A Farm Visit: The Acheron

Scott talking to us in the wool shed.

Last week we visited my Mommy and Daddy’s friend Scott McFadden at his farm the Acheron (Ak-er-ron). It is our favorite farm to visit and Mommy has been visiting them since 1999.  Scott talked to us in the wool shed about the farm and how large it is.  It is a medium to steep hill country farm.  They don’t get that much rain there during the year. At the bottom of the farm where the wool shed is, it is 400 ft above sea level.  At the top of the farm it is 1,400 ft above sea level.  Our elevation in Harrington is only about 50 ft above sea level.

Sheep in the yards

Scott's working dog named "Happy". He is a huntaway.

Scott has 24 beef cows and 20 calves. He also has 3,300 ewes (ewes is pronounced you. Ewes are adult female sheep) and 1,340 ewe lambs. It only takes Scott and 5 dogs to take care of all these animals and the 804 hectare farm. Do you know how many acres that is?

The kind of tractor you need in hill  country

Showing the students how to body condition score
and evaluate a wool sheep

Scott talked about different types of sheep and why certain breeds were good for certain types of farms. He grows wool for Smartwool.  Did you know that you can buy Smartwool socks and sweaters in the US? Then we went hill trekking and climbed up a big hill on the farm (you would call it a mountain) that overlooks the Hurinui (Hur-i-new-ee) river and out to the sea.

The climb to the top

Some of the students ahead of us. 
No sky is as blue as a NZ sky!

When we left the farm we went down to the edge of the Hurinui river to explore.  It was very cold. It also had lots of rounded rocks at the bottom and I skipped one.  The river is fed from the glaciers up in the mountains so that is why there are all the rounded rocks and the water looks blue.  After that we got back on the bus and left to go back to Lincoln University.

Our group at the top looking out to the Hurinui



Brrr...the Hurinui was cold.  Justin was crazy!







 



 

 

 

 

 

 



Willowbank and KoTane

Last week we visited as place called Willowbank.  It is a zoo where they have animals that are native to New Zealand, animals that the settlers brought with them on purpose and some other interesting animals.  Do you know what native means? It means something that was already here in New Zealand before the British settlers came and was not brought here.  The only native mammals to New Zealand were 2 kinds of bats.  Everything else was brought here by the settlers.

The Puekeko or swamp hen

We saw animals like wallabies, kiwi birds and pukeko.  We also saw deer and a peacock (my little sister calls it a pea pot) in the farm animal part.  We even saw some eels and black swans.  Eels are long, black, thick and slimy looking like a water snake.  The biggest one was about 6 inches thick and 1.5 meters long-yuck!  Also we saw some Keas.  Keas are alpine parrots.  They are the only alpine parrots in the world.  Their feathers are green with orange underneath of their wings.  Keas love honey so the zookeepers used honey to attract them to our group.  One Kea came and landed next to me and bit me on the hand and elbow.  Geeze those beaks are sharp!   

The kea or alpine parrot

The cheeky kea that bit me!

My sister's "pea pot"

The kiwi is the national bird of New Zealand.  The people of New Zealand are also sometimes called kiwis.  It has a long beak and cannot fly.  Their egg is about 6 times the size of a chicken egg.  The egg makes up about ¼ of a females body weight.  It is the equivalent of a human giving birth to a 5 year old child.  Kiwis are endangered in New Zealand.  They are endangered in New Zealand because animals like stoats and weasels that the settlers brought, eat them.  Because the animals that the settlers brought with them have no predators to eat them, their numbers keep growing.  Also, cats and dogs eat kiwis too.  They showed us a picture of a dog that got loose from his owner and attacked and killed 500 kiwis.  Kiwi birds are nocturnal which means they are awake at night and sleep during the day.  Willowbank collects eggs from the wild and incubates them as well as breeds kiwi birds to release back into the wild.

Doing the hongi

Chief Justin picking up the offering

After the kiwis we saw and participated in an event called KoTane (Co-tah-nay).  KoTane is a Maori traditional welcome and concert.  The Maori are the native people of New Zealand.  A Maori warrior greeted us and challenged us with a spear to see if we came in peace or for war.  After our chief (Mommy’s student Justin) picked up the offering (a fern) and they knew we came in peace, our chief and their Maori chief greeted each other with a hongi (hong-gee), a Maori greeting in which two people press their foreheads and their noses together to share the breath of life.  We then were invited inside for a Maori concert. 

