Syyyyydddnnneeeeeeeeeyyyyy!

Well, the end of my journeys are coming to a close, and the last glorious week of my backpacking adventures brought me to the beautiful city of Sydney. Now, for a farm girl I can tell you straight up that I'm not a huge fan of cities. I've enjoyed spending a couple days here and there, however I appreciate a city that is well planned, put care into it's architecture and has tons of greenspace.

For instance, Adelaide was one of my favorite cities in Aussie, especially because of the amount of green they've left around the CBD. Melbourne, on the other hand, is an extremely crowded and claustrophobia triggering city. As many good things I had heard about it, for the few days I spent there, I was extremely anxious and couldn't wait to see some bush.

Sydney is absolutely gorgeous. Hyde Park and the Botanical Gardens allow one to escape the concrete and enjoy some fresh smelling air; the architecture is astounding; and the historical planning of of the city, even with it's convict colony beginnings, is truly incredible.

We flew from Melbourne to Sydney on the 21st, leaving Victoria's rain to hit up a few days of sun in New South Wales. Thursday morning, we took the "I'm Free" walking tour of the CBD, The Rocks, Circular Quay and the Harbour. It was interesting to learn about the history of each street, as well as some of the old buildings, from a resident! I would definitely recommend doing the tour if you're in Sydney - and it's FREE!

On Friday, we checked out the Chinatown and the Paddy markets - definitely a great place to go for fresh produce or cheap Chinese made souvenirs. This is also the day we at KANGAROO KEBABS! Oh my goodness, you have no idea how excited I was for this. Surprisingly enough, the 'roo didn't bounce around my guts, and it tasted fairly similar to very lean beef or bison.

After getting ridiculously drunk on goon (cheap Australian wine that comes in 4 liter boxes) with some other people from our hostel, we slept in on Saturday morning, and headed out later in the day. We took the ferry to Manly, and hung out on the beach for a couple hours; soaking in the sun and watching some surfers try to catch some very delicate waves. Gorgeous beach, pretty packed but not too bad.

Sunday Funday included NRL! We caught a National Rugby Football league game at Olympic Park - the Cantebury Bankstown Bulldogs versus the Newcastle Knights. It was a Bulldogs home game, but to tell you the truth I cheered for the Knights for the singular reason that they were far better looking. The game was pretty intense, definitely is quite the manly sport. There were two 40 minute halves, of completely non stop time. The clock never stopped - consequentially the game only lasted a little over 90 minutes! Probably the shortest sporting even that I have ever been too, but super fun to watch. Beer, sun and rugby resulted in a great afternoon!

My last day in Sydney was quite chill. I checked out the Australian Museum while Brandon figured out some stuff for the car he was buying. We then met up and toured the Hyde Park Barracks - a convict prison that was built when Sydney was colonized to hold some of the more dangerous convicts, as well as some that were on working sentences. It was fascinating to see the living arrangements, as well as hear some of the stories about each convict and how they were treated. Very shocking! I recommend searching on Google for some information on Sydney as a convict city, pretty neat history.

Early this morning (Sydney time) I hopped on the train and headed to the airport, flying back home. I'm sure gonna miss the heat, meat pies, kebabs, cafes, markets, driving on the wrong side of the road, Aussie hospitality, and of course the ocean. Such an amazing country, full of some of the most amazing things I've ever seen, and some of the coolest people I've ever met. Cheers, Australia! I'll see you again soon!

Road Trip? Ummmm.... Yes!

From balmy Queensland, on the 14th we headed south to Melbourne to do some more adventuring around Australia. Brandon and I stayed in Melbourne for a night, checked out the city and the Queen Victoria Street markets. The market is incredible; a huge open air roofed market where different vendors sell anything from fresh produce to digeridoos! Very neat place to go when you're in Melbourne, there is so much to see and you can easily spend a couple hours wandering around. The market runs several days each week, and operates year round. We picked up some fresh fruit and veggies while we were there, and I was amazed at the selection. Super neat place.

