Shifting Cattle

Do you know what "shifting cattle" means? I sure as hell didn't, until I left Auckland and found myself riding a dirt bike on some 600 acres of farm land in rural western northland, chasing cows into enclosures. With Sophie the french Au Pair and Sandy the collie dog as my side-kicks. So how the hell did I get here?

Well, I left Auckland the next morning and took a bus to Kaiwaka, where my first WWOOFING host was supposed to pick me up and drive me to their house. I'll explain about wwoofing later, but basically I was putting my life into the hands of a man who I only exchanged a few emails with prior to my arrival. I was dropped literally on the side of the road alone with my backpack and my lonley planet guide book. Fuck.

Well, just as he promised, Andrew picked me up from the "bus stop". Within 5 minutes of me being in the car, he says to me, "So we have a road trip planned for you and Sophie (their French Au pair) this weekend up at my uncles farm, are you keen to go?" Being me, I obviously will not say no to an adventure, so we get to their house, I pack up a day pack, and me and Sophie are headed 2 hours North West to Omamari. Funny things about this trip:

1. Me and Sophie have never met. She is in New Zealand trying to improve her English, meaning when we converse, it is a lot like chirades.

2. Sophie also just arrived in New Zealand and is the driver on this trip because they want her to get used to driving on the left side of the road. Meaning once again, my life is in the hands of someone else. Someone who happens to have very little experience driving on New Zealand roads.

3. The roads in Northland are fucking wind-ey as hell

4. For all of you who know me, you know I am the worst, ABSOLUTE WORST navigator ever, and all I had was an atlas to guide us. We were clearly doomed just from this fact.

Amazingly, we arrived unscathed to the Kelley's farm. Their property sits on about 600 acres of rolling green hills and pastures, and you can see the pacific ocean from the top of their hill. Walking down their road, the only sound you can hear for miles is the occasional bellow of a cow. No joke- this is bumblefuck New Zealand.

So because we are on a real New Zealand farm, I obviously need to learn everything I possibly can about this completely foreign way of life. So Peter tells us to come along while he's "shifting the cattle" in the morning. And thus: I learned to shift cattle, which means moving a herd from one pasture to another every other day so they have fresh grass to eat and get nice and fat for hamburger meat. But Imagine me and Sophie...four wheeling through cow shit literally screaming "yee-haw!!" as we help move the cattle. I bet they don't do this on Kiwi Experience.

That day, me and Sophie took a drive to discover the lakes nearby, where a kiwi family let us use their jet ski. Forreal. people are so fucking nice here. And that night, me and Sophie took a bottle of wine to the top of the hill and watched the sunset. It was a pretty romantic date, and we got drunk and poor peter had to come up the hill looking for us thinking we were lost, and here he finds the Yank and the Frenchy popping a squat among the cattle. No joke...it was a great day.