The women of the tribe welcoming us with the powhiri

Me doing the haka

Maori men doing the haka

Maori women doing the poi dance

The boys got to participate in a haka, a traditional Maori war dance.  I also participated in the haka(Hah-kah).  We stomped our feet, stuck out our tongues, and slapped our knees and our chests with our hands.  Even the New Zealand national rubgy team the All Blacks perform the haka in front of their opponents before each game.  You can find it on You Tube to watch yourself by clicking on this link All Blacks Haka vs. England Then the girls did the poi dance.  The poi are white balls on a rope.  Traditionally they were made with rocks and flax.  They swung the poi right and left, forward and backward and up and down while singing.  We then had a traditional Maori dinner called a hangi which means that the dinner was cooked in a hole in the ground for many hours.  We had lamb, pork belly and chicken and lots of kinds of vegetables.  It was good.

Our whole group

 My favorite things at Willowbank were touching the eels and seeing the kiwi birds.

Our First Free Weekend

On our free weekend we went to Kaikoura (Kai- cour-rah).  About halfway there the bus broke down and we were stranded in a town called Cheviot.  We were there for about 3 hours while they sent mechanic with a part to fix the bus.  While we were there we got an ice cream, played on the school playground, sat talking with the students, and had dinner.  When the bus was fixed we all jumped in and off we went the rest of the way.

On our first day in Kaikoura we got up early about 6:00 am and got ready to catch our whale watching boat.  The land under the ocean drops off very deep close to the shore in Kaikoura so the whales can come in and feed closer than most places in the world.  We traveled on a big, power catamaran boat (two hulls). They use something called a hydrophone which is an underwater microphone to find the whales.  We got to put the headphones in our ears and listen for them.  The sperm whale is very loud and makes clicking noises.  Did you know that the sperm whale is the loudest mammal on earth?  They are also the largest toothed mammal on the earth. The first whale we saw was huge.  His name was Maki.  They see the same whales so often that they have named them and can recognize them by patterns on their backs and the shape of their tails.

Our first whale going, going and gone after watching him for about 5 minutes

The second whale that we saw was big enough to make the first one look small.  It was enormous and his name was Tutu.  It easily could have flipped the boat over if it wanted to, fortunately they are pretty smart and don’t want to.  Tutu has been known to protect younger, smaller male sperm whales from Orca.  We were able to see both of them dive under the water.  The average time a whale spends under water here is about 30 minutes but some whales have been known to be able to hold their breath for as long as 2 hours!

The Dusky dolphins were jumping everywhere

 

 

Then we found a large pod of Dusky dolphins.  It seemed like there were 500 of them and they were all over the place!  They did backflips, barrel rolls and many other things and they aren’t tamed at all.  They were having fun and showing off! 

 

 

 

They swam all around, in front of and under our boat

 

When we got back we went to the beach.  Now, when you say “beach” you think sand, big waves and what not.  This beach was nothing like that.  I mean sure, it had waves and people on it but the waves were smaller, about 2 feet at most and there were very few people on it even in the middle of summer here.  In place of sand there were rocks, rocks, rocks and more rocks.  There were also scallop shells that we found because the tide was low. They were everywhere (scallops are a bit like clams).  The water was freezing!

View of Kaikoura from the ocean. See why NZ is called the land of the long white cloud?

 

 

 

Me exploring on the beach

Some of the scallops we found on the beach

See all the little rocks on the beach?  When the waves go out it makes a hissing sound.

They have seagulls here too

See how many people are on the beach in the summer?

Our First Farm Visits Last Week



Just a little of the green grass that the cows eat!

Dairy cows riding on the 50 cow carousel to get milked

We have visited two farms so far here in New Zealand, a dairy farm and a sheep farm.  The dairy farm was the university dairy farm here at Lincoln University where we are staying.  The dairy farm has 630 cows.  It had a milking shed with a carousel that holds 50 cows at a time and spins in a slow circle while they are being milked.  It takes 1 person just 2 hours to milk 630 cows!  They only feed the cows grass.  The grass is grown under irrigation in paddocks and the cows move to the different paddocks each day to eat the grass.  The farm was 160 hectares or about 400 acres.  They also study how dairy cows affect the environment at this farm and how the types of plants that cows eat can change the nutrients in their manure.