We decided to rent a car in Melbourne and begin a little road trip to Adelaide. It's a fair distance in between the two cities, and we got to see a good portion of Victoria and South Australia. We stopped for the night and stayed with Kelsey Suttie, a friend from university who works for Bayer CropScience parent seed production in Mt. Gambier. The next morning, we met Kelsey at the Bayer offices and met some of the staff as well as the other Canadians working there, Giselle Ulrich and Andrew Reese. It was pretty awesome to see the Aussie side of the parent seed production, and the beginning of product that I will be selling down the road!

On our way to Adelaide, we went to the South Australia Field Days in Lucinda with Kelsey, Andrew and Giselle. Similar to our Crop Production Show or Farm Progess show, the field days showcased equipment dealers, new innovations, seed and fertilizer companies, booths for beef and sheep breeds and other farming related booths. It was amazing to see the amount of Canadian designed equipment over there, namely Bourgault and Seed Hawk. I'd never seen a Bourgault tank with a kangaroo on it before! Pretty cool.

After the farm show, we headed north to Adelaide. Adelaide is a beautiful city, with lots of green space. You can tell driving in that it is very well planned, as most of it is laid out in a grid, making it easy to navigate. One way streets were a bit of an issue for Brandon and I when we got into the CBD where we stayed, but after a couple "light" arguments we figured it out. Our first night there, we checked out the Chinatown and the Central Markets, which were really busy on Friday night. Similar to the markets in Melbourne, you could buy all sorts of things at the Central Markets, and there are tons of great Chinese places to eat at!

On Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to spend the day doing one of my favorite things: drinking wine. We made our way out of Adelaide to the Barossa Valley and hit up six wineries for tastings: Wolf Blass, Penfolds, Saltram, Chateau Tanunda, Peter Lehmann and Jacob's Creek. Because I was driving, I had to lay off the sauce and merely taste and spit out the wine, however I think Brandon was quite wasted by the time we were done for the afternoon.

The Barossa Valley is quite a good place to grow Shiraz grapes, we were told by a lovely hostess at Wolf Blass, and we ended up trying quite a few excellent Shiraz wines throughout the day. Most of the wineries were really good at giving you a background on each wine, especially what each year was like and explaining the differences between the vintages. Needless to say, we had an excellent time, and I purchased a few too many bottles of wine - some of which I am praying will survive the long flight home!

March is festival month in Adelaide, and we were lucky to catch the end of the Fringe Festival - a comedy festival that runs in conjunction with the Adelaide Festival. The Fringe is held in a park at the end of Rundle St, which they name "The Garden of Unearthly Delights" for the festival. Pretty neat to walk around, lots of different types of acts playing in different tents all over the park. We grabbed a couple beer and some food and went to see a Canadian comedian, Mike Wilmot, in a tent called the Hunting Lodge. I'm pretty sure at one point when he mentioned CBC, we were the only ones in the audience who really understood what he was making fun of.

To end the night, we met up with Jill Mackenzie, a sister of one of my co-workers, at a pub on Rundle Street. Jill has lived in Adelaide for seven years, and had given us a list of things to do while we were in the city. It was so great to meet up with a fellow Saskatchewanian, and when her husband showed up to have a beer with us as well, we laughed about the very Canadian things we say (such as loonie and bunny hug). Again, in my travels I have been fortunate to meet some more amazing people!

Sunday morning was a little slower than usual, being post-St. Patty's day, after all. We hung out at Glenelg Beach for a couple hours before hitting the road again, to drive back to Mt. Gambier through the Naracoorte and Coonawarra wine country. We had originally planned on making it in time to get in some tastings, however after an hour and a half taking the scenic route out of Adelaide, we ended up getting down there too late at night and missed out. We stayed the night at Kelsey's again, and headed to drive the Great Ocean Road on Monday.

