Cruisin' the Pacific

In March we managed a long awaited holiday - a total of 11 days.  The longest we had been on holiday, and for me since my trip to Peru in 2003.  The longest my parents had had to baby-sit, the longest we had been away from Alice and the longest we had been away from the farm. 

We were lucky finding a farm-sitter that enabled us to make the break and can be a hard thing to overcome without family and friends.  Knowing the farm was in good hands, we headed to Sydney for a night.  My last visit was approximately 22 years ago and Mal's was about 10 years ago.  The first day was spent unwinding before we boarded the Pacific Pearl (http://www.pocruises.co.nz/OurShips/Pages/PacificPearl.aspx) and headed out to New Calendonia.  This was the first time either of us had been cruising.  To see what P&O have to offer visit their website http://www.pocruises.co.nz/Pages/default.aspx

Pacific Pearl off Lifou with the tender boats in the water

We left Sydney on a sunny, warm afternoon, cruisin' the pacific for the first 2 days.  Luckily neither of us suffered from seasickness and were able to spend time finding our way around the boat.

Going under the Sydney Harbour Bridge as passengers enjoy the departure party.

Every one dancing at the 'Departure Party'

 First port of call was Lifou.  Every shore day there were options of doing P&O Shore Tours, doing your own tour with a local or doing your own thing.

Beach where we docked at Lifou - beautiful and clear and blue.

Natural aquarium at Lifou - excellent snorkelling with great coral (colour and different ones), plus a huge array of fish.

We were on Deck 5, with an outside room and a descent size porthole, able to have good views.  With Mal's interest in engineering he was able to watch the tender boats go up and down on shore days as they did so outside our room. 

Our room with the yellow circle around it!

During the night the boat cruised to our next destination ... Noumea.  New Calendonia is high in minerals and one of those is nickle.  Below is the refinery at Noumea.  We didn't hit great weather there and did the Noumea Explorer where there were 7 stops around the city in the morning. 

Nickle refinery at Noumea

After we returned to the boat for lunch we headed out on a tour into the mountains.  Because of the high mineral content the bush was fairly small except for in locations with lower minerals.  The soil was very red and sticky and you could see the yellow nickle stripes and deposits in the soil.  The guide said we were the 4th group to go on this tour and he was a little rustic in his delivery and information but was jovial and entertaining, with jokes all the way back to town and got us back to the ship on time!

Yellow circle top left is a wind farm (there was also another off to the right not in photo).  The yellow circle middle was a low nickle area of bush.

The boat cruised overnight to just off Mystery Island.  This place is sort of where you would expect Robinson Crusoe to be.  It takes you 30 mins to walk round and is surrounded by a coral reef.  Whilst no one lives on the islands, the locals from Vanawatu come across to sell their wares.

This blog is a work in progress so will add the rest soon ...

March in a Nutshell

For us March has been a quiet time and I apologise for the lack of blogs but we managed to squeeze in a holiday.

First a glance at what has happened on the farm.

1st March, or thereabouts, the rest of the rams were introduced to the ewes.  This was touched on in the last blog.

We weighed up the last of our lambs, gave them a drench and parked them to go to the works in March.  They were suppose to have gone, but have been delayed a week due to a mishap at the works.  They have done well in the meantime, so fingers crossed for a good carcass weight.

End of February, saw us doing the whole farm covers.  Despite the growthy season we were sitting at 2100 kgDM/ha cover over the whole farm, with the finishing country at 2350 kg DM/ha average.  There is some rough feed on the hills, but this will slowly be consumed through the rest of autumn.  The finishing country is looking in good health.

The dairy heifers received their second zinc bolus treatment against Facial Eczema.  Spore counts have maintained slight to high (http://www.rd1.com/dairy/facial-eczema/waikato-spore-counts) but are below last years peaks.  The weaners were all weighed at this time and have averaged 0.67 kg/hd/day over 100 days (for kiwi cross).  Making them 169.4 kg average.  This puts in line with industry of between 165 - 177 kg at 200 days approximately from birth.  If we can maintain 0.65 kg/hd/day over next 60 days or better, will but them at 210 kg 1st May.

We then sneaked away for holiday, and were lucky enough to find Craig who moved in and looked after the place.  He did an absolutely wonderful job doing all the stock movement, a bit of fencing, looking after the dogs, chooks and cat, and when we came back we just had to carry on.  Great peace of mind while we were away and often as farmers we can't get long breaks due to the requirements on farm.

On our return, we had also had the digger in.  Main role was to metal the high use areas of the yards, remove dirt/mud from truck access area, metal it, put in a culvert and recontour our lawn.  So things a looking a litte different. 


Trees gone and dirt added!  Might get to have a flat front lawn!

With Alice camping at Ma and Pa's house for 13 days, she was pleased to get home and has been helping dad out on the farm this week.  Today though we decided to take her training wheels off and after the usual moral support and help, she was off without her wheels.  We have little suitable area for her to bike on about from up and down the drive which is good getting down, not easy to get back, and lots of bumps.  So today we suggested she tries the sheep yards.

Alice trainer wheel free in the sheep yards

And then we persuaded her to cycle back from the yards to the house and hoped that she could remember to use her breaks before she crashed into the gate.  The sheep were a bit sceptical of her and made a b-line to get out of her way.