61 Days of Togetherness: On the Farm

Some of our original motivation for traveling to New Zealand was undoubtedly our friendship and fondness for our friend Neil Cooper back in Portland. Neil is an ex-pat Kiwi and owner of Seva Fen Capentee and Remuddling (aka Silver Fern Carpentry and Remodeling). We figured New Zealand would be a pretty fun country to visit if there were more people like Neil.

So we went straight to the source and looked up his sister Kay and her husband Ged. They were kind enough to host us for a couple of days on their farm outside Otoharanga on the North Island. They treated us like family and we had a very enjoyable stay. We also got a chance to reconnect to Neil and Martha’s old friends Chris and Suzie who had camped with us at the yurt a few years back.

Kay took us down to a nearby black sand beach where we dug our own geothermally heated hot tub. Walter displayed his adeptness with farm tools by taking a little skin off his foot with our hot tub digging shovel. Merely a flesh wound and nothing to impact the day.

We also did a little tourist side trip for “black water rafting” which involves riding on an inner tube down a subterranean creek through a cave wearing a wet suit. Glow worms are a big deal in New Zealand. They are technically some type of luminous fly maggot, but they have wisely been re-branded as glow worms for the tourist economy. We intrepidly sent out team of four into the cave and came out with four, so I’ll call that a success.

Ged and Kay own and operate (along with their daughter Helen and son-in-law Peter) a 400 hectare dairy farm with 370 dairy cows. Ged gave us a tour of the farm and taught us a little about dairy farming. The funniest moment to Margaret and me was when Ged demonstrated to us the operation of his newly commissioned water recovery system and covered feed area. He uses recycled water to wash down a sloped covered concrete pad where the cows feed during the wet season. Let’s just say that this recycled water has a certain biological aroma and several thousand liters of it spraying and aerating pushed our city boys’ noses to the limit.

Based upon our stay with the Ged and Kay, we have taken a vow of supporting the dairy industry by consuming a daily ration of Hokey Pokey ice cream.

Hot-tubbers in action near Kawhia…