The Great Ocean road was dope. Some of the most gorgeous views I've seen so far in Australia, and we had a beautiful, sunny, +30 degree day. The limestone coast is really fascinating, and constantly changing. The road starts at the town of Nullawarre and ends in Torquay, a super cool little surf town. There are tons of places to stop off and check out the limestone formations on the coast, and the most famous of all of them is the Twelve Apostles. The impossibility of the formations make them fascinating, and the scenery is breathtaking. They are beautiful, but some of the other (less tourist infested) stops were even more incredible. My favorite stops were the Grotto and the Loch Ard Gorge. My pictures are fantastic!

After driving for about 13 hours, we ended up back in Melbourne, where we stayed in St. Kilda at a really nice hostel called Habitat HQ. Our last day in Melbourne we spent touring around the city and visiting some shops, as well as a couple hours at St. Kilda beach. We met up with my friend Matt, who I had met on the Kiwi Experience bus, and partied in St. Kilda until wee hours in the morning.

Next up: heading to New South Wales to chill out in Sydney for a week until I fly back to Saskatchewan!

Pindari Station and the Queensland Outback - March 7 to 13, 2012

My travels next took me up into the Outback of Queensland, to Pindari Station. Brandon and I flew to Emerald on March 7, where we were picked up by our host John Watkins.

I met John and his wife Debbie when I was staying at Kauri Glen Farms, near Matamata NZ. Pete and Dulcey Barton have known the Watkins for years, and when I had mentioned that I wanted to see the Outback of Aussie, Pete, Dulcey and Tony offered to get me into contact with John. It is amazing who you can meet while traveling, you never know where it will take you! I have been so fortunate to have met such amazing people during my travels, and I know I have met lifelong friends.

Anyways, getting back to the story. John picked us up at the airport in his ute, complete with an extraordinarily large spider clinging on to the air intake, and we began our journey to Pindari. We stopped in Springsure for tea, where Debbie lives and works. After some delicious Aussie beef, we headed out to the station in the moonlight, seeing the odd rabbit and pretty faced wallaby, as well as far too many Cane toads (which, by the way, are massive and absolutely horrible creatures).

Pindari is fairly "close" to town, just 46 km south of Springsure, located in some mountain ranges. The station is 50,000 ac and runs 2000 head of breeder cows, mainly Droughtmaster with Limosin and Brahman influence. During our time there, we helped muster cattle, in order to administer pour-on onto the cows, and brand and process calves that were born in the spring. I fell in love with the true Aussie cattle, the Droughtmasters, which come from the cross of Shorthorn and Santa Getrudis breeds. Not only are they hardy cows, but they are excellent mothers and they have beautiful udders. Droughties take a little bit to get used to, mainly just the look of them is quite a bit different than our Canadian cattle, but they sure grew on me. A hardy breed of cattle for a hardy country!

It was interesting to see the difference in Canadian and Australian management on a beef operation, basically just because of different problems that need to be addressed. For example, in Australia, cattle need to be heat tolerant and be efficient on larger expanses of land, because they may need to walk a long ways to find good grass or water. Ticks and buffalo flies are a major problem, and cattle need to have pour-on administered every few weeks throughout the entire year for tick control.

We learned quite a bit about the Australian beef industry during our time at Pindari, and about where Aussie beef gets marketed internationally. One hot topic was the recent Gillard government's, to put it lightly, near-sighted ban of live Australian cattle exports to Indonesia, which completely turn the Northern Territory's beef market upside down in a day. It is too much background to put into my blog, but if you would like to Google "Aussie live cattle export ban Indonesia", I'm sure you could get a few articles to give you a background on the situation.