A cow getting on the carousel to be milked

We also visited Ashley Dene, the Lincoln University sheep farm.  I found a sheep bone in the paddock while the students were listening to the farm manager talk.  Miranda found a huge pine cone.  They don’t have any irrigation at this farm so the soil is very dry and stony.  They raise Coopworth sheep here.  Lincoln University created this breed of sheep over 50 years ago.  Miranda and I found a huge burn pile and went over the check it out.  I found sticks with pinecones on them and showed them to my sister.  I was able to get three of them off but the rest wouldn’t budge.  Then my mom told me and Miranda it was time to get on the bus and off we went.


My mom's students listening to the sheep farm manager talk

What Did They Say? A New Zealand to United States Dictionary

They speak English here in New Zealand but there are still many difference between US English and NZ English.  We use different words for things then the Kiwis (what native New Zealanders are called) do.  Here are a few New Zealand words translated into American English for you.

New Zealand Word                      United States Word

   Biscuit                              =             Cookie
   Scone                               =             Biscuit
   Chips                                =             French Fries
   Mince                               =            Ground Beef
   Boot                                 =             Trunk of your car
   Bonnet                             =            Hood of your car
   Tomato Sauce                 =            Ketchup
   A cuppa                            =            a cup of tea
   Ring                                   =            to call someone on the phone
   Rubbish                             =           Trash
   Chilly Bin                           =           Cooler
   Serviette                           =            Napkin
   Lollie                                  =            piece of hard candy
   Jersey                                 =           Sweater
   Give Way                           =            Yield
   Buggered                           =            Messed up
   Munted                              =            Destroyed or completely wrecked

It is Friday here and we are going away from the university for a free weekend.  I will have more to tell when we get back on Sunday.

Sunday in Christchurch

Eating a New Zealand hot dog

Today we went into the city of Christchurch to the local market, the Botanic Gardens and the Canterbury Museum.  We first stopped at the Riccarton market.  This is a market that local people visit, not tourists but is always one of our favorite things to do on a weekend.  We saw people selling secondhand things, food, fruits, flowers, eggs, handmade things, toys and fleece things.  We bought some second hand books for my sister and I to read.  I like to read some New Zealand books called the Fabulous Five. I also bought a soccer ball so I could play with my mom's students.  We also had some fresh, hot mini donuts that they cooked in front of us and my sister and I got a New Zealand hot dog.  A New Zealand hot dog is different from what they call an American hot dog.  An American hot dog is on a roll but a New Zealand hot dog is more like a corn dog.  It is on a stick and they dip it in tomato (toe- mah- toe) sauce.  It was yummy and I ate the whole thing!

Talking with a lady who was spinning wool and selling her crafts at the market

At the museum we saw moa birds that looked somewhat like an ostrich.  We also saw Antarctic tractors, an old snowmobile and a display of all the whales that live in the Antarctic Circle.  Then we saw not one but two… MUMMIES!
After that we walked down to the Avon River which flows through the city and had lunch at the Antigua Boat Sheds which are very old and survived the many earthquakes here well.  They rent kayaks here and take people out punting on the Avon.  Do you know what punting is?

The main entry to the cathedral.  The stained glass is gone.

After lunch we walked down to Cathedral Square to see how things looked.  The city was devastated
 by 4 major earthquakes in 2010 and 2011.  I'll tell you more about earthquakes here later but the biggest earthquake occurred in on February 22, 2011 and was a 7.1 on the Richter scale.  183 people died in that February quake.  It happened just a few weeks after we left New Zealand earlier that month.  The cathedral is devastated.  The whole front has collapsed leaving only the doors and the door frame behind.  The tower is completely gone as well.  My sister and I danced to a band playing on the steps in front of that cathedral just a few weeks before it collapsed in the quake.   There are many empty lots in Christchurch where collapsed and damaged buildings have been cleared but nothing has been built yet.

The steps that my sister and I danced on don't even exist anymore

We finished our day in the Botanic Gardens where my sister and I climbed trees, looked at types of trees and even saw a California Redwood tree.  We played in a fountain that you could control yourself and climbed a tree one last time before I swung down and we all got back on the bus to head home to Lincoln.

Our First Saturday in New Zealand

Today was our third day and first Saturday in New Zealand and we are going to Akaroa (Aah- kah- row- a).  We passed by Lake Ellesmere and saw black swans, pukekoe (puh-keh-koe) and lots of other birds that live there.  All of the native animals to New Zealand originally were birds.  Settlers brought with them other animals like sheep, cattle, dogs and many animals that turned into pests like rabbits, possums and deer.  These animals because pests because there were no other animals in nature to prey on them.

