Halfway Bay Station

It is High above Lake Wakatipu in the Eyre Mountains that I bring you this correspondence.  The sun has set over my left shoulder, a cool diurnal breeze is at my back blowing down valley and the shaded slope has begun it's transformation into night.  I can hear the calls of a thousand grazing sheep, some near and others just a faint moan in the distance.  Life here at Halfway Bay Station is grand.  I'm a stones throw from a crystal blue lake, rivers are filled with rainbow trout and salmon, pastures are green, and I have work, to keep my hands busy and maintain my sanity.  I work with Felipe and Patricia from Chile, who are wonderful people, and Tori, a twenty year old shepherd, who is a ball of fire.  She's filled with young energy and has become fun to work with.  Gerry and Ginny manage the farm and have two kids, Paddy and Eve, 4 & 6 years old.  Gerry and Ginny are both nice folks and the kids are a breath of fresh air, constantly playing outside, often running naked, as free an existence as I can imagine.  They have a pet goat named Goatee and are unafraid of anything outside, be it a plant, animal or otherwise.

I've been here nearly ten days now, and it's nice to reflect on all the tasks accomplished.  We've tailed hundreds of sheep and done numerous other projects.  Just now I'm admiring the plethora of wood Felipe and I cut and split.  The massive gum tree had tons of energy laying in it.  I made a butcher block of a huge round as well.  My time in New Zealand has been good, work purifies my mind and fortunately I've kept busy with the sheep farming.

Sandflies bite, but not incessantly, cool breeze keeps them at bay.  The distant sound of a powerboat, calling sheep, singing birds, and a flowing river are the music in the song I hear.  Sentinel snowcapped peaks, alpen glow, shadows in the folds of glacial carvings, green pastures, an ice cold lake, and the story land group of buildings below that make up Halfway Bay Station are the scene in the show I'm watching.

It's been quite some time since my last post, so I'll try to catch you all up.  Since I left Tim and Viv's, I went to Scott and Karyn's farm outside Thames.  It was a gorgeous setting high on a mountain overlooking the Firth of Thames.  Which is essentially a huge bay.  Scott is an American who evidently did well in the printing business in California and Karyn is a Kiwi he met there.  So they moved to Thames when the economy crashed and thought they'd become farmers.  They are working on it and have some great kids of there own to help them out.  So I spent a week there cutting firewood, driving a tractor, building a bridge and feeding animals.  After that I made my way to the city of Hamilton for a night on the town and saw some great music there.  I headed to the coast after that to spend a couple days relaxing and preparing for my sheep docking job.  I stayed at a great hostel in New Plymouth and enjoyed a couple rainy days laying low.

And then it was a few hour drive to Taihape on a windy but sunny afternoon.  I drove through beautiful country of endless green mountains manicured by the thousands of sheep grazing the hillsides.  And then finally made my way to Erewhon Station.  It's one of the biggest sheep stations in the country.  Myself, two Chileans, and two Argentinians made up the docking crew along with four more local hands and four shepherds with about ten dogs each. On the first day we were told we'd be docking about 22,000 lambs.  We are now through about 11,000 lambs already.  It's been a bloody, shitty, squealing, heavy lifting, hot, cold, rainy, beautiful, satisfying, and fascinating adventure so far.  The people are great and we get fed amazing meals made by Robin each day.  It's the real deal.  I have been enjoying the dogs work immensely.  They use Heading dogs which are silent and more or less stalk the sheep, and Huntaways that bark and herd.  It's impressive to watch the dogs get a whole "mob" from a distance and drive them right into the yard.  We've covered over half of the 10,000 acre farm and it is all beautiful country.  We put in 10-12 hour days and work while the sun shines.  I'm usually exhausted by the end of the day, so two "Tui" beers, a wonderful dinner from Robin and it's off to bed for me.  I will post some pictures soon to give you an idea of what it's like in pictures, I think they will explain more.