John also took us over to Arcturus Downs, a 20,000 acre farm that grows cotton, sorghum, wheat, corn, sunflowers amongst other crops. In Queensland, there is 2 cropping seasons, and farms are able to plant winter and summer crops. Summer is the wet season, and winter is dry. It was very interesting to see the flood irrigation systems they use, as well as the massive reservoir ponds they use to hold water for the dry season. The most exciting part of our tour (well I thought so, haha) was seeing my first fields of cotton and sorghum! The cotton that had just been desiccated, just a couple weeks away from harvest. Pretty neat!

On Saturday, we got the chance to go to the St. Patrick's Day Races in Springsure. I don't think I got the memo, but apparently in Australia the point of going to the races is to dress the fanciest that you can. I was amazed! Debbie had lent me. Beautiful black dress for the day, and I thought I was quite dressed up for the event, turns out, I had no flipping clue! I saw the most beautiful ladies in fancy dresses, hats and fascinators, as well as some very well dressed men! I'm not going to lie, as good as the thoroughbreds were to watch, the people watching was even better! Definitely a trend that I wish would catch on at home - getting fancied up to go to the races!

I had an absolutely amazing few days at Pindari, and we are so fortunate to have been able to see the Outback. To me, it was a true Aussie Outback experience as soon as I saw a kangaroo hopping alongside my horse as I herded cattle through the bush. Also getting to experience some true Aussie pig hunting made the trip! Unreal!

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

Australia is hot. I had always heard that is, but to tell you the truth I didn't really believe it. We landed in balmy Brisbane on March 3rd, coming from a rainy 16 degree Celsius Christchurch. I kid you not, as soon as we landed and walked out of the plane, I was sweating profusely. I can't complain, Australia is an amazing place, and I'm very fortunate to be able to travel around it.

Anyways, as soon as we arrived in Brisbane, we took the Airtrain to South Brisbane to meet up with Lewis, an English friend Brandon had met on Kiwi Experience who is going to Queensland University Tech. We were lucky enough to call his place home for the nights we spent in Brisbane, and him and his roommates also toured us around while we were there. It was great to have some residents give us an inside look at the city.

On the 4th & 5th, Brandon and I headed to Byron Bay for a couple days, where we tried out surfing with Mojosurf. Honest to goodness I can tell you that surfing is easily the most fun I've ever had in any type of water. We had a great instructor, named James; and he taught us how to read the tide, current and rips, how to get up on our boards and balance ourselves when up. Going into it, both Brandon and myself had no expectations of being able to even stand up on our boards, but after a few tumbles and mouthfuls of salt water, we actually started improving! I don't want to brag, but for beginners I think we did pretty well. We both got up on our boards at least 7 times, and stood up for a few seconds each time. Yup, the two Saskatchewan kids crushed surfing. Who knew?!?

Back to Brisbane on the 6th for another tour around a little bit more, we checked out Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary for an afternoon. It was absolutely splendid! We saw bats, possums, birds, dingoes, Tasmanian devils, echidnas, platypuses, kangaroos, wallabies, crocodiles, lizards, sheep, ponies, pigs and of course: koalas! Lone Pine is really neat, because it is very hands on. We each got to hold a koala (which, by the way, are as cuddly as they look!), as well as feed and pet the kangaroos and wallabies! It was a great time, definitely filled our need to see Aussie wildlife up close and personal!

That night in Brisbane we experience "Goon" for the first time. Goon is what backpackers, university students and otherwise cheap alcoholics drink because liquor and beer is so bloody expensive in Australia. After a few drinking games, we headed to a bar called Down Under (what a fitting name, I thought) for a night of real Brisbane partying with Lewis and his roommates. A bloody good time!

Silver Fern Farms and Christchurch - our last days in New Zealand

Bright and early on Thursday March 1, Brandon and I traveled down to Ashburton area in our little rental car to tour the Silver Fern Farms sheep plant at Fairton. We met our tour guides Scott and John in the office at 7:30 am, put on some tyvek pants, grabbed some tyvek shirts and hairnets and began our tour.

