3. Kia Ora - Welcome to New Zealand

I have had a good night sleep now and I think the jet lag has disappeared, so I am going to introduce you to the part of the world in which I'm in.

Here are some maps (from Google maps) to show you where in NZ I am based:

Canterbury and Otago

Waitaki

Oamaru is the nearest town to the farm, it is famous for its penguins. The yellow box is where I am, about 12 miles North-West of Oamaru. 

This is the farm, it has about 171 ha (425 acres) of effective land.

I share my bungalow with my colleague Dan. He is from Ireland, as is my boss, so with my Scots blood and Welsh education, it is quite a celtic set-up. 

The bungalow itself is a pretty traditional NZ style house,  the walls are thin and there is just one heater in the living room, but it serves its purpose. Everything is in working order although the kitchen is very poorly stocked in terms of cutlery and pans. Those of you who know me may be aware of my extraordinary skills in the kitchen and the magic I can do when armed with a tin of tomatoes and a bag of pasta. The under equipped kitchen did not help my stomach-filling cause today. My major issue was with the knife, it was so blunt I wasn't sure which was the sharp edge. My dad always told me that a blunt knife is more dangerous then a sharp one because you always have to force it. He was right, I did have to force it and I can see how they could be dangerous, because instead of slicing the onion it slipped and hit my finger. I would be missing a digit now if the knife had been sharp enough to get through my skin. It reminded me of a splitting axe and needed a real two-handed swing just to get through the mushrooms. 

Because Irish Dan was cooking his potatoes at the same time as I was cheffing and blinding, both pans were being used. I had to resort to a very rusty receptacle for my 'ribbed penne', a pasta name which offers itself well to a classic joke. It is safe to say that I will not be suffering from any iron-deficiency in the near future, my haemoglobin must be rolling in it. 

Anyway here is my abode:

My bedroom is at the far end and has the patio doors opening on to the decking, its going to be great in the summer, but is hemorrhaging heat at the moment.

This is the garage, note the wheelchair/motorbike access to the house:

The best thing about this bungalow is the views, especially from the kitchen. You can see the mountains in the distance, and the prime grazing in the foreground. The straight lines of poplars, firs and conifers, are all over the grazing plains of the South Island, and are pretty striking. Because of the huge lengths of irrigation needed to keep the grass green, in field trees were removed to allow the pipes to cover the whole grazing block. The only hedges you'll see are 30ft trees, which act as windbreaks too. The irrigation of the land is a major part of grass management. There has been very little rain in recent months here, and the grass shows it, looking very sickly and brown. Where we are is a little hilly and water is pumped up from the nearest river. Lower lying ground is irrigated with gravity fed water and the use of canals and mini dams to temporarily flood paddocks. I am looking forward to seeing the grass management take effect through the year. 

In other news:
I have got myself a car now, for free. It was my predecessors, he left it when he went back to Ireland. It just needs its MOT (a warrant), for about $300 and tax for about $150 (that adds up to about £225) and I'm ready to go!
Here are the new (to me anyway) wheels:

I drove it to the garage for its warrant today, the gravel road, on which my bungalow is, is a new driving experience. The amount of dust created from Dan's car in front made the visibility worse than the thickest fog, but I had to follow pretty close because I had no idea where I was going. I could only see him when he braked, and you don't really need to break on these roads. I hope Gary at the garage sorts out the front left wheel/tyre, it was pulling to the left so much I was pretty much full lock on right, to stay on the road. Its a bit of a work horse though and will do the job. 

After taking 'Gavin' to the garage we went into town (Oamaru) to get me a bank account and postal address sorted, as well as some other boring stuff. The talk of the town was the pretty unpleasant smell in the air, some of the locals reckoned it was seaweed washed up, I thought it could be a whale. I wasn't, it was probably the sea weed. That was the talk of the town, at least until the full on Hollywood blockbuster car chase I saw down the high street! A bashed up coupe was being chased by three panda cars, all lights and sirens blazing, they went to cut it off but after some skillful evasive action by Jake or Elwood Blues the soon to be arestee managed to prolong the action. It was great, and was apparently the most exciting thing to happen in Oamaru for years!

Right, that's enough typing for today. Look out for the next post soon, and keep sharing the blog etc. 

Thanks for reading.