets being sold. Farmers and stock agents were buying and selling. A stock agent that my mommy knows named Allister met us at the auction and told the students what was going on. He walked us around the auction and explained things until he had to go and sell some sheep for the farmers he works for.

Sheep for sale in the stockyards

Stock agents selling cattle

I'm all dressed up for Antartica!

After that we went to the Antarctic Centre(that’s how they spell center here in New Zealand). At the Antarctic Centre we saw live penguins, watched a 4-D movie, went through an obstacle course on a Hagglund(which is used for transportation in Antarctica), and experienced an Antarctic summer storm. I even got to dress up as an Antarctic explorer with all of the layers of clothing that they have to wear when they go outside! I liked riding in the Hagglund. We drove into a three meter deep pond in the Hagglund which can stay afloat in water for up to 5 hours. It can also span a gap or crevasse up to 3 meters wide and drives up steep hills easily because it has tracks instead of tires. It was bumpy and very loud to ride in but very fun!

We saw little blue penguins. Little Blue penguins do not actually live in Antarctica but live in New Zealand. All of the penguins at the Antarctic Centre were there because they were injured or had been born with a problem that would not allow them to survive in the wild. We saw a penguin swimming around that only had one leg because it had gotten caught in fishing line. His name was Bagpipes.

The movie we watched took us through Drake’s passage which is some of the roughest sea in the world. During the movie we got sprayed with sea spray and seal snot in our faces. There were also straps that whacked at our legs as if they were seaweed. Our chairs rocked and there were bubbles too.

The US Air Force base for the Antarctic program

Antarctica is the 5^th largest continent. It is also the windiest, coldest, driest and highest place in the world. It was the last to be discovered. The coldest temperature on the planet was measured at Vostok, the Russian Antarctic base and was degrees -128.6 degrees Fahreheit on July 21, 1983. That's really cold! The United State has three permanent bases in Antarctica where they do research: Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Palmer Station and McMurdo Station. The US Air Force flies all of the US, New Zealand and Italian researchers down to Antarctica from Christchurch New Zealand. The US has an Air force base here in Christchurch which is known as the gateway to the Antarctic. The US Air Force program here is called "Operation Deep Freeze".