Silver Fern Farms processes sheep, beef and deer at processing plants throughout the North and South Islands, and is one of the biggest meat processors in the country. At Fairton, sheep (lamb and mutton) and veal calves are processed. The plant was originally built in 1894, however since then there have been many upgrades and expansions. The plant runs two lines, each killing and processing 3500 head, making the maximum kill capacity for the entire plant 7000 animal units each day. I found it very interesting that 100% of the animals killed at Silver Fern Farms are Halaal certified - regardless of whether they are being marketed as Halaal or not. There is a Halaal certified worker on each line as well as a spare, and if for some reason an animal is not killed using Halaal, it is tagged and sent to a different area of the plant.

The plant also uses robots to remove the hides and make certain cuts as the carcasses move along the line. The system uses cameras to measure the carcasses in order for the robots to make cuts in the correct place. Once the carcasses are gutted, each one is inspected by government employees for any type of carcass contamination. If they do not pass inspection, the carcasses are tagged for removal of any type of contamination, or they are condemned.

From the kill floor, the carcasses are tagged with a plastic tag and an RFID chip, in order to trace each carcass as it moves through the plant. They move into chill rooms first, at around 15 degrees Celsius for four hours, and then are moved into cold storage at 6 degrees Celsius for two to six days.

The majority of lamb processed by Silver Fern Farms is cut up, vacuumed packed and shipped frozen to overseas markets. Europe makes up the largest market for New Zealand lamb, as well as the United States and Asia.

The last part of our tour was through the yards, where each lot from each farm is penned separately. Lots of lambs from one farm are all killed at the same time, and farms are paid by carcass yield. The yards were very calm and quiet, and virtually stress free for the animals. Dogs are not used in the yards anymore, due to government regulation.

It was very interesting to see the plant, specifically the lamb plant because very little sheep is eaten in Canada. I learned a lot, and I would recommend touring Silver Fern Farms to any agvocates traveling to New Zealand, it's a great way to see how food is processed in a different county.

Our last couple days in Christchurch we spent by touring around the city to check out the earth quake damage. It is devastating to see the damage throughout the entire city. At one point cruising around the city, we got lost, and found ourselves in an area where entire communities of homes had been condemned. I couldn't even imagine how tragic it would be to lose your home that you had made for yourself, and have it taken away from you by multiple earth quakes. Just awful.

We also got to meet up with some friends I had made from Tahora Farms at the pub out in Lincoln. Turns out Thursday night in Lincoln is quite the happening night, and we had a good time. It was really cool to go to the pwon with some friends one last time before we left New Zealand.

On Saturday morning before we left, we toured Silverstream Charolais, a stud located south of Christchurch on the highway out to Akaroa. We spent the very rainy morning touring around the beautiful farm in the ute with Bruce Fisher of Silverstream, looking at some of the cow herd as well as the bull offering they have for their sale in June.

Saw some great cattle, definitely very comparable in style to Canadian cattle. Again at Silverstream, the cattle are grown on grass and hay, without grain added to their diets, so choosing the right genetics to use in the herd requires some different qualities for them as it would be in Canada. Very interesting, and an absolutely gorgeous farm. Such a great tour, even though it was short and it poured rain the entire time.

Although it was raining and cold for our last day in New Zealand, leaving the country on our flight to Australia that afternoon was bittersweet. I am very excited to see Aussie, however leaving New Zealand was very sad. I grew to love the country. Not only the bacon and egg pies, gorgeous landscape and Tui beer, but I also fell in love with the people too. Kiwis are extremely friendly and hospitable people, and I absolutely reccomend visiting New Zealand to anyone who wants an idea of where to travel to! It's sweet as, mates. Sweet as.

The Glen Charolais Stud - February 27 - 29

After my stay at Tahora Farms, I met back up with Jackie, Morgan and Brandon for the weekend. On Monday morning, Brandon and I went to stay at The Glen Charolais stud near Hurunui, about an hour north of Christchurch. We stayed with Bill and Geraldine Hassel, and once again were treated to great kiwi hospitality!

