I mentioned last postcard that dairy farming is almost as common in New Zealand as sheep farming. NZ has two main industries: tourism and food export. Milk and milk products being a big one. We had an opportunity to tour a commercial dairy farm at milking time. It was interesting enough to share. About 870 cows to be milked, twice a day; it takes about 2.5 hours each time. Almost 10 cows per hour, only one person working. How did she do it? There were actually two people: one was herding the cows to the milking shoot. Not a hard task because the cows are very keen to be milked and know the drill. The shoot leads to a carousel contraption. It is a revolving concrete wheel with 54 stalls. The cows, with some pushing and shoving, walk into empty stalls; the gal hooks up the automatic milking machine to the cow and the carousel spins around. When the cow is empty, the milking machine drops off the cow (she kicks at it a little to help that along). At the end of the revolution, if the cow is fully milked, she backs out of the stall into another shoot and goes out. And the next girl from the intake shoot takes her place in the stall. Sometimes they still had milk at the end of the revolution, so they took another circle.
Leaving Orepuki was sad to say the least. We have made friends and met nice people on our journey, but never a whole town before. We will leave Orepuki with some lifelong friends. This town is a gem, a secret that will get out. We threw a BBQ as a welcome home to Annette and George and also because so many of the town folks had us over to their homes. BBQ in Orepuki is a bit different to what we are used to: lamb chops, venison, venison salami, paua (pronounced “pow-ah”)[a black abalone], whitebait patties (explained last postcard) and tuatua (a sand mussel) all on the grill.
We have changed scenery from the beach on the South Pacific Ocean to a beach on a lake. Two things you are never too far from in NZ are (1) water, and (2) sheep. Since we are on a seafood kick, we picked up some green lip mussels for tea (that is dinner). The mussels here are really big and tender, and cheap. $6/kilo, so figure US$4 for 2.2 lbs. I have gotten pretty good at cooking them.
We have a cute little cottage right on Lake Hawea equipped with bikes and kayaks. We have nothing between us and the lake, with a bit of snow still on the mountains across the lake, the view is gorgeous. It is near Wanaka. Third visit to Wanaka for us. First time was with our original tour. We were here a night or two. The tour took a hike that we missed, electing to mountain bike instead. At the end of the trip everyone talked about their favorite parts of the journey and someone mentioned this hike. It stuck out to me since we missed it. We had some great hikes on that trip, two of which we have repeated, we liked them so much (Routeburn Track and Hooker Valley Track; Tongariro Alpine crossing was another), so this must have been a great hike – you’d think. Last time we were near Wanaka the track was closed for lambing season (it goes through some sheep paddocks). So third time’s the charm, we came back and did this hike. It sucked!
I know I am not in the best shape at the moment, but this was ridiculous: 8.5k uphill, no respite, 1275 meter elevation gain. That wasn’t the hard part; the hard part was coming back down this steep unyielding grade. There is another hike 23k that goes on from Roys Peak along the ridgeline and ends at a ski resort town. I thought about taking that route and hitch hiking back to Wanaka so I would not have to come down the steep slopes we went up. But the ridgeline was narrow and the winds gusty – it would have been suicide without trekking poles. Something for next time. We drank more water than we carried because there were two springs we found popping up out of the ground at our feet. We refilled our bottles at one that was on higher ground than the sheep.
Hitch hiking is fairly common here. First time we saw one, we thought what a novelty. We have seen a few more since then, all hikers I think. Like drinking water from the creeks, hitch hiking is pretty safe. Here some of the backpacking tourists, actually backpack. There is a class of tourist accommodation called a “backpacker”. Think one step lower than a hostel. When tourism is in full force there are shuttles to trailheads and back, but not this year. Hence the hitch hiking.
This morning the wind was calm, so we got off our tender legs and kayaked in the ultra clear Lake Hawea – you could drink this water too. Later we relaxed to the sound of the breeze on the water and were glad we we are out of the kayaks. A beer and a barbeque is in the near future. Another day in paradise.
Hope you are finding some joy where you happen to be.
Love Nomads