Life on a farm

A farm? Yes. A farm. A sheep farm at the bottom of the world.

For the past couple days I have taken a break from travelling and settled down on a sheep farm near Invercargill, the southern most city in New Zealand. The farm is run by two people who are old friends of my mother, and coincidentally friends of several other family friends.

This farm is a quiet place in the countryside, and it does provide a much needed rest from travelling. The Kiwi Experience bus I have been on has been very fun. However, seeing sites and travelling every day, and then seeing more sites gets a bit exhausting. On the day I arrived here I had been up since early in the morning either on a bus, or hiking through the rain in the Catlins. That day I got to see seals, sea lions, and a penguin who belonged to the worlds rarest species of penguin.

So here I am on a farm. It is a small farm, only about twelve hundred sheep. We are in a quiet house surrounded by rolling green hills dotted with white sheep. The birds sing and the sheep 'baa'. Betty and Gillian (the owners of the farm) have made it my job to feed a group of lambs who have no mothers each night. They always run out to greet me.

Yesterday Betty and Gillian took me out to see some of the southern coastline around here, and I got to see a whole lot more seals, as well as the southern-most point of the southern Island. I have stood at the northernmost point of the North Island, and the southernmost point of the South Island.

Tomorrow I am getting up early. I have a big day, I am travelling from here to Invercargill, then to Te Anau, to Milford Sound, a boat cruise on Milford Sound, and then back to Queenstown. And it's even more amazing to think that I will be home next Monday. Wow.