Rocks at Birdlings Flat beach

Next we stopped at BIrdlings Flat which is a rock beach.  The rocks have come down from the mountains and have been polished round by the ocean.  We all enjoyed searching for special rocks.  We stopped in a town called Little River to use the bathroom and get ice cream.  I got a flavor called goody, goody, gum drop.  It is green and has little gumdrops in it.  We climbed up into the hills on Banks Peninsula in our bus and looked out over Akaroa harbor.  It was really pretty up there.  The name Akaroa means “long harbor”.  We could see a cruise ship that was in the harbor and saw a carrier hawk.  It was cool and breezy up that high.

Overlooking Akaroa Harbor

Once we got to the town of Akaroa and the students went on their way, we got on a boat called the Fox II.  It used to be an Auckland cargo ship.  Now it is used to teach kids to sail and for nature and dolphin cruises.  We went sailing and saw lots of Hector’s dolphins and New Zealand fur seals, spotted shags and a few blue penguins.  The Hector’s dolphin is the smallest and rarest kind of dolphin in the world.  They came and played along our boat as we sailed along and our captain played music for them.  It was pretty cool!

We even saw a rock that seriously looked like an elephant dipping its trunk in the water.  It even had an eye, an ear and what looked like tusks.  As we were going back to Akaroa, they gave us biscuits and hot chocolate.  Do you know what biscuits are?

Yum- Fish and chips for dinner!

When we got off the boat we had fish and chips for dinner.  Fish and chips is really traditional to eat here in New Zealand because it is a British food.  Most of the first settlers here were British.  The country still is connected to the Queen of England.  Finally we took a group picture when everyone came back and got on the bus to go back to Lincoln.  

Where Am I Anyway?

Gooday from New Zealand! Can you guess how long it took to get here?  1 hour?? 1 day?? No… almost 2 DAYS (35 hours)!! We rode 4 airplanes and visited 5 airports to get here.  We started in Baltimore, Maryland, flew to Houston, Texas, flew to Los Angeles, California, flew to Auckland, New Zealand and then FINALLY flew to Christchurch, New Zealand.  Whew! It sure was tiring! In Auckland the runway was very close to the bay.  It took 13 hours to fly over the Pacific Ocean when we left the United States.

I'm almost at the bottom of the world!

New Zealand is below the equator in the Southern Hemisphere.  It is one of the closest pieces of land to Antarctica.  New Zealand is a country that is made of two islands, the North Island and the South Island. We are living on the South Island.  It has a smaller human population then the North Island. I say human because it also has a whole lot of sheep, whole lot of cows and quite a few working dogs.

New Zealand is also known as Aeotearoa (Aya-Taya-Roa) which is the Maori (Mowry) word for “Land of the Long White Cloud”  The Maori are the people that were native or here on the island first before the British settlers arrived from England in the 1800’s. The tribe that lives here on the South Island are known as the Ngai Tahu (Nigh-ta-hoo).

Posts below this one are from our trip in 2011.  

Jan 13-16 Road Trip to Nelson

The big free weekend finally arrived.  Once Mommy was finished with classes on Thurs. morning, she was free until Sunday evening at dinner time.  We took the opportunity to do a road trip up to Nelson, which is a favorite summer destination of Kiwis.  It is situated right at the top of the South Island, and is know for its beautiful beaches, perpetual sunshine and close proximity to Abel Tasman Park.  We drove north along the coast road, and stopped for a late lunch in Kaikora, a quaint little coastal town

 Known for whale watching opportunities.  From there, the road headed back inland towards Blenheim and the Marlborough region.  Marlborough is New Zealand's wine country, and is full of stunning vistas of vineyards as far as the eye can see.  Back into the mountains we began our descent into Nelson, which is about 2 hours worth of ever increasingly sharp switch backs.  Pop-pop was salivating at the thought of how it would be to ride his motorcycle here.  Incredible scenery, smooth roads and twisty turns all add up to a bikers paradise in his mind.  We arrived in Nelson rather late, so all of the shops and restaurants were closed.  We ended up picking up pizza and taking it back to our hotel to eat.  The following morning, we donned bathing suits and enjoyed a lazy day on Tahunanui Beach.  We went out to dinner at a cute little Thai restaurant and made reservations for the Water Taxi to take us to Abel Tasman the next day.  To be continued......