The Farm

Te Pohue Farm

The farm is in the distance in the trees just behind the small beach. The point that sticks out furthest into the water used to be a quarantine area for immigrants coming into the harbour; the land is terraced showing where small structures used to stand. Many people were buried in the hillside and they have a small memorial bench there.

We wanted to save some money and try our hand at some sort of work-exchange during our stay in New Zealand. There are many websites that connect people looking for work to people who need work done (WOOFing, aka Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, is a common example). We signed up with the free Help Exchange. After some searching, Claire found a farm that was looking for laborers with horse skills and building know-how. A perfect match! In exchange for our help on their farm along with help cooking the meals, they would give us a place to stay and feed us 3 meals a day.

We arrived in the afternoon and were given a quick tour. The farm was all hill... The main house was built in one of the only semi-flat areas on the property; at the bottom of a small valley where it met the ocean in a large, protected bay. There wasn't much building space even near the house and parking was very cramped. During our orientation, we talked about what skills we had to offer and what chores we would be doing.

The owners of the farm, Sam and Peter, had recently purchased the property and were attempting to run the place as a sheep ranch and bed and breakfast/farmstay. The main house was an older structure with some upgrades like a new kitchen. There were, however, some plumbing problems. On the first full day on the farm, Krispin's first task was to help rebuild the septic system (perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to communicate ALL of one's skills after all?); but, alas, the tank was overflowing so something had to be done. The septic system had been foolishly built in an area with thick vegetation and trees. Over time, the constant supply of water and nutrients had encouraged the subterranean destruction of the clay pipes to the point where no water flowed at all.

The pumper truck arrived and sucked out the tanks and revealed the very blocked pipes, which would have to be dug up and replaced. As it turns out, tree roots were not the only thing to be found underground; there were also large rocks. In fact, there were so many rocks that the ground seemed to be comprised of rocks and roots plus a little dirt filler. There was an excavator on the property but it was far too large so it had to be dug by hand.

Three days later the job was done; at least for a sore and tired Krispin. At a later date, the trees will need to be removed and an entirely new system installed, but for now everything was working. Meanwhile, Claire had been working in the vegetable garden, the house, and with the horses. Claire also learned how to run a chainsaw....

This one's for you Marleen!

Claire let Krispin use the chainsaw too.

The garden

We only had to work about five hours a day, five days a week. We probably worked more than we had to, but it was nice to be doing something. We found some time to work on the van, too. 

We were able to get the new contacts for the starter at an auto parts store.
Krispin installed them the easy way; by having Claire do it...

NZ$7 worth of parts, and K-MO was good to go!

The farm was a real working sheep farm and thus used dogs extensively to round up the sheep.

Well, Kate wasn't working very hard yet, but she will be soon. 

Apparently, this breed of dog is used for it's bark. She will learn to lie and wait for the command to start barking. At this point she has the barking part down; the waiting... not so much.

Harvesting walnuts!

Krispin on self-appointed quality control duty. 

The farm is right on the water and kayaks were available as a leisure activity.

An abandoned school house on part of their 750 acre property. There used to be two families who lived in this bay and were responsible for search and rescue efforts near the Lyttelton harbour area.

To get around the hilly farm, a network of roads have been cut in the hillsides. This machine is filling in holes and adding culverts. Krispin says he wants one...

Besides sheep and dogs, the farm also has foul and some beef cows.

Towards the second half of our stay on the farm, the main task was splitting firewood for the winter. There was a pile of dry-ish pine rounds with some other local hardwoods mixed in. The tools available were a splitting maul, a sledge hammer, and an old maul head that worked as a splitting wedge. Claire set 'em up and Krispin knocked 'em down. In three days, we split and stacked about two cords of wood. If the wood were not so full of knots, or we had a hydraulic splitter, we could have split the same amount of wood in an afternoon. But when the labor is "free" and hydraulic splitters have to be rented, we understand why it was done the way is was.

After the woodshed was filled, Sam and Peter must have been feeling sorry for us and invited us on a horseback ride down to the other end of the farm to "check on the cattle." Krispin had never ridden a horse; a cow once, but never a horse. The main "road" we followed wound its way up, down, over and under the ever present hills that make up the farm. The ride went over very steep terrain, overlooking a hill plunging straight down to the ocean; a rather challenging first ride for anyone!

Krispin on his FIRST EVER horse ride, with Jack!

From almost as soon as we set off, Krispin's horse Charlie was having a hard time keeping up with the lead horse. To make up for his slower walking speed, Charlie would break into a trot to catch up. Krispin, still having little idea what he was doing, managed not to fall off, but mostly gave up trying to control the beast and just trusted in the horse not to go over the edge. Halfway through the ride, Claire and Krispin switched steeds so that Krispin would ride Jack on the return trip. Jack was the opposite of Charlie; a little lazy and much less keen on moving quickly.

At the far end of the farm, we came to a place where the road could not, and did not, go. We spotted the cows down in a gully. From here we would have to dismount and lead the horses down a very steep hillside. It turned out to be quite tricky; there were no rock outcroppings and it was covered in dry (and VERY slippery) grass and thistle. The horses seemed to handle themselves just fine; we, on the other hand, were sliding all over the place! Apparently four legs really are better than two. Claire had on a pair of boots that we had picked up at the thrift store and had exactly zero tread; so she did a lot of "controlled sliding" and hoping that the horse she was leading also staying in control of itself. With the help of the horses, and holding on to a fence, we made it down without incident. Jack's saddle had loosened up a bit during this escapade however; so he threw a few bucks on the way back (while Krispin was riding him) before we realized what was going on. But Krispin proved to be quite the cowboy and made it through unscathed.

Fortunately, Claire was keeping an eye on Krispin the whole way and he didn't even fall off.  Climbing all those hills was tough work for Charlie and Jack, who worked up quite a sweat!

Although we were grateful for the opportunity to work on the farm and had enjoyed the time with our hosts, we were also getting very anxious to take our new van on the road and start exploring and camping! So after about a week, we left the farm and drove further south on the South Island with K-MO.

Time to take a turn in this fine, fern, fuel-injected automobile.