#18 - From one end of the world to the other
To the question "Where is the other side of the world from France?" we often hear two answers. Some immediately think of Alaska, the Northern point of the American continent where polar bears and grizzly bears reign supreme. Others dream of the South Pacific Ocean, the small islands of Micronesia and especially to this land that we only hear about at the approach of the Rugby World Cup: New Zealand.
This week, we left Alaska, and we are now in the North of Auckland, New Zealand. The word "antipode" takes a new meaning for us!
The week was short, somewhat tiring but especially rich in discoveries.
It was literally indeed the shorter week of our lives. Crossing the Pacific Ocean West to East, we lost a day. The Travelling Farmers will therefore never know Wednesday, May 27th 2015.
Our journey from one pole to the other took us more than 40 hours. First, a night flight took us to Los Angeles. It is quite surprising to make in a mere 6-hour flight the way that required us a month of daily effort on the road in the opposite direction. Unwilling to discover again the city of Los Angeles, we then chose to wait all day at the airport for our final flight, the one that would take us for the first time in Oceania. After a dozen hours of flight finally we landed at 5 am in New Zealand.
What a surprise for us to discover that winter in New Zealand is not as tough as we thought! The climate in Auckland, in the North of the island's north, is in fact much more temperate than we thought. Only on the South Island temperatures plummet in the winter and the snow covers much of the territory. This last island is usually the most popular by tourists visiting the country, but it is also famous very similar to Alaska. We therefore decided to focus our month in the North of the country to avoid the cold and especially to discover unknown landscapes.
Auckland, capital of New Zealand, is a seemingly a livable city. By its steep streets and its proximity to the sea, it is strongly reminiscent of San Francisco. During a few hours, we discover this amazing city before escaping from it. We have a sense of déjà-vu in each new major city we get to. It seems that we find everywhere the same type of people, the same structure, the same atmosphere.
So we hop on a bus leaving northwards towards the first farm in which we planned to work. Soon, a spectacular landscape is offered to us. Under a blazing sun, we see appearing Great Plains very hilly and very green. For over an hour, we go along the east coast of the island, among the cows and sheep that seem peacefully happy in the vast spaces available to them.
Once in Warkworth, we meet our future host Ian. Lively and full of energy, Ian quickly takes us out of the contemplative state of drowsiness in which we were immersed. We learn, amused, he lived 4 years in Homer (this small fishing port in Alaska that we had just left) where he repaired fishing boats. His home is beautiful, and his land is exceptional, better than we could have imagined. With his wife, Marcia, they have indeed thirty-five acres they share with their 18 sheep and 14 cows. Their house is located at the foot of an imposing hill, and it is on this that live their animals. The view from the top of the hill is unique: in the east one can see the ocean and in the west one gets a huge horizon of the characteristics valleys of New Zealand.
The view of the farm from the top of the hill
It is here that we’ll therefore spend the next two weeks, with the desire to rediscover the pleasure of a total farm life we had known in Uruguay. It requires us to disconnect better from the Internet during the week, which was hard to respect in the United States. We also need to accept again to have for only entertainment physical work, reading, writing and sports. The company of Ian and Marcia will certainly be more than enjoyable during that time, and we will discover a culture that is unknown to us. "It's hard to be more Kiwis than we are” told us Marcia whose family has lived in New Zealand for almost 200 years.
On Friday, after nearly a week of transition, we could finally resume work on the farm!
From day one, Ian helped us to perfect our woodcutting technique and we learned to repair the fences limiting the different sheep pastures. As we learned in Oregon, raising cattle outside is above all a problem of maintaining kilometers of pickets and barbed wire.
The landlords
During a conversation, Marcia taught us a common practice here in New Zealand that impressed us. Just before the sheep gives birth, their wool is sheared so that they feel the cold. Why so much cruelty do you think? Because a sheep feeling cold considers its lambs more fragile and will do its best to protect them. This anecdote reinforces our admiration for the farmers who, for thousands of years, have perfected the operation of nature, and have helped give the best of it.
In return for our five hours of daily work, we have indeed the right to the best of nature here again, and we eat like kings. Last night, it took four hours to cook the leg of a lamb from the farm, but we had rarely tasted such a good meat.
Future good meat
Few French people have a farm lifestyle ideal, contrarily to New Zealand where the weight of agriculture in the economy, but especially in the kiwi lifestyle is huge. If the dream of a French family is to raise their children in a house with a small garden, the trend here is in the "Lifestyle Block", a kind of small family farms. In this model, at least one parent works "in town" and the children have natural living environment while growing from a few chickens, cows and sheep. Two different cultures, two different family ideals!
Another feature of New Zealand is its cultural proximity to the United Kingdom. As part of the Commonwealth, kiwi speak with a very (too?) strong British accent, they stop working at 10am and 4pm for the tea-time, they dine at 6pm and tomorrow is a holiday for ... the Queen’s anniversary!
Against all odds, too, all those we met at this time showed a total disregard for the traditional Rugby with 15 players, which is practiced in Europe. Here, many follow with an incredible passion the Rugby League (a sport played with 13 players) in which New Zealanders are the world champions. This is the case of our hosts take us today to attend the match the home team, the Warriors.
Go Auckland Warriors !
We will tell about this next week and will keep you informed of our findings after a more mature experience among the Kiwis.
Until then we wish you a wonderful week,
We’ll be back next Sunday