The Glen raises Full French Charolais and sheep on the foothills of the Southern Alps. The farm runs about 40 cow-calf pairs and 400 ewes, who average lambing around 150%. The farm was absolutely gorgeous, and this year because they have been getting so much rain, the paddocks were still lush and green, whereas usually this time of the season as autumn sets in, the grass begins to dry out.

Sparrow and I were lucky enough to experience sheep shearing, tagging ewes, watching working dogs move cattle an sheep, help with cattle performance recording and ate some delicious New Zealand Charolais beef!

We had an absolutely fabulous week, and saw some great cattle. I was quite impressed how efficient New Zealand cattle are, seeing how they are only grown on grass and hay, and grain does not play a huge role in beef production in the country. Some of the country is rough land to farm, and the cattle need to be very hardy to withstand cold and rain in the winter, and need to be able to convert grass and roughage into beef, instead of a higher energy source like grain.

We left The Glen Charolais on Wednesday after a great couple days, on our way back to Christchurch for our last days in New Zealand.

Tahora Farms - February 20 to 26, 2012

I spent five days at Tahora Farms, a Holstein and Jersey dairy south of Christchurch owned by Dean & Jo Geddes and Jim & Judith Geddes. Tahora is situated on the Cantebury Plains, with beautiful flat land looking onto mountains. I was a great opportunity for me to stay at Tahora because not only do they have absolutely excellent cattle with lots of Canadian and American genetics, but Dean is also an avid polo player and he raises polo ponies. I had never before seen a polo match, and I was quite excited to see the horses!

Polo is an intense game, and the horses and players are incredible athletes. It's an impressive thing to watch, with horses running full out across the field and players making almost impossible shots from underneath, in front and behind their horses. I was quite amazed, and it's definitely a sport I would love to be able to play. During my week at the farm, I got to help out the grooms with the polo ponies and got watch a polo match for the first time.

Jim and Judith own a few Standardbred race horses - their horses Dixie Commando and Gumboots raced at Addington Raceway while I was there. Dean and Jo also do hunting and eventing, and I got the privilege to ride Dean's hunter Lucky a couple times - easily the largest horse I have ever been on.

The main reason I had come to Tahora was to see their cattle, and I was lucky enough to be able to milk in a rotary parlor for the first time! Being located in the Cantebury region, which is the largest grain producing area in the country, access to grain a lot easier than on the North Island. Tahora's cows get grain on the rotary during milking. Milking on the rotary was very interesting, as I've only ever milked in a herringbone before. I was taking cups off of each cow, and I found and it's such a nice way to milk because the cows come to you! Each cow was on the rotary for about 8 minutes, and if a cow was still milking by the time she came around, we would just put a chain up behind her so she couldn't back out and she would go around again. It was very different than a herringbone, as if there is one cow who milks slower, she can hold up an entire row of cows. I really enjoyed seeing the different system, but it is hard for me to pick my favorite type of shed to milk in, as there are different management aspects I like about each system.

As for the cattle themselves, Tahora has some strong cow families, and I got to see a lot of great cows and heifers from the Murribrook Insp Toni, Tahora TB Leyma EX and Tahora Linmack Lara EX families. The farm has a very impressive show record, winning multiple champion titles at the Cantebury show as well as the New Zealand Royal show, with both Holstein and Jersey cows. The farm has an upcoming production sale in April, and I was able to help out with some of the sale calves. Some very impressive prospects, and I suspect the sale will go very well!

All in all, I had an incredible week and had a ton of fun with everyone at the farm, especially some of the staff. It turns out that the pub, The Famous Grouse in nearby Lincoln, is a pretty fun place to go any night of the week! I also got the chance to go out to Akaroa one afternoon with Philippa (one of the grooms) - it was an absolutely stunning place along the coast in the mountains!