Once again a month has gone by faster than the blink of an eye. It began with leaving Western Australia and flying to Hobart, Tasmania for a bit of a side trip before heading to New Zealand.

I had a few weeks between the two exchanges in Western Australia and New Zealand, so I thought I would stop for a visit with our friends in Tasmania. They were more than happy to take me on for a few weeks and give me a taste of their hospitality. I arrived just in time to have a few days at a farm outside of Hobart before heading back into town with with the exchange co-ordinator to pick up an exchange delegate from Oxford, UK and go off to Agfest....

Agfest is a totally volunteer-run three day outdoor field days put on by Rural Youth of Tasmania. This single event provides the organisation with enough money to run their office as well as donate back to a charity of their choosing. Including the time for setting up and cleaning up, the large and dedicated team of volunteers transforms a 200 acre farm into a buzz of activity for over a week. During the three days of the actual show they had over 70,000 people come through the gate and enjoy what is the premier farm show on the island. I was put up in on-site accommodation, fed three meals a day and had the opportunity to meet over 100 young farmers from Tasmania. This was a wonderful experience to see how a group of young people can put on such a well run and professional show that the public loves to come to year in and year out.

After Agfest finished I headed down south and was placed with the president of Rural Youth on his family farm where they farm sheep and forestry. James and I spent a wonderful week touring the farm and working on his new house at the farm. It was nice to switch gears for a few days and relax with good food, friends and conversation. I finished up my visit to Tasmania with two brothers where I went out to a 20,000 acre sheep and beef farm for a few days before being whisked back to Hobart to catch my flight to Christchurch, New Zealand.

As some people may know, I had never travelled outside of North America before coming down under, and did I get an eye opening experience. What should have been a routine plane change in Melbourne turned into a two hour-plus ordeal with customs and the possibility of having to fly back to Canada that day over some minor travel visa issues. I persevered and stayed positive and was finally able to get to Christchurch with no other major problems, landing at 6 pm to be met at the airport by two members of young farmers and two of the other exchangees from the UK. They were Rhydian Owen from Wales and William Cochrane from Northern Ireland.

We travelled down to the head office where we had a meet and greet before heading off with our first host. We spent two days having a look around the local area and touring Mitch’s farm. We then switched to new hosts where we all had the opportunity to spend the weekend hunting rabbits, deer and tahr for their annual pest destruction weekend, which concluded with an afternoon tally out at one of the guy’s farms followed by a sausage sizzle. We also picked up the final exchangee, Pam Morris from Scotland.

The next few days were a whirlwind of changing houses, attending a regional meeting, and going out with a buyer for New Zealand’s largest meat processor, and touring a bird feed farm. Despite the fast pace, we all had a wonderful time. Then we all caught a bus down to Invercargill at the southern tip of the south island. We were all placed on the same farm with our hosts Mark and Louisa, where we enjoyed some more sight-seeing as well as taking in a few kiwi films from their collection. The highlight for me was going into town and seeing “the world’s fastest Indian” Burt Munro’s 1920 Indian motorcycle, which still holds the land speed record for a bike under 1000cc. This was showcased in the movie World’s Fastest Indian starring Anthony Hopkins. Our next stop was one night in Queenstown where we did the sights and two of our exchangees did a bungee jump.

The next day we were picked up in Queenstown and taken about an hour and a half away to a sheep and beef farm on the edge of the mountains. This family’s farm is about 10,000 acres and does a fair portion of their pasturing of stock on the side of the mountain/very steep hills. We spent three nights with those hosts, then it was off again, this time on an eight hour bus ride north to the top of the south island where we meet up with our new hosts and get our first glimpse at large scale corporate farming in the area. Stay tuned for more stories from New Zealand to come in